Knysna

 

Next stop is Knysna, a coastal town within the garden route and popular with tourists. About an 1hr 40min drive from Oudshoorn with much of the road hugging the white sandy beaches of the region.

        

Our hotel is close to the waterfront and quays, which is full of leisure boats. Many of the wealthy South Africans live here or have their summer homes here. A schools water polo competition is taking place in the quay, which is being run over a 3 day period, so the area is busy and the restaurants are full.

Time for some golf. The Pezula is situated on the hill overlooking Knysna and the sea. I managed to get an early morning tee time. The weather had changed from the previous day. The clouds had arrived, but it was still 20 degrees celsius, but not the sunshine I had hoped for. 

I picked up the buggy and rental golf clubs and drove to the first tee. A four ball was before me, but when they realised I was on my own they proposed I go ahead of them. The pressure was on, I had not hit a golf ball in 4 weeks and I needed to tee off with clubs I had never used before with the four ball looking on. The golf demons started to whisper in my head and then bingo, my first ball sailed at a right angle into the trees. The four had that “oh dear we have one here” look. Time to drop another ball and just get one down on to the fairway. Fortunately things started to get better after that. A frustrating game.

 

Knysna sits in a lagoon which makes it a safe natural harbour. The Heads are the dramatic rocky headlands which create the gap for the Indian Ocean to meet the lagoon.  

Thesen is a small island in Knysna, which is predominately full of holiday homes and restaurants. It was originally owned by a family who ran a tree logging and boat building business. They have long gone and replaced by many wealthy South Africans. 

As a side business from tree logging, there used to be a power plant which used wood chipping to power electric turbines. At one point it provided all the electricity for the towns of Knysna and Plettenberg bay. This closed down in the 1970’s and replaced by a municipal power plant. The old power station is now a boutique hotel (they love to label a hotel as boutique in South Africa) and a micro brewery pub. We had dinner in the pub last night. Just after we arrived, load shedding started and they needed to fire up their backup generators. Quite ironic that this old power station worked so well for 30 years and has been replaced by a system that cannot provide the electricity they need.