The Garden Route (Eastern Cape) Cont

The heat was stifling so leaving Gamska we decided to get into the cool and visit Cango Caves to the North in the Swartberg Mountains. The caves are a famous underground network of chambers and passages with amazing stalactite and stalagmite structures, but our reason was purely to get somewhere cool for an hour or so!

The drive through the mountains is very picturesque but steep, so it was around 4.30pm when we finally got there and we had to hustle to get on the last tour of the day.

As we jumped out the Landy we noticed water dripping at the rear where the water tank is fitted, fearing the worse I got under to have a quick look and sure enough the tank had sprung a leak where the weld had gone. Nothing we could now though as we had caves to visit!

Cango is an impressive network of caves and there are two types of guided tours, the wimps walking version or the more adventurous sort where you go further into the caves by crawling through increasingly narrower tunnels in the rocks, needless to say we took the wimps way.

By the time we came out it was nearly 6pm and there was a large pool of water under the tank. This was bad news as whilst in SA the camps have water on tap (excuse the pun) once we reach some parts of Botswana and Namibia we will have to carry all our  water and will need every drop. We would have to sort this out ASAP.

That night George campsite was treated to an impromptu concert when a bunch of guys came back at 1am and carried on partying so next next day after changing some money we decide to  take our chances on finding a campsite further North and so moved on up the garden route to Knysna.

Even though the weather was very cloudy Knysna was absolutely packed with holiday makers.  Driving slowly down the main street we suddenly heard a car horn and were surprised to see Mike from JDI sitting in the cab of his Landy. He and the family had been on holiday here but were  now heading back to Cape Town. It was opportune as Mike is able to suggest where we may find a vacancy on the campsite they have just left at Knysna Heads called Woodbourne.

Arriving at Woodbourne we managed to get virtually the last available site then decided to get a late lunch at the local pub and check out an Internet Cafe in town, so far so good!

The next day was very grey and drizzly even so we have planned to drive out of town and up into the mountains to the forest reserve where the very last of the Knysna elephants is supposed to roam.

The sad story is that up to the turn of the last century there were about 500 elephants still roaming free in the Knysna forests, the most southerly wild elephants left in Africa. However, the authorities wanted them "removed" so the area could be populated plus there was a big industry in logging (as there still is today), so they hired an unsavoury character called Major Jacob Pretorious to shoot them and within just two years only 15 terrified animals remained hidden in the deep forest.

Today there is a debate about how many remain, there was thought to be just one so the authorities relocated three elephants from the Kruger NP to help boost the numbers but sadly the experiment failed as one elephant died and the other two had to be removed so the original last of the Knysna was back on his own... or so we thought except a ranger we spoke to said they now believe there are four elephants left but they are very rarely spotted, the last good photo being taken in 1998!

When we reached the park rangers camp the slight drizzle when we set out  is now a bit heavier but ever the optimist I persuade Sue to go for a 'short' 7km walk in the hope we will bump into the 'last of the elephant/s'. We sign in at the rangers desk and they wish us a pleasant walk with smiles all over their faces.

Once on the track we are very quickly into the deep forest so we are sheltered for a while however, as we go further even under the thickest trees we start to get some heavy rain until we are walking in a deluge! By now we are at least halfway (or so we thought) so best to soldier on. The rain gets harder and Sue's bitching gets louder and the track starts to resemble a stream, no sign of the Elllies but we do start to come across unusual black frogs which expand alarmingly into a bum like shape when you approach, it is now very wet so there are loads of them on the track, we had to tread carefully! 

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