Eastern Cape is in the ‘Garden Route’ part of South Africa. Not sure if it’s just clever advertising, but the climate here is apparently one of the most temperate in the world. Mild winters, comfortable summers and plenty of rain, if the grassy campsites are anything to go by. There is a team of guys here lawmmowing and whipper-snipping the thick grass, and where they have already been looks like a bowling green.

We drove past the turn-off to Cape Agulhas, the southern-most tip of South Africa yesterday morning.  It is also the official dividing point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. We didn’t go there – maybe next time!

Not a lot of wildlife-spotting recently, although I did see a dwarf mongoose at Table Mountain, and we saw  some rock hyraxes at the Cape of Good Hope. These mammals look like giant brown guinea pigs,  ranging from 2 to 4 times the size. What’s really interesting and quite amazing about them is that their closest living relatives are the elephant and sirenians ( which includes the dugong and manatees)!

We’ve booked a couple of nights at the Addo Elephant National Park, which is a couple of hundred kms further east. We couldn’t get in tonight, so we’ll try the Garden Route National Park which has incorporated several national parks and forests, with a few accommodation options.