Seals, Surf and Flesh Eating Shellfish

Port Elizabeth to Plettenberg Bay and Robberg National Park

On Saturday we flew to Port Elizabeth, picked up our rental car and quickly left.  Port Elizabeth isn't much to look at so we headed straight to Plettenberg Bay, our first stop on South Africa's Garden Route.  Not far past the gigantic Storms River Canyon, (famed for bungee jumping off the suspension bridge) we found our bijou Airbnb and quickly headed out to see if we could catch the All-Blacks-Springboks match playing in Cape Town.  (It was only later that I discovered that UK friend Rowan, was officiating at it - daren't tell Duncan!)  Of course, traveling + rugby + beers = new friends, and thus we made our first traveling friends (not pikeys, just other nomads like ourselves); Richard, head engineer on a 175ft super yacht and Alicia his girlfriend. Both Aussies, so thankfully we were all able to enjoy the match, and ensuing frivolities, without really caring who won.

Home

Go Springboks!

With one day in the Plett area, the next morning we headed straight to Robberg National Park, on a peninsula just outside of Plettenberg. The park is renowned for the 4000 seals which come every year from October through April to give birth and, 24 hours later, mate for the following year.  We set off on the high cliff trail, with astounding views of Plettenberg beach behind us in the bay.  Before long we were high above the rocks where the seals were basking (not that it was sunny, but they plainly weren't feeling the cold).  Hundreds of them, both on the rocks and swimming through the swirling water as it crashed onto the shore. The path continued high along the cliff, strewn with nasty looking locusts, before taking us down, down, down to crashing waves at the far end of the peninsula.  We stood for ages, watching seals frolic in the foam, scanning the horizon for whales and just mesmerized by the beautiful, cascading waves, crashing onto the rocks.

On the leg back we crossed a wide sandy spit, strewn with shells and, much to our horror, zombie jellyfishflesh-eating shellfish. To be precise, we're talking Portuguese Man-o-Wars, technically not  jellyfish but siphonophores, an animal made up of a colony of organisms working together.  If that, and the fact they have a wicked sting, isn't gruesome enough, watching dozens of shellfish haul themselves towards the marooned bluebottle, and on arrival start munching on it, was enough to turn our empty stomachs.  And of course, video it.

Zombie flesh-eating snails (video to follow when we have good enough wi-fi)

The hiking trail forms a circular route around the entire peninsula - we'd assumed it would take us a couple of hours - in fact the whole route is a 10k, 4-5 hour walk.  And with no EU health and safety standards, it gets pretty exciting in places. Scrambling up narrow cliff paths with few handholds and sheer drops makes for some good pics... (and, thankfully - no arguments 😊)  Hopefully ours speak for themselves.

Note to self:  hiking in The Cape without water isn't clever.  Do better next time.