Day 79: Driving to Plettenberg Bay aka “Plett”
We pulled away from our tent in Stanford Hills around 10 am on a cold and rainy Monday morning. Interestingly, a large number of our departure days have been rainy. Also, every Monday we’ve spent in South Africa has been rainy.
Ahead of us stretched a nearly five-hour rainy Garden Route drive west toward Plettenberg Bay, which the locals call “Plett.” Most of the ride was on the N2, a major artery that’s only two lanes. Lots of 18-wheelers, plenty of hairpin turns and one white-knuckled ME in the passenger side.
We stopped at a rest stop and picked up some roosterkeoks — aka balls of bread dough cooked flat on a BBQ grill. The menu at this rest stop had about 30 different options for ways to eat roosterkeoks, from plain and buttered with jam all the way up to huge stacked sandwiches. We got some simple ones and enjoyed them. Bread-lovers’ heaven.
We decided to let the kids watch the iPads, and after many weeks of African-only music listening at home and in the car, decided for a change. Teddy suggested Hamilton and we wound up listening to the entire original cast album start to finish. Couldn’t help but wonder if ours was the first car to roadtrip the N2 to do so. Gah it’s so good. Never gets old.
We covered a loooot of farmland. Rolling hills of mega farms in both directions as far as the eye could see, for hours and hours.
My phone battery died so we have no pics of this stretch. I know, total fail.
We stopped for gas about an hour away from Plett, and I saw signs for an antique store. Couldn’t help but go in. Teddy waited in the car with the kids.
I’m sad my phone was dead and I have no pictures — but I think I need to go back when we drive east next week. This place was crazy. Maurits Lammers Antiques. Reminded me of the old antiques shops in Lebanon, TN we’d go to when driving from DC to Memphis in the summers growing up — huge, sprawling space teeming with junk/treasure of every variety, all organized by item category. Coffee mugs, hunting rifles, old dolls, thimbles, beds, bed pans….anything you could think of.
According to the owner it’s all sourced locally — so walking around I couldn’t help but have a creepy “if this stuff could talk” feeling about it all. The oil paintings of Dutch farms and dozens of pairs of old wooden clogs. Who owned this stuff? What were they like? What was their existence like? What did they believe? Old Afrikaner farm house belongings from the 20s and 30s….who were you??
I could have stayed forever. Instead I bought an oversized tin salt shaker for $5 and left.
We finally got to Plett around 5 pm, and after “camping” the last four days, we were glad to check in to some admittedly cushy new digs here at the beach: The Old Rectory.
We’ll be here for seven nights!
Miscellaneous/thoughts:
Luke and Meg told us Afrikaner kids are barefoot *always* and we didn’t really get what they meant until we saw it first-hand. Every single place we’ve been to — from restaurants to gas stations to bathrooms to gravel roads to …whatever…there are barefoot Afrikaner kids. Not a shoe in sight.
Also, we saw a lot of race mixing in Cape Town, but out here in the countryside/farmland it’s a different story from what we can tell. Even a highway rest stop really only had white patrons — many barrel-chested white patrons — but the only black people were the gas attendants, janitors and cooks.
We don’t feel informed enough to comment fairly on race politics in South Africa, but it’s fascinating. A constant question mark and topic of conversation between me and Teddy.
