It’s about time! I’ve finally finished getting all of my pictures and videos together and I’m ready to share my fall break with you guys. Sorry it took me so long! I can’t wait to hear what you all think of my latest South African adventures. This is going to be a rather lengthy post (as will the next one) but I promise that it’s worth it so don’t stop reading! 🙂
My official fall break started on March 19th but I since I don’t have class on Friday, mine started a day early! The first part of my break was a road trip to the Eastern Cape with my friends Joey, Markus and Cooper. We left midday Thursday after we were all done with classes and set off to our first destination: Cape Agulhas. There’s a common misconception that the Cape of Good Hope in Cape Town is the southern-most tip of Africa, but it’s not! Cape Agulhas is. It’s also the point where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet, which makes for some rough waves. The drive was only about two and a half hours away so it didn’t take long for us to get there. As we were driving along the coast in Cape Agulhas, I couldn’t help but notice how unbelievably green the hills beside the water were. Standing before the ocean felt like I was staring at any other body of water but when I thought about it, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. The only thing beyond that point was miles and miles of frigid water and then- Antarctica. I officially stood at the bottom of Africa!
We spent about half an hour there and there headed out so that we could make it to Mosselbaai (Mossel Bay) before it got too late. That was another couple hours of driving and we got there around 9:30. We grabbed dinner at the hostel’s restaurant and turned in for the night- we had to wake up at 6 the next morning. Want to know the coolest part about that night? We slept in the sleeping compartments of a decommissioned train, with our beds facing the bay. It was awesome!
So we woke up early, grabbed breakfast and got on the road by 8, so that we could make it to our reservations at… the Bloukran’s Bungee jump! It’s the tallest bungee jump off of a bridge in the entire world! You get all strapped up in your gear and then your guide walks you and the rest of your group out to the middle of the bridge, on a wire walkway attached to the side of the bridge. The Bloukran Bridge is still in use- so as you stand on the platform there are cars driving overhead. It sounds scary in concept but once you make it out to the platform you feel pretty secure (that is, until you have to jump off!). The people working at the platform were super friendly and so much fun, they made it feel like we were all at a huge party. They played music to help lighten the mood and get us pumped. Then when it’s your turn, they put the big foam pieces around your ankles, secure your bungee cord to them and send you on your way… plummeting 688 feet down into the canyon and towards the little river below you. I knew I would feel either of two ways jumping off the bridge. I was really excited because I saw bungee jumping as an opportunity to experience what it would be like to fly. But I was also nervous that I would be completely wrong about that. You know when you are falling asleep at night, but you aren’t quite fully asleep and you’re suddenly jerked awake by the sensation that you’re free falling? That was my fear. Joey was also excited to bungee jump but Markus and Cooper weren’t quite as thrilled about it. I was the first out of the four of us to jump off the bridge, and let me just tell you, I experienced a huge range of emotions in such a short period of time. I was really excited until my toes were hanging off the edge of the bridge, when it hit me that jumping off a bridge is totally not normal! I looked down and knew that I had no choice but to make myself jump straight out into thin air and hope that my bungee held up and kept me from falling down into the river. When I close my eyes, I can still relive that moment perfectly. But sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith- quite literally! I quickly realized that the sensation of free falling is terrifying and I hated knowing that I would experience it a couple times, because your bungee springs back and forth. But when I was being sprung back up, it was a lot of fun! And as I hung by my ankles, waiting for my knight in shining armour to come flip me right side up and take me back to the bridge, I got to admire the beautiful ocean and mountains around me, basking in the glory that I had actually done it- I had actually jumped off the bridge. And I survived to tell the tale. I had the biggest adrenaline rush for the next couple hours and it was so. awesome. Check that off the bucket list!
Coop, Markus and Joey all survived the bungee jump but only a couple of us agreed that we might ever do it again. We grabbed lunch after we returned to land and got back on the road- there was still more driving to do and places to see!
The plan was to drive to Jeffrey’s Bay, one of the best places in the world to go surfing, and surf for a bit but we arrived too late. Most of the stores were about to shut down by the time we got there so we did a little bit of shopping and got back on the road to go to Port Elizabeth (PE). We made it to PE around 6 and decided to check out the boardwalk before checking in to our hostel. There was a mini golf course there so we decided to play a game, and to my surprise I came in second place! Woohoo. There was also a casino so we decided to check that out for a little bit. Then it was time to grab dinner. We wanted to try a local restaurant and Joey found a place called the Thirsty Turtle that sounded like it might be good. So we hopped in our car and follow the GPS’s directions. That’s the last time we follow Joey’s phone to a food joint. It took us to a house in the middle of a neighborhood and there was no sign of this so called “Thirsty Turtle.” So what did we do? We turned around and blew 350 rand at McDonalds for dinner. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel we would be staying at for the next two nights, which was this very eco-friendly house on the river. It had a beautiful view, was very chill and two friendly little dogs. There was one downside though, it had a huge mosquito problem. We all had to sleep with full on mosquito nets over our heads and tucked into our beds. That was the first time I’ve ever had to do that but I’m sure it won’t be the last.
We woke up again the next morning at 6am and headed to our next destination: Addo Elephant Park! One of the biggest reasons I came to South Africa was to experience the wildlife firsthand and in its natural habitat, so of course I couldn’t wait! Our original plan was to drive ourselves through the park early in the morning, then go back to Jeffrey’s Bay for the afternoon, and come back for an evening drive. Once we got there however, and heard that a lion and leopard had already been spotted, we decided to just drive around the park the whole day trying to find as many animals as we could. The park was big and it took us the whole day to drive from the southern entrance to the northern entrance, through all of the loops and back down to the southern entrance. We saw so many different types of animals: buffalo, red hartebeest, tons of warthogs, bushbuck, eland, Burchells zebra, kudu, yellow mongoose, black-backed jackals, cape grysbok, ostriches, a leopard turtle, and flightless dung beetles. We also saw many types of birds including bokmakierie, secretary birds, blue cranes, black-headed herons, and Egyptian goose. But the coolest of them all were the two huge elephant herds that we saw. The first one we came upon as we were leaving one of the loops and we saw a bunch of cars in the distance (usually this means animals!). So we drove over and what do you know, there were about 10 elephants standing right off the road, eating and walking around. We even got to see two of them play with each other. Then later in the afternoon we happened to be driving and saw 15-20 elephants marching off towards a waterhole, so we followed them. It was absolutely incredible to sit in our car and watch them drink and interact with each other. And the icing on the cake was the little baby elephant who couldn’t have been more than a few months old!
The last animal we wanted to track down before leaving the park was a lion. Luckily we ran into a park ranger as we were driving and he told us where the lion den was. We quickly took off in that direction and as soon as we got close, we could see a bunch of cars parked in front of a field. We inched our way up and parked as a couple of people told us that there were two lions lying far out in the field. We staked out the area for about half an hour before we finally got a decent view of the two females, but they didn’t stay visible for long. When we were satisfied with what we had seen, we headed out of the park and back to PE for some dinner. We went to a restaurant called the Beer Shack which had a cool view of the water, then headed back to our hostel, played some games for a while and called it a night. You would be surprised how exhausting it can be to look for animals all day!
Here are some videos that I took with my camera while we were at Addo. (Make sure to watch in 1080p!)
The next morning we woke up early and headed back to Jeffrey’s Bay. The boys had hoped to do some surfing but it was too windy, so we did some more shopping at the surf shops before grabbing lunch. We had to eat quickly because we were trying to make it to the Cango Caves for an adventure tour later that afternoon, but unfortunately we didn’t get there in time. Instead of doing the adventure tour (which would have required us to crawl through small tunnels and openings in the cave), we did a regular tour of the Cango Caves, which I thought was still pretty cool. That was the final stop of our road trip and we took off for Stellenbosch at about 5 o’clock. The drive that day was especially beautiful- we drove on a road cut through the mountains for hours on end, with nothing but beautiful scenery all around us. We managed to make it home around ten so that we could get a good night of sleep before we took off in the morning for Paternoster.
And with that, part one of my fall break was over! Even though it was a relatively short road trip, it was probably the best one I have ever been on. There was always something beautiful or cool to look at outside of my window. The company was awesome and we jammed to good music (most of the time). The fun never seemed to end and I had some of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. I really can’t say enough good things about it. A huge thank you to the guys for making this a trip that I will never forget.
xo
Kim
Doing the kImpossible 
So much to see and read about. I had to read this post a couple times to absorb all that you’re doing and seeing. So amazing!!! Thanks for sharing. I miss you!
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