Garden Route - Cape Town, Stellenbosch to Oudtshoorn

I'm going tobreak up the next few posts as they will be heavy on pictures and less so on words.  We left Cape Town on the 12th after 6 great days there.  We had a big drive planned as we wanted to spend mour time in the Garden Route rather than getting to it.  The Garden Route is a tourist route between Mossel Bay and Port Elizabeth (about 1200 kms).  It wanders from the plains (Karoo) to the coast and through mountain ranges.  We decided to take a slight detour and go through the university town of Stellenbosch which is also South Africa's wine district (and home of the Two Oceans vineyard).  Its about 90 minutes from Cape Town up in the hills.  Its a nice little town much like Niagara on the Lake with some older buildings and lots of shops and cafes.  With the kids in tow, we didn't want to spend a lot of time drinking wines or doing tours so we walked around Stellenbosch for a bit and then hopped back in the car for the long drive to Oudtshoorn.

A vineyard in Stellenbosch

 After Stellenbosch, we cut across country to get to N2 one of SA's major highways for about an hour until we reached Route 62, which is SA's version of the famous Route 66 in the US.  Certainly the scenery gives R66 a run for its money as you can see below.  For the first time this trip, I missed my Mercedes (which would fit in well here as every 5th car is a Mercedes) as these roads are baby bum smooth, twisty and through breathtaking scenery.  The only problem is there seems to be a cop hiding behind every tree so its just as well I didn't have it here with me!

Typical Route 62 scene

After about 3 hours of this, we arrived in Oudtshoorn which is a nice little town in the middle of the Klien Karoo (Little Plain).  We found our little B&B (La Pension Guesthouse) and then headed out for a nice dinner of Ostrich Steaks at a local restaurant.  These were SO tasty (and have 18% of the fat and cholesterol of a regular steak with the texture of filet mignon).  I sense a business opportunity here!

Then it was back to the B&B for some swimming in the nice pool and an early night.