The 250 mile drive from Gansbaai to Knysna wasn’t as tedious as expected after shark diving. I think the worst part of the drive for Rich was that the rugby match between South Africa and Ireland was on and he really wanted to watch it in a bar with the home crowd but with the memories we had from our successful shark diving trip being shared back and forth, the miles soon passed as the sun set and we rolled into Knysna at 10.30pm.
Following the discovery of gold in 1876, Knysna grew quickly in population. It is a town built around a natural lagoon, created between an indigenous forest, the Outeniqua mountains and a rugged coastline.
Out first port of call in Knysna was a trip to The Heads viewing point at the Eastern Head. Here we could look out over the whole town, the lagoon and along the coastline. Although the weather was slightly overcast, we managed to catch a few glimpses of sunshine to take some nice photos of the scenery before heading off to explore the waterfront with its resident stingrays and then on to Buffalo Bay beach.
The weather turned from overcast to rain the next day so we took the opportunity to do a bit of planning for our trip ahead, getting flights booked for our Austrailia to New Zealand leg and making sure we had accommodation booked in Melbourne for March next year when we go to see the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The rain finally stopped late afternoon and we booked ourselves onto a sunset lagoon cruise and decided to treat ourselves to dinner at a restaurant on the waterfront.
The sunset cruise was far more eventful than we ever thought it would be! It started out really well with Rich and I sharing a bottle of bottle of wine as we pulled out of the dock and headed across the lagoon, soaking in the views with the sun starting to fall in the sky.
About 20 minutes into our 1.5 hour sunset lagoon cruise there was a cry of help from the back of the boat. One of the elderly ladies from the table behind us had walked over there and collapsed on the deck. Unable to get a response from her, her friend cried for help. Rich and I went straight over as non of the staff on board seemed in any rush to do anything.
Now it has to be said that Rich’s first aid at work training course may never have been useful whilst at work but it certainly was in Knysna!
He did the practical checks like checking she was breathing and for other signs of response and spoke with the people close by to ascertain what happened to her and if she hit her head and I reassured her that help was on the way and made her comfortable.
It turned out that the woman had an upset stomach earlier in the day and had fainted at the back of the boat. Seconds after putting her in the recovery position she was sick but was responding to us speaking to her. With her condition seeming to stabilise the staff on board took over, keeping her warm and making arrangements for her to get medical attention. Although our sunset cruise was cut short, we were happy that she was able to get the help she needed and hope that she is alright now.
After such an eventful cruise we were certainly ready for dinner when we got back to the dock and so enjoyed an evening not cooking for ourselves, dining out for our last night in Knysna with views of the yachts in the harbour twinkling under the moonlight.
Lambs on the loose 