Our original plan from Struisbaai was to drive back to Gansbaai before continuing along the coast to Mosselbaai, however our rescheduled shark diving trip was cancelled due to strong winds. So we headed to Mosselbaai and hoped for an improvement in the weather so that we could do the trip the following day.
We only had one night planned in Mosselbaai and after an hour on a windswept beach and a quick walk around town, we were glad of this as there didn’t seem to be a huge amount to do. We did however have one night booked in the novelty B&B called Santos Express. It’s an old train converted into a B&B with cabins that overlook the beach and ocean, very limited on space but the views more than made up for it.
From Mosselbaai we were going to continue along the coast to Knysna, however as Rich was determined to look a great white shark in the eye and with our first failed attempt at seeing any sharks, followed by a cancelled trip due to bad weather, we opted to do a big loop back round to Gansbaai and so booked one night in Swellendam to rest up after the shark diving excitement and also to break up the 250 mile drive over to Knysna.
With high hopes of seeing the rather elusive great white shark, we started the early morning drive back to Gansbaai full of excitement, although Rich was definitely more excited out of the two of us. With the sun rising in the sky, sunglasses on, me singing along to the radio and Rich laughing at how many words I make up to songs that I only know the tune of, things had started out well.
“Perfect forecast for diving with sharks”
That was until an hour and a half into our journey when we got the text message to say the days trip was cancelled due to bad weather! We almost didn’t believe it given the beautiful weather we were experiencing but then soon accepted the fact that they had no reason to lie. We were assured that the following day had a perfect forecast for diving with sharks and so decided to give it one last attempt, committing ourselves to the 250 mile drive to Knsyna straight after the afternoon out on the boat to reach our next hostel.
Fortunately our drive to Gansbaai went past Swellendam and was still on our route ahead, so we didn’t have any wasted miles on the clock getting there.
Swellendam is a lovely town and the third oldest settlement in South Africa after Cape Town and Stellenbosch. With tree lined streets nestled at the foot of the Langeberg mountains, there was only one thing for us to do for the day and that was explore! We had a full day available to us now in Swellendam and sought out a couple of things to do.
The first was a trip to the local fairy sanctuary, not the usual kind of thing we’d do that is for sure but we summoned our inner child and explored the garden of a house that is literally filled with fairies, dragons, toadstools, castles and anything else you can think of that you enjoyed as a child. The owner of the house is a sculptor and has devoted 20 years to creating what can only be described as a wonderfully crazy garden of love, hope and silliness.
After an hour of exploring our inner children and a spot of lunch, we found a lovely waterfall walk in the Boesmanskloof Hiking Trails and spent the afternoon burning off a few calories along with the frustrations of having our shark diving trip cancelled again.
The Swellendam Backpackers was lovely, a peaceful retreat that felt more like a luxury log cabin than a backpackers. With beds as soft as clouds to sleep on, we rested up and had the best nights sleep of our travels so far, hoping that the sharks we would see were not only going to be in our dreams.
Lambs on the loose 