I arrived in this very pleasant looking chilled out town called Oudtshoorn, inhabited by 80,000 people and famous for being the home to the world's largest Ostrich population with a number of specialized ostrich breeding farms. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the town saw a large Ostrich boom as their feathers became extremely popular as fashion accessories. This made the town very rich and the Ostrich farmers very wealthy. However, by 1914 the boom ended.
I found a lovely hostel on top of a hill in a large Tudor style house. The interior was immaculate with lovely furniture and beds. The name of this place was Karoo Soul. The resident owner, Ilse, a warm and bubbly young lady, always loved this house since she was a child. She managed to earn and save a tidy sum of money, mostly through tips, working 16-20 hour days on a US cruise ship for a couple of years as a waitress. One day she saw that the house was up for sale and bought it and then converted it into an upmarket hostel.
Cango Caves
The Cango Caves are 30 kms north of Oudtshoorn. They are 5 kms long and have spectacular formations of stalactites and stalagmites. Known as South Africa's largest cave system, they are thought to have started forming about 750 million years ago.
I decided to do the Adventure tour which involves crawling in tunnels and up very narrow holes inside the caves. This is not something for claustrophobic people. I happened to have been put into a group full of American college students, mostly girls, who had come to Cape Town University for a term/semester. For some reason the girls had thought that wearing flip flops was going to be just fine, until they started crawling and climbing etc. Their flip flops just disintegrated and a number of them ended up walking barefoot the rest of the way. One or two got stuck in the tight holes and had to be pulled out. A couple kept falling and one almost hit her head on a stalagmite. Our tour guide, a coloured guy in his late 20s/early 30s was as camp as can be. So, it was all very bewildering and amusing to be a part of.
Swartberg Pass
After the Cango Caves, I continued up route R326 towards the Swartberg Pass. It was a steep climb up the mountain on gravel road. A car broke down in front of me on this narrow pass on the edge of the mountain. Soon, there were many cars waiting behind it. It took some minutes before a rescue truck was able to load the car onto its rear and soon the traffic started moving. Once back down the mountain with the amazing views, I started driving down a gorge that had a river running down it. The steep walls of the gorge and the trees and bushes going down it were a beautiful site to see. The gorge walls were red and there was the deep blue sky and the green vegetation so a lovely mixture of colours. I stopped once in a while next to the stream and listened to the wonderful sound of the crystal-clear water flowing.
Prince Albert and the Traffic Cops
When I cleared the gorge, I took the wrong turn and ended up in this small mountain town called Prince Albert. It was from another age. I drove through and then didn't know if I was headed in the right direction. I was looking for the R407 back to Oudtshoorn which passed the Meiringspoort Waterfall. I tried to wave passing cars to stop so that I could ask them for directions but some didn't stop and others stopped only after several meters so I kept driving on. I noticed a police van approaching me from behind and it turned on its siren. I pulled to the side and a policeman and policewoman came over. The guy said that he had been contacted by a colleague that a guy in a car was waving motorists to stop and asked me what the problem was. I told him that I couldn't find the waterfall. He told me I was heading in the wrong direction and that I should turn around and head down the R407 and then the N12 South.
Meiringspoort Waterfall
After driving around 60 kms I reached the waterfall which was a 5 minute walk from the narrow road going through yet another gorge. The waterfall was not large but it was gorgeous. It was flowing down into a deep pool of water and was surrounded by a canyon. There were signs to the waterfall warning of snakes but thankfully I didn't see any. I couldn't resist the urge to jump into the pool so stripped to my underpants and dove in. The water was freezing but exhilarating. I managed to swim to the waterfall and then back again, pulling myself out onto the rocks. Here is a YouTube clip that somebody posted so I have copied the link on here, although there was a lot more water flowing when I visited: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4mHzj21oZA
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