Wandering up the West Coast

Wandering up the West Coast

After the excitement of the new washing machine and a quick detour back to Cape Town (so that we could join the friendly Fish Hoek Scottish Dancing group for a class), we continued our journey north up the West Coast. 

The village of Paternoster has a laid-back feeling to it and it was nice to see pretty white-painted bungalows, rather than the glass and concrete “palaces”, which seem to predominate in many coastal beauty spots.  The walls of the Paternoster homes were low too, not topped with barbed wire or ringed by electric fences.  A pleasant change. 

As we drove up the coast to Eland’s Bay, the clouds rolled in and the mist descended and by the time we reached Lambert Bay, it was positively chilly!  But, when we headed inland to the Cederberg Wilderness, the temperature was rather hotter than we needed (37C).   Cederberg is an area of beautiful rocky landscapes and we had some nice early morning walks, before the temperature climbed later in the day.

From Cederberg, we headed back to the Coast and Namaqua National Park.  This area is fully booked during the wildflower season (Aug-Sep), but we had the Park to ourselves in February.  Bertha (and Dave!) coped well with the tracks, which were deep soft sand in many places and the new tyre management system passed its initiation with flying colours.