It was another day with an early start. We needed to check out of Knysna before ten, but more important, Gila wanted to buy a new camera. She had gotten sand into the lens of her Panasonic and it needed repair. She decided to have that done at home and to replace the camera in the meantime.
We had eggs left over and I planned to scramble them for everyone, but the gas stove was not working. Shelley made us scrambled eggs in the microwave instead. They were quite good and we saved time by eating in. Our first stop was the Kodak store. Gila would have preferred to buy the same camera that she already had, but it was not available. The salesman showed her a Nikon camera with a wide angle lens and a zoom lens that seemed light and easy to use. It took less time than I had anticipated and then we headed off to our second stop, the Knysna Head so that we could see the area in low tide. It had been high tide when we saw it the first time. Fortunately it was a short stop for some photographs and we headed off for our main activity of the day, the beach.
Shelley took us to Plettenburg Bay to Lookout Beach. It is a surfing venue, but there were few surfers when we were there. It was a bright sunny day but on the beach there was a stiff wind from the ocean. The water was almost warm enough to be bowled over by the waves and I went in several times to be inundated the wall of water that surged behind me. It was great fun being knocked over and dragged forward with the remaining wave. The discomfort and shivering started as soon as I got out of the water. My teeth chattered even though I put on my fleece jacket. Unfortunately, i had a little mishap at the beach. The tide had left a solid wall about a foot in length right in front of our umbrella. When i tried to step up and over, i fell and twisted my knee in an uncomfortable position. Although i was still able to walk, it was very painful. As is my habit, i did nothing about it and tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. That included another session in the ocean waiting for the waves to knock me down.Gila saw children building sand castles and had the inspiration to make something in the sand as well. Very carefully she sculpted a life sized nude man lying in the sand. However, she found it somewhat boring so she made one addition to arouse interest, an erect penis. And on a family beach!
Shelley had bought some croissants and deli for lunch and I still had a small bottle of wine left from Shelley's welcome package. That meant that we could head straight for Jeffreys Bay once we left the beach. Well, almost straight to Jeffreys Bay. We stopped in Plettenburg to get a camera battery that was charging at a Kodak store and waited for Gila to satisfy her craving for a hotdog and ginger beer. Now we were ready to go, with two attractions to see on the road.
First we stopped in the Tsitsikamma Forest (mostly deciduous) to see the largest tree in South Africa. We took a 500 meter walk through the forest on a newly built boardwalk. Every one hundred meters, there was another sign announcing how far you still had to walk. 400 meters to the big tree, 300 meters to the big tree, 200 meters to the big tree (at this point I told Shelley I was expecting something REALLY BIG), 100 meters to the big tree, 35 meters to the big tree and finally, there was the big tree. It wasn't big enough after all that build up. The trees in the rainforest ay Clayquot Sound are much bigger and wider, but they are conifers. This tree was deciduous, tall at about 80 meters and a thousand years old so I forced myself to be a little less disdainful. Unfortunately the walk back to the car was increasingly painful and I could not find a comfortable position for that knee for the rest of the drive.
We did make one more stop at Storm River. The original plan had been to cross the canyon formed by the river on the suspension bridge, but given my knee injury, we only stopped to look at the canyon from the lookout spot. While we there we also had a bite to eat to hold us until supper.
It was a still a long drive to our next Airbnb and we continued to find that the landscape was beautiful. As usual Gila the photographer was using her new camera to shoot constantly through the car window. There were more sculptured mountains, more broccoli shaped trees on the hillsides and more cattle and sheep.
We had hoped to end our trip by 4:30, but our stops had taken longer than we had expected. Unfortunately the host had had to leave for a meeting but she did leave the key with a neighbour who let us in. It was a long way to the door of out cottage or felt very long to me. My knee by now was very swollen and I had trouble climbing the few stairs to the bathroom and bedroom. Shelley and Gila brought in all the luggage while I took a painkiller and lay down.
No one was in the mood to go out so Shelley and Gila went to a take away place and brought back pad Thai, ginger chicken and chicken chow mein. The portions were so big that half the dinner was left over and we saved it for dinner the next night when hopefully the Airbnb would have a microwave. After dinner we watched a DVD of Pixar shorts and I went to bed early hoping my knee would be better in the morning.
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