south africa: knysna and noetzie

The bus ride from plettenberg bay (plett) to knysna (pronounced nizna - long I sound) was short. The towns aren't far from each other, and are sortof rivals on the garden route. They're both small towns, with townships on the edge. They're both full of tourists in the summmer, and have more outdoor or active things to do instead of sights to see. Where they differ is in how they're set up/organized. They don't look at all like each other. Knysna is built around a lagoon. On one side is the town, on the other side is another example of the beauty of nature. They're called 'the heads,' two bits of land that reach toward each other and almost touch.

The lagoon is made of a mixture of fresh water from a river coming into the lagoon on one side, and saltwater of the ocean coming in from between the heads. One of the heads is developed, the other is a nature reserve.

The bus dropped me off in town, at a Toyota shop. How do bus companies decide on these dropoff points?

I passed a cemetery along the way to my guesthouse, I wonder why those fascinate me so much. It had plenty of space, and I could see care was taken of the graves.

It was easy for me to walk to the place at which I'd reserved a room for a couple nights. It was another guesthouse, and my host knew I would be arriving before check in time. My room was nice, and the whole house was nice. My host was full of information and suggestions, which I loved.

After relaxing for far too long, I started walking. My first destination was an island called Leisure Island, which isn't really an island. It's more of a small peninsula. To get there, I walked in the direction of the heads.

In one area of the peninsula is a small reserve. This seemed more like a park than a reserve to me, but maybe there is a reason for the designation.
There were a few plants and trees and flowers with labels. I played around with time delayed photos on my camera when I laid on a branch of a tree to take a photo.

I walked all the way to the end of the peninsula to it's marina. Plenty big for such a small bit of land. I"m guessing anyone who lives here has plenty of money, as those boats aren't cheap, and neither are the houses. Anywho.

As I walked back to the beginning of the peninsula, I could see and feel dark clouds rolling in, and fast.

I walked around the lagoon, almost halfway around to get to the city center of Knysna. By the time I got there, it was raining lightly. Ugh. With the combination of rain and wind I wasn't feeling so good. At least my shoes (jandals) felt fine, there was no rubbing.

I found a developed area, full of shops and restaurants, mostly for tourists. (At least that's how it looked to me.) I walked through the whole thing, taking note of the food available. After finishing with this area, I followed a street back in the direction of the main street I'd watched earlier to get to my guesthouse. Along this street I found a supermarket, and a few more restaurants. Nothing seemed particularly wonderful, or looked awful. I also noticed that there weren't a whole lot of people out on the street.

I walked back to the development on the water, and chose a fast food sea food chain place for dinner. I was in the mood for prawns, so I had queen prawns, and a prawn california roll. Yum.

It took me a while to walk back to my guesthouse, but it was on a sidewalk, and it was easy. When I got back I was able to get some information from my host about where I wanted to go the next day.

The next day I got to have another one of the amazing breakfasts I love. I ate too much, a habit I'm perfectly willing to continue :)

I decided to go to a place a bit out of town, called Noetzie (pronounced nootzie) Beach. To get there I walked through some of the townships on the edge of Knysna, which looked even worse than they would've with the drizzly weather.

There is a HUGE gap between the haves and have nots in this area. Well, that difference exists throughout the entire country. The townships were made of wood or tin shacks, on muddy lanes. The roofs were almost all sheet metal. A few of them had satellite dishes hooked up.

I'm glad my host let me know the location of the road I was looking for, or I would've missed it completely. It was not paved, and the turnoff from the highway was rather muddy. I was not loving the weather, as it was continually drizzly and windy and not warm.

I followed this road all the way to it's end. The end of the road wasn't exactly where I wanted to be, but it was close. There were a few parking spots at the end of the road, not that I needed one. At the far end of the park platz was a path, which in turn led to a couple sets of stairs. The stairs finally took me to where I wanted to be, which was the beach.

I'm not sure how this place has an official name. Noetzie. I could see about 5 buildings/homes on the beach. A couple of them looked like castles.

The beach itself wasn't exactly remarkable, but I had it all to myself, which felt pretty remarkable to me. It wasn't big, but when it's all yours, who cares? The water was crazy, as was the wind, but at least it wasn't drizzling or raining, for the time being. I climbed around the rocks on one side of the beach, and watched the water bash against the rocks. I wanted to go to the other side of the beach and climb those rocks as well, but there was a large stream of water cutting the beach in half, and I didn't think I could make it across without getting soaked. Argh.

Eventually I left, and went back up the hill. Up the stairs, up the road, and back to the highway to Knysna. As I got back to the highway the rain picked up again, I was frustrated to get wet again when I'd just dried off. From my guesthouse to Noetzie beach and back it was about 15km.

Then I walked back into the center of Knysna. I went back to the supermarket I'd visited the day before, and bought more snack food. This time I entered through another side of the building, through another set of outer streets. It wasn't the most comfortable time for me as I had to walk through groups of people who were standing around drinking.

From there I walked to dinner. I ate at the same restaurant as the night before, and I ate the same food. When I'm in the mood for something, I can eat it again and again and again. I bought postcards on the way home that night.

The next morning I started with another wonderful breakfast. I ate later than I should, and started walking later than I should. I walked back to the waterfront, and found a little booth with information for what I wanted. My goal for the day was to take a ferry across the lagoon, and walk a trail in the private reserve on one of the heads.

I got to the booth late enough that I was waaaay past the morning 'tour.' Thankfully, there was an afternoon option. I bought my ticket, and figured out where I needed to be to board, and when.

The timing didn't work out to leave me a whole lot of time to do anything else. I went back to a couple churches I'd seen, though they were closed, and I was only able to see the exteriors. I didn't have time to see a museum that sounded moderately interesting. Argh. If only I'd gotten moving earlier in the day. Clearly I need to come back to South Africa, and visit many of these towns again, with all the things I've missed.

I speed walked back to the cafe that led to a dock at which was the boat I wanted. Boarding was easy and fast, and I made sure to get a seat on the top (open) deck in the front. As we pulled away from the dock, we could all hear information about the city and areas we were seeing as the boat moved along. We learned some history, and learned an estimate of how much some of the homes we could see cost. It was a pleasant ride across the lagoon, with commentary every so often. I bet being on the water feels amazing during warmer times of year. On the other hand, maybe mosquitoes are not so fun?

On the other side of the lagoon we pulled up to a dock and got off the boat. Waiting at the end of a trail were several tractor like vehicles with benches. (I'm sure there is a proper name, but that name escapes me at the moment.) The tractors departed, each with a tour guide speaking on a microphone.

Our guides pointed out various flora as the tractors followed the trail. The guides also told us a bit of the recent history of the land. I was happy it was a private reserve, and I hope it stays that way.

My favourite was a view at the top, which let us see the water in between the heads, as well as along the outer coast for a bit. SO PRETTY.

We got out of the tractors at the top, and got to walk a trail down the mountain and back to the boat. We got to see one area with a natural arch rock, which was lovely. Great natural framing for photos, and getting down there was pretty as well. We got to get really close to crashing waves.

We got to walk along the lagoon as the sun was going down, which was lovely. I was thrilled with the whole thing, and just wish I'd had more time and been allowed to walk through other areas. I think the only way to get to the reserve is on this tour, which limits what I want to do. Oh well.

All of us boarded the boat and we went back across the lagoon to our first dock The sun was going down, so I knew I wouldn't really have any more time to explore the town during this visit. Argh.

I went back to the same restaurant for dinner, as for some reason I still hadn't overdosed on prawns. Since this was the same meal for me for the third night in a row, the waitstaff knew what I wanted as soon as I walked in. My food seemed to arrive on my table a little faster this time, hee hee.

From there I walked back to my guesthouse. This is where I get to talk about how awesome the host was. Even though I wasn't staying this full night, he let me stay in the room until late evening. I had booked a bus that didn't leave until 2300 or even later, so it was wonderful to be able to use the room to take a shower and pack up just before leaving. My host also called a taxi for me, which picked me up on time, and had good driver.

I got to the bus pickup point the recommended 30 minutes ahead of my bus. This was not the same place where I'd been dropped off when I arrived in Knysna. It was similar in that it was outdoors, and I wasn't feeling super warm.

The bus ended up being over an hour late. Which meant I was sitting there for over 90 minutes, never knowing how much longer it would be. I called the bus company to ask where the bus was, and first they tried to say it was on time. I told them I was still waiting, and to please tell me the truth. Finally they did, or at least what they thought at the time. I was annoyed, to say the least.

Eventually the bus came, and I left town.

I do hope to come back to Knysna one day!!