To the Southern End of Africa (and back)

The end - of the African continent, anyway.  

The drive to Cape Aguilhas, the southern-most point of Africa where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, took us a little out of our way, but how could we come this far and not visit this spot (and get our picture taken here, of course).  When John was here two years ago, the weather was calm and sunny, and he could see a clear delineation between the different colors of the water from each ocean.  Today, though, the water is too rough to see that.

We walked up the the lighthouse that was built in the mid-1800's.  Apparently there have been a lot of shipwrecks in this area.  According to the woman at the information desk at the lighthouse, one such wreck that happened in the 1980's is still visible about a mile further on the Atlantic side (there's no road to it - we took her word for it).

We stayed at the same little hotel where John stayed when he was here before.

We had one of the corner rooms with a great view - again, same view John had before.  This was his picture from two years ago -

And this time -

Aside from the clearer weather before, John recalls that there were far fewer homes along the coastline.  It does look as though many of the homes are very new.

On our return trip, we took an alternative route back to Oudtshoorn, where we saw more ostriches -

The only backtracking we did was through the beautiful Meiringspoort Canyon, which links the Klein (small) Karoo and the Great Karoo (a "Karoo" seems to be a high desert).  No pictures - while it's a very scenic drive, I couldn't find a way to get a picture that did it justice (one rocky cliff pretty much looks like any other).  You could say that the whole was much greater than the sum of the parts.

Our destination was a B&B in the town of Beaufort West, whose claims to fame include being the largest town of the Great Karoo and the hometown of Christian Barnard, who performed the first successful heart transplant.  Our lodging had been a farmhouse, with the rooms in what had probably been the outbuildings.

Breakfast was on the back porch of the farmhouse.

The property is surrounded by a high wall topped with an electric fence.  This seemed a little over the top, even by South African standards (the crime rate is REALLY over the top here), but when we found out that the are just beyond the property is a National Park containing lions, leopards, and such, the security seemed very reasonable.