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Previously, on a road-trip to Durban, we had stopped at a lovely little place near Lainsburg for a night's rest. The value for money was good and the breakfast was filling and authentically Afrikaans. We really enjoyed it a lot and wanted to go back for a longer stay. However, when we called they said there had been a lot of rain and that the road wasn't really suitable for our little Polo.
So we had to look for other options in the vicinity and settled on a night in the Witteberg Private Nature Reserve. It's about 3 hours out from Cape Town between Touw's River & Lainsburg. Once off the N1 we crossed the train track and a series of little rivers on the 25km sand road to the destination. The condition of the sand road was very good, although we were a little skeptical of driving through mud and water at times.
Our little self-catering cottage, hemmed in my mountains, had everything we needed and was comfortable & warm. There was a shower, fireplace, lounge and fully equipped kitchen and a patio.
The highlights were the hikes: After settling our luggage, having a quick lunch of boerewors rolls and boiled eggs with gingerbeer and koeksisters (left-over padkos), we set out in a random direction and after a few hours found ourselves at Driedamshoek. The hike ended at a ruined old house near a little body of water, covered in reeds. It was quite interesting to see that there was so much vegetation and so little desert, but I guess that is because you have to go further up north to get more of a desert feel. Eerily, we didn't see many creatures; a few skittish birds but no insects and no other living things although there were prints everywhere. Overall, the silence was very relaxing.
After supper and a shower we snuggled up with a book each and after reading a page, both fell asleep really early. We woke up a little later and had a short and very cold night walk under the waxing moon to look at the stars.
Our early night meant that we could wake up early in the morning and we set out again for another hike in the opposite direction. You could ask where we walked to but I wouldn't be able to tell you. We watched the sunrise over the mountains while our hands and heads were very nearly freezing off. As soon as the sun came up, we started to warm up, though. Back at the cottage we had a calm breakfast and packed up the car.
We said good bye to Frik (the friendly owner) and his little Jack Russell and set our GPS for home. It was an easy and beautiful drive and we arrived home in time to unpack and do some gardening.
Photos and words courtesy of Paula Vermeulen from her blog http://crafty--fox.blogspot.com/.
