8 Mar 2009 – Tsitsikamma and Plettenberg Bay, Pt. 4

Note: More photos to be added shortly.

On Sunday morning the sunny, sleepy town of Plettenberg Bay was quieter than ever. It was also very gray and cool. Ordinarily the change to cooler weather would have been welcome, but given that our AM plans were to head out on the ocean in open water kayaks, it was a bittersweet turn of events. The eleven of us who remained committed to the adventure walked about ¾ of a mile down to the beach around 7:45, looking for a place to eat breakfast. Eventually, we decided to try the resort hotel on the edge of the beach peninsula, so we walked into the lobby of the monstrous building and asked to be seated for breakfast. Apparently our request was not unusual, and we wound up sitting on the patio overlooking a broad expanse of artificially green grass and lawn chairs sloping down to sea.

Most of the kayak group spent the half hour over breakfast waffling over the decision to actually go out on the water. The sea was choppy and the sky hardly bright and sunny, so when people caught sight of the sign for spa massages, they rotated the full 360-degrees in the revolving door and re-entered the hotel on a mission. The other four of us walked down to the beach to meet up with the kayaking crew at Dolphin Adventures, but the 16-person reservation and 4-person arrival set us off on a shaky foot with the staff. Feeling a bit put off, ourselves, as the manager preached to the choir about failing to show up after making provisional bookings, we dialed as many cell numbers as possible to try to contact the other members in our group, and thankfully, three of them happened to walk by before we suited up and set out on the water.

The weather remained gray with an offshore wind until the moment we returned to land, but the two hours on the water were still quite enjoyable. We were paired in tandem kayaks with a guide joining our seventh person, and once we got out past the crashing (cold) surf, we learned to steer and paddle together very quickly. We set a brisk pace toward the rocky point around the hotel, and then set off through choppy seas, hugging the coast as we approached a nature reserve. The laborious paddling – especially after days of other physical activity – eventually slowed everyone down, and we settled into a four-boat holding pattern at the far end of our journey, surveying the water for friendly fins. Unfortunately, we encountered no aquatic wildlife, and the fifteen minutes of bobbing and rolling on the waves took its toll on my stomach.

The paddle back to the launch site seemed to be much faster than the trip out, and we conquered the rough waves on the push in to shore. The two young English women in the fifth kayak were not so lucky and had to drag themselves from the water with their boat, sopping wet. Dolphin Adventures provided us a warm shower and a cup of tea before we departed for lunch at the Surf Café, a spot the English women had recommended. We walked down the beach opposite the way we’d come, and then took a long a curving suburban road in a wealthy area out of view of the ocean. Just before we gave up the search, we spotted the restaurant sitting on the second floor of a small, well disguised store complex. The restaurant would have fit in perfectly in Southern California with its bohemian surf vibe. We spotted a black, upright piano against the wall when we walked in and a guitar case sitting on top of a bookcase in the corner. Colorful surfboards hung on the walls and the tables and chairs inside and on the patio had a rustic, bleached cottage look to them.

Surf Café also happened to be a Mexican restaurant, so we ordered our quesadillas and tacos and relaxed on the big bean bag chairs that circled our low table on the platform in the corner. Mellow American music streamed faintly in the background – artists like Jack Johnson, Snow Patrol, Bob Marley – and when we finished our meals, we were all very content to remain in the almost-empty restaurant as we waited for the rest of the group to meet us outside with the van. We each made trips to the QuikSpar grocery store a few doors down to pick up snacks for the ride back to Cape Town, and around 2:30 we finally got on the road.

The ride home to 20 Loch Rd. was overall more agreeable than the previous trip, as the day was cool and the passengers were more prepared for the tight quarters. We all caught up on the events we’d missed from the last few days, like the small groups trips to Monkeyland and the Elephant Sanctuary (where a few people even rode the elephants). Those of us who didn’t zone out to books and iPods right away were treated to the other half of the Garden Route – the part we’d missed in the darkness on the way to Tsitsikamma National Park the first night. The coastal mountain road continued to remind of Big Sur, while another person in the group likened the landscape to New Zealand, where she’d recently spent a summer.

The road snaked inland to the rolling yellow-green hills of farmland that remained our backdrop for most of the seven hour ride home. We changed up the seats every two to three hours as we stopped at rest stops for snacks and bathrooms. We opted not to stop for dinner, despite the hour, so that we could reach Cape Town by 9:00, and when we finally pulled up to 10 Loch Rd, there seemed to be a collective sigh of homecoming relief. Amidst musings on how strange it was to feel like we were truly “coming home” (after all, we’ve only lived here two months), people made their way into the locked up house. The amusing stories of the last 72 hours continued on and on, until the last people headed to bed sometime after midnight.