Wednesday, September 19, 2018
We woke up to rain that persisted for much of the day. We knew we had a 6.5-hour drive today, so we skipped breakfast in town. However, our host had included complimentary rusks, so we were able to try this for the first time.
Rusks refers to beskuit, a traditional Afrikaner breakfast meal or snack, that are essentially double-baked bread dough. They were traditionally introduced as a way of preserving bread, especially when travelling long distances without refrigeration. They are typically dunked in coffee or tea before being eaten. They reminded me of biscotti, but they were more bland. Francisco enjoyed them more than I did.
Our first stop was the Hermanus Cliff Path, which was about an hour and a half away. Hermanus is considered the best land-based destination in the world to watch whales, and I'd already confirmed that September was a good month for whale-watching.
We pulled over at one end of the walking trail and headed out for a short hike.
At first, all we saw were a bunch of cormorants.
We spotted some whales in the ocean (our videos were better than our pics), and then decided to take a break to run to the Pick N Pay for a late lunch/early breakfast.
Pick n Pay is the second largest supermarket chain store in South Africa. I liked this store much better than the Woolworth's as it had way more variety. And there was a parking lot! So, Francisco loved it lol.
We went to munch on a selection of pastries and hummus and crackers near the coast. As we pulled up, I literally shrieked as we saw a whale emerge out of the water so much further than I've ever seen a whale do so before!
I jumped out of the car to get video, but the weather was AWFUL. This may have been the worst weather we experienced. It was so cold, windy, and rainy. Francisco tried to hold the camera as steady as possible to capture some video, and some of our footage came out alright. Our microphone suffered a little though from all the water that was getting in it.
We started our drive over to Cape Agulhas and we were so pleased to see blue skies finally! This is the
southernmost tip of the African continent and the beginning of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. It's kind of like 4 Corners in the USA where you can be in 4 states at once; here you can be in 2 oceans at once.
It was quite gorgeous here with the white rust-stained rocks butting up to gorgeous blue water.
We ventured close to the sea so we were both able to touch the Indian Ocean for the first time. My feet ended up getting pretty wet when the tide rolled in unexpectedly lol.
We encountered what we thought were jellyfish along the shore, but it turns out they're actually
blue bottles or Portuguese man o' war. They have venomous tentacles up to 10 meters long, so they're definitely something to be cautious around.
The Cape Agulhas Lighthouse was the
third lighthouse to be built in South Africa, and the second-oldest still operating.
This picture isn't exceptionally clear, but these birds still deserve to be featured here. We spotted these blue cranes, the national bird of South Africa, as we drove away from Cape Agulhas. They were absolutely stunning with the most dainty, feminine-looking tail feathers. They are
classified as a vulnerable species.
We pulled up to our airbnb a little later than planned. We were staying in a place called
Harvey's Cottage, and it was such a lovely space. I absolutely loved it.
The host was waiting inside to greet us, and I hope we didn't keep her waiting too long. It was a fully functional cottage with the living area downstairs and a loft bedroom upstairs. It was cold, but there was a space heater downstairs and the bed had a heated mattress pad.
Our host recommended a restaurant down the street called
Panarotti's Pizza Pasta. This really felt akin to a casual Italian restaurant you might visit in America. We tried a Bar One milkshake and a Mediterranean pizza, which featured olives, feta, sundried tomatoes, basil pesto, and fresh rocket.
Our server asked where we were from and then asked if most Americans were using iPhones or Androids. Our opinion was that iPhones were a more popular choice, but it was roughly split.
Most evenings, we will review our pics and vids from the day as we wind down. Francisco will transfer our footage to the laptop, and we'll start uploading to Google Photos if the Wi-Fi is good enough. We were clicking through and the majority of our whale footage from Hermanus was not there! I was freaking out and had already decided we would drive back there in the morning because there was no way I was leaving South Africa without videos of whale watching from the coast. Francisco reviewed, and the footage had somehow gotten out of order but everything was intact. Phew, crisis averted!
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