As you already know from our instagram and snapchat (@HandLuggageOnly), we recently returned to South Africa to explore its stunning Eastern Cape and spend some time in the beautiful city of Port Elizabeth.
When everyone thinks of South Africa, most people’s thoughts tend to go towards Kruger National Park or Cape Town before it starts to wander off to the likes of Durban and Port Elizabeth so I was definitely pleased to be exploring a slightly less visited part of the country.
We flew into Johannesburg before connecting through to Port Elizabeth!
J’burg is another place I never seem to spend enough time in – last time we stopped over for a night  before heading out on safari and this time, we stayed for just a few hours as our flight was delayed on the way in. Perhaps next time, we might try to see more of J’burg for for now – the Eastern Cape called!
The delay in our arrival meant that we arrived in Port Elizabeth (PE) at night so we had no sense of what the garden route was like.
The next morning however, we started to get a true sense of how amazing the Eastern Cape was!
The first night (and first couple of days) was spent in ‘the garden’ of the Garden Route, Tsitsikamma National Park which, by the way, is the perfect place to get lost in nature! It’s truly a stunning place but more on that later – first things first, breakfast!
We stayed at the quaint Tsitsikamma Village Inn…
…where we met this fat cat who I don’t think could have chilled any harder if it tried. (Random little things you remember, eh?)
Let me show you around the place a little more…
Each building at the Tsitsikamma Village Inn was different from the next, it’s such an eclectic mix and this all adds to the appeal of the place.
Okay, so breakfast over, we were finally ready to do what we came here to do – see the Eastern Cape.
Our return to South Africa however was not without agenda. We’d returned to South Africa to see how cheap visiting South Africa was for British visitors. The whole idea was to how much it would cost to live like Kings. (My idea of living like a King though is to eat like one).
We had no schedule whatsoever. Everything we did would be up to us. The only plan we had was to see how far £400 would take one person on a week in South Africa. Needless to say, we were very game for this challenge!
The first thing that struck us as we left in search of adventure was how utterly beautiful the drive (and accompanying landscape) was. Now I get why it’s called the Garden Route!
As we drove along, we saw a sign that had the word ‘adventure‘ in its name and figured it was a good place as any to start! 🙂
Once we got there, it was fairly easy to decide what activity would be our first in South Africa – Zip-lining through waterfalls in the forest!
The zip line starts off slow, so you can appreciate the natural beauty around you…
…and starts to get higher, faster and faster.
I ridiculously decided to take my DSLR camera with me while doing this…
…which ended up with waterfall photos like this one below. *face palm*
In retrospect, this was probably one for the GoPro.
Each swoosh through the air was rewarded with stunning views of the country side (and a little dose of adrenaline)…
I don’t think I could have picked a better way to get started in the Garden Route! 🙂 (Okay, that’s up for debate but I was having too much fun to second guess my choice).
There was short little hikes involves too, which in retrospect is a great way to see even more of the stunning views at a more leisurely (and camera friendly) pace…
By the time, we arrived at the end of the zip-line, it felt like we’d only just started (a quick glance at the time told me otherwise) but as cheesy as this sounds (get your gag bags at the ready), time truly does fly by when you’re having fun! 🙂
Buzzing with excitement, I couldn’t wait to see what we would decide to get up to – and with a scenery like that one above – who can blame me, eh? 🙂
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