Monday 11 June 2012

Our wedding: Honeymoon Part 2

Our third stop was at Storms River Mouth. Anything government run in South Africa usually gets a bad rap (and for good reason), but the Parks along the Garden Route are a wonderful exception. Our chalet had a big screen TV, spa bath and giant white bed. Not to mention the resident seagull, dassie family and buck!

     


Unfortunately, I was quite ill for two days of our stay, but luckily the weather was rainy and cold so I didn’t feel too bad sitting on the patio reading the days away with my new hubby. We did manage a hike to another panoramic view of the coastline though, and found such pretty fynbos.


 
 

Lastly we trekked back inland to Addo Elephant Park. And were chased on the first day by a herd of ellies, dust flying and much scraping of gears to reverse our car! We stayed in another Parks chalet, and it was gorgeous. Tucked away in the bush, our only company was an overly friendly dikkop and a lot of elephant poo.


   

We did an evening game drive and saw some entertaining hyenas, massive buffalo and of course, thundering ellies. Some sadness though, as we were not allowed to track rhino, due to their current poaching crisis, which breaks my heart.

       

And finally we headed back to East London and were surprised by the pile of envelopes on our bed (remember how I was politely against gift registry's?). Our wonderful honeymoon was over, but the adventure was just beginning...



Friday 8 June 2012

Our wedding: Honeymoon Part 1

When planning our honeymoon we decided we needed a bit of adventure, as lovely as it is to be toes up on the warm sand for two weeks. I’m so excited to show you all of our pictures (finally! It’s been what… 4 months?), hopefully they will do justice to the beautiful Garden Route we had the pleasure of calling our honeymoon destination.





We started at the 5 star Sands at St Francis. Ostrich fillet, infinity pool, white fluffy robes, roaring sea, personal Jacuzzi, champers on tap. We felt so spoilt.


         


Next up was the unspoilt seclusion of Nature’s Valley. We did the last day of the Otter Trail, which was quite nerve-wracking as you can see from the sheer walkway below! But the views were unparalleled.


  

We walked the 2km beach flat, and found the delightful Enrico’s Restaurant at Keurbooms. We canoed up the river, ate a luxury picnic with the seagull family and had breakfast every day with a shy Knysna loerie.


 

We visited Monkeyland sanctuary (which, me being me, I loved and didn't want to leave). There were LEMURS!!! And had a close encounter with a persistent black howler monkey who was determined to break into the curio shop and had to be squirted with water repeatedly!


 
               


While at Nature’s Valley, we took a drive down the coast to Knysna for an unforgettable day in the Featherbed Reserve. The blue water of the Knysna Lagoon reminds me of the Med!


 
  
 


Part 2 coming up…