De Hoop Nature Reserve (Western Cape)

At last we were on the road, the only problem, so it seems was we were being joined by half of South Africa! It's a South African tradition to take off for the Xmas/New Year summer holiday, preferably with a caravan, motor home or tent in tow!

Consequently, we discovered it was nigh on impossible to get space on any caravan park/campsite for at least 300 miles. Unfortunately SA is not the place to bush camp, so where to spend our first nights under canvas was the question?

On Geoff & Beth's recommendation we called De Hoop Nature Reserve in the Western Cape to see if they could fit us in. Their campsite was fully booked but they promised we could camp on a picnic site which are nicer anyway.

De Hoop is about 300 Kms East from Cape Town and sits right on the coast not too far from Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point in Africa. By the time we had crammed the last items into Rupert and sorted our paperwork with Mike & Travis we were late setting off and consequently didn't arrive at De Hoop until 5.30pm so for ease we decided to use the roof tent.   

De Hoop is a lovely reserve which encompasses both coast and inland environments so it is an interesting contrast. It is home to small herds of Cape Zebra which are smaller (and rarer) than the plains variety found in the rest of Africa plus various other species such as Bontebok, Eland, Baboon, Tortoises, Hares and a multitude of birds especially waders such as the rare African Oystercatcher.

We had intended to spend just two nights here then head up the Garden Route however because we were unable to get camp space anywhere else we ended staying for four nights which was fine as we enjoyed a lovely quiet New Years Eve under the stars.

The only hiccup apart from the constant near gale force winds (we were told this is normal for this time of year!) was that without any warning Rupert's bonnet refused to open! It had been fine the day before but it was now well and truly stuck and as we needed to check the oil etc it needed sorting ASAP.

The Haynes handbook doesn't go into detail on the release mechanism so it was difficult trying to remember how it  worked. However, by luck some day visitors turned up in a 110 so we were able to use that as an aide memoir, even so it took nearly three hours of trying to hook the release lever at the front of the bonnet with bits of wire before we managed to get it open. It turned out the cable had worked loose so as a backup we have now fixed a cable tie to the lever just in case it goes again.

Next day (New Years Day) we finally headed out up the Garden Route to George.