Hello World!

Welcome to episode 11.

14-October-2019 Monday

Traveling from Oudtshoorn to Barrydale to Capetown.

After all the wonderful sightseeing memories in Oudtshoorn, it was time to hit the road and continue with our journey towards Cape Town.

Video of Barrydale and V&A Wharf

For those who prefer the video medium, we have prepared a video for you, our video viewers. We hope you will enjoy it. 

Route 62 to Barrydale

We boarded the coach late in the morning. We said goodbye to our Queens Hotel, Oudtshoorn, and were charged and ever-ready for our next South African adventure. Our journey would take us approximately 420km or over 4h 40mins through Route 62.

Map – Oudtshoorn to Barrydale to Capetown

Barrydale stopover

Our guide informed us that we would be stopping at Barrydale, a small quaint bus stopover. Barrydale is a village located on the border of the Overberg and Klein Karoo regions of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. The coach stop allowed us to have lunch, purchase some souvenirs, or try their local ice-cream. We had to take shelter from the scorching heat. South Africa in October is quite hot by day, cooler at night, and generally dry.

Barrydale Landscape

Barrydale is a wonderful destination for nature lovers, offering unsurpassed vistas of mountains, hills, and valleys, covered in a blanket of flowers along with the Karoo-Overberg geography. We enjoyed passing through the landscape and though sad that we could not stay to explore, we were glad to have stopped at the coach stop. Of course, with every coach stop, we were to find souvenirs of mainly local artists.

Barrydale Coach Stop-over on Route 62

Route 62 Barrydale

A Journey to the Unexpected Route 62. Cape Route 62 serves as a tourist route and stretches across the Western and Eastern Capes of South Africa. Visitors can travel from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth and enjoy the scenery and directness of the route while driving. Cape Route 62 links Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. This scenic route passes through farming towns.

Cape Route 62 is the tourist route in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, South Africa that meanders between Cape Town and Oudtshoorn, the Langkloof, and Port Elizabeth, offering the shorter, scenic alternative to the N2 highway. It’s an area of magnificent landscapes and towering cliffs, crystal clear streams, and an abundance of trees and indigenous flora.

We were so fortunate to have traveled parts of Route 62 and have enjoyed the journey from Port Elizabeth to Oudtshoorn to Barrydale and to Cape Town. It was truly a scenic journey that we thoroughly enjoyed. If we ever had a chance to explore again, we would travel Route 62 with more stop-overs.

The Barrydale Stop-over

We were happy we got a chance to stopover at a coach stop-over, The Country Pumpkin, a restaurant and farm stall in Barrydale Western Cape. The farm stall had lots of delicious farm products, mostly dried food on sale. It was a very quaint and interesting stop-over as we had a delicious lunch at the restaurant. We even had time to visit the ice cream parlor, Cocos Ice Cream shop just next door to the Country Pumpkin. Someone was painting the exterior of the shop and though the painter was nowhere to be seen, Susan had a chance to take a cute photo with the stone sculpture relaxing just outside the ice cream shop.

Fortunately for the ladies, there was even time to do some souvenir shopping at Hardy’s Memories of Africa. It was indeed a fun and interesting stop-over and everybody had fun looking around.

Onward we pressed towards Cape Town City

After a most interesting Barrydale stop-over, we comfortably settled into our seats in the coach. Our tour guide gave us a brief explanation about South Africa’s weather and the 9 provinces of Cape Town, before allowing us to enter into our dreamland.

South Africa’s weather and seasons

Our tour guide informed us that the temperature in South Africa around this time can be quite hot due to the sun’s scorching heat in a sub-Sahara Desert. The temperature in October is around 28^oC. You will have around 12 hours of sunshine per day with just 11mm of rainfall spread over the month. The peak travel times are from March to May and October to December. South Africa’s weather and seasons are:

• Autumn/Fall– 1 March – 31 May.
• Winter– 1 June – 31 August.
• Spring– 1 September – 30 November.
• Summer– 1 December – 28/29 February.

Breakdown of South Africa into 9 provinces

South Africa is a diverse country with 9 provinces, which range from mountains and beaches to deserts and bushveld. Along with the variety of people and places, South Africa’s climate also differs from one region to the next. South Africa is flanked by two oceans, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. It is therefore helpful to know before you travel.

The nine provinces are:

1. The Eastern Cape.
2. The Free State.
3. Gauteng.
4. KwaZulu-Natal.
5. Limpopo.
6. Mpumalanga.
7. The Northern Cape.
8. North West.
9. The Western Cape.

Well, after our geography and weather lessons, and a heavy lunch, for many of us in the coach, it was enough to help us rest our tired bodies and travel into our sweet dream castles. In our dreams, we thanked our tour guide for taking us there as we traveled towards Cape Town. 🙂

Cape Town City

As the coach approached Cape Town City, the weather was cloudy and not clear enough to clearly see Table Mountain. As a result, our tour guide decided to reschedule going up the Table Mountain that afternoon to early next morning. She said she was hopeful the clouds would clear and visibility would be much better. Our coach driver meandered through the City traffic jam and we knew for sure that we had entered a City. It took us some stop and go in the traffic to get to our hotel, where we would off-load and refresh ourselves for evening entertainment. There was still lots of daylight left in the evening and many of us would take the hotel shuttle to the waterfront.

Southern Sun Waterfront Cape Town, hotel for 2 nights

This would be our hotel for the next two nights. Southern Sun Waterfront is situated at the entrance to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Cape Town’s premier shopping destination. The hotel was comfortable with all the modern amenities. The hotel is an ideal base for exploration into some of the city’s most known attractions.

Victoria and Alfred (V&A) Waterfront, Cape Town

Our group agreed to spend a leisure evening at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, in Cape Town City Centre. There is the Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre, or we could enjoy the pleasant evening breeze on the wharf. The walk around the wharf was so enjoyable as it was so lively, with street performers and all kinds of smells and sounds. And we were able to see the small boats cruise through the waterfront.

We decided to treat ourselves to a genuinely nice evening dinner at one of the eateries. We got the patio seating, next to the water. The evening was so pleasant as we saw small boats sailed up and down the waterways.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that it was such a shame to return to our accommodation at the Southern Sun Waterfront Cape Town Hotel. But we did, and we took the shuttle back to have a good night’s sleep before the next morning’s sightseeing.

Summary of Day

It has been a long coach ride in the hot sun. Thankfully for air-conditioned coaches. We are grateful for our experience coach driver and tour guide. They have taken us from point A to point B safely and in good timing. We arrived in Cape Town and immediately recognized the big city when we hit a traffic jam period. Our coach driver was able to navigate the traffic and safely drove us to our hotel.

Along the way into the big city, we did notice poverty and huts/shacks where people lived. We were again reminded to exercise caution and care with our belongings and to travel in small groups for safety. The Victoria and Alfred Waterfront area was buzzing with music and people. There were lots of tourists much like us, but we practiced caution as we did see people hanging around. We did not hang out too late since we were in an unfamiliar city.