Onward to Hermanus

We hopped on a our little puddle jumper and took a 20 minute hop over to Ulusaba, Richard Branson’s private game reserve. After picking up a British couple, we took another 20 minute flight over to Nelspruit, the main airport that serves Kruger National Park. This was a bit more of a real airport experience and from here, we would fly 2.5 hours over to Cape Town where we would pick up a rental car and drive 100km east over the Hermanus, a great little beach town.

To say that the Cape Town area is mountainous would be an understatement. Ridges of mountains, rings of mountains, they were everywhere. Flat plains gave way to huge rock formations, thrust up thousands of feet toward the sky to create a dramatic juxtaposition of earth.

Immediately upon leaving the airport, we passed by shanty towns once again, just as in JoBurg. But the shanty towns quickly gave way to gorgeous scenery.

A mountain pass takes you up over a huge ridge, revealing an almost alp-like setting, lush with fir trees and rolling hills set in a bowl. After traversing this area, we headed down the other side of the ridge toward Hermanus.



Another inn set in a residential neighborhood, this place was beyond gorgeous - a quaint series of small buildings with 14 rooms in all up above and little courtyards in between that contained everything from a pool area to tranquil places to sit and read.

The gem however was the back patio that was situated right on a small cliff overlooking the pounding surf of the oceans - the place where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.

A small infinity pool seemingly dropped off the cliffs and into the ocean. We decided to hang out on the back patio and have a glass of champagne and enjoy the ocean air. What a change after being in the heat of the bush just a few hours earlier.

A picture perfect sunset followed -- I don't think I'll ever get over the sunsets and sunrises. No matter whether we were in Joburg, in the bush at Singita and now at the beach, the sunsets and sunrises were something to be cherished every day.

This place has all meals included as there isn't much going on beyond the small town of Hermanus. So we went to our rooms, changed and went down to a quaint dining room for dinner.

Upon retiring to our rooms after dinner, we found that turndown service should have been called artful turndown. A beautiful display of flowers had been created on the bed using fresh lavender and rose petals. A card on the bed read: "A happy couple share a certain smile that no one else quite understands." Nice touch. Needless to say, after a long day that started at 5:00 in the bush and involved three flights, sleep came easily.