We had bought our tickets to Cape Town back in the UK, separate from out RTW trip. We figured that while we had the time and were in the right part of the world we might as well... So from the very top of Africa we flew down to the bottom, via Doha, Qatar. We checked into the Zebra Crossing Lodge and for 3 days explored in and around the city. We hiked up to the top of table mountain on our first day, explored the cape peninsular and the cape of good hope on our second, thanks to our new hire car, Martin. On the way we stopped off at Boulders Beach which was covered in African penguins. We saw our first bunch of wild baboons strolling down the middle of the road, looking for trouble. We drove back via Chapmans Peak, a really nice drive with great views.
We spent a day in the botanical gardens and on the way back checked out Dolphin bay and the kite surfers in the Bloubergstrand area at sunset. Great views of table mountain and the city from across the water...
Cape Town reminds us of parts of New Zealand. I guess that may be the Dutch influences coming through.
After a few days, when we were sick of sleeping in dorm beds we headed out of the city and straight for Franschhoek in the heart of the South African winelands, where we stocked up for the next few weeks at the Delaire vineyard. It is fantastic to be back in a wine producing country again. After much cheese and wine we headed off again for Cape Agulhas where we had planned to spend the night. It took us a while to find somewhere to camp... hotels seem far a more popular choice around these parts. The next day we checked out the De Hoop Nature Reserve and 
got our first views of some real life game in the form of a couple of Cape Zebras standing a couple of hundred metres away, and some antelope type things. From there we drove ourselves to Mossel Bay - a place that sounds like it should be nice, but is in fact a bit of a shit hole. We found a campsite next to a car park that seems to be used predominantly as a blacks only drinking and racing arena. The guy that took out money told us to head as far away from the car park fence as possible, as cars have been known to hit it during the evening.... 
From Mossel Baz we headed to "Plet", Plettenburgh Bay not far away as I had developed a nasty cold and really could be arsed with the old driving thing. We found a nice campsite where we had a barbie (braai) and wine evening. After looking at the map and the time we have left in this country we have decided that we really need to get a move on. We spent the 26th driving east, heading for Coffee Bay (it had been recommended), stopping off at Storms River, part of the Tsitsikamma NP. In the afternoon the weather took a turn for the worse and we were driving through cloud for most of the afternoon. We are no longer on the Garden Route its much more like you would expect an African country to be like. Lots more noise, rubbish and most importantly, black people.
The drive from the N2 highway to Coffee Bay on a dirt road was a nightmare. We were tired and spent the entire journey avoiding potholes, horses, other cars (people don´t seem to like using their headlights here) and most importantly people; there were hundreds of them wandering around on the roads. There are a lot of what theycall "4 way junctions" here, which are basically traffic light junctions without the traffic lights (or "robots"), which can mean they are pretty hard to spot. It´s a first come, first served arrangement - works especially well when it comes to making a right turn and it cuts out all the queueing. When we at last arrived in Coffee Bay we headed for the backpacker place, the Coffee Shack, which turned out to be a great little place right on the beach, where we got a free beer and some African "Gracelands" style acapella singing while we were erecting the tent in the rain. This place is served predominantly by the "BazBus" (the South African equiv. of the "Kiwi Experience") and is packed.
"I want to sing" is the English phrase all the kids here are taught first. A little like the "Namaste pen" kids in Nepal, they use it constantly on the tourists to get money. We got a blast this morning, which was pretty good. There is no coffee in Coffee Bay.
On our last night we headed up a nearby hill to watch the sunset with a bunch of bazbussers from the hostel. A local singing group insisted on doing the old acapella thing for us, but were upstaged by their dog, who spent the entire time sliding down the grassy slope on his balls. He would then come back and repeat the process. This was highly amusing.We drove to Port St. Johns a few hours further up the coast. There is no coastal road here so it was necessary to head back to the N2 and then back down the next right turn which made the drive silly-long. The main reason for coming here was to visit the "Silaka game reserve" which turned out to be a bit rubbish really. We headed up a very bad rocky unsealed road for ages to find zeberas, but all we came across was a vaguely stripey donkey
Port St. Johns is the South African equivalent of Nimbin, Australia. It seems the main reason for a visit is to buy drugs. At one place we ate (The "Delicious Monster") the first thing our waiter asked was is we smoked canabis. After thet we stopped at a bar for a few drinks and managed to catch an hour or so of "West African Idol"; basically Africans trying to sing "I believe I can fly". It was pretty terrible.
Lots more driving. We came very close to hitting a sheep at 120km/hour passing through another state boundary (Eastern Cape to Kwazulu). We checked out another nature reserve (Oribi Gorge) - again we were greeted with a distinct lack of wildlife. We did see 2 warthogs, but on the big game front I dont think that really counts. The next morning I had to settle for a dip in the swimming pool as they wouldnt let me into the sea due to high winds. After beakfast we headed inland, away from the cooling breeze off the Indian ocean. We are both getting a little sick of camping. Kerry asked is I was "going to stuff her in a tent again"... time to maybe start hitting the hostals again. After a few hours driving we took a detour to a Lion Park advertised off the main road. This turned out to be pretty interesting. We saw 14 lions chilling out under a tree. It was super hot though, especially as it didnt seem wise to open the car windows.
By the evening we had reached the Northern Drakensberg and the Royal Natal National Park where we set up camp for the night (Kerrys idea!). At 8am the next day we were at the park headquarters. I was tempted to pack up the tent and hike to the top of the Amphitheatre for a nights wild camping, but was soon put off that idea by the woman at the counter. She said the local people up there would, and I quote "steal our clothes, hurt or maybe kill us". Nice. We ended up walking up the "Tugela Gorge", a 6 hour walk. It was hot. On the way up we were blessed with a breeze, but coming back down at around 2pm the temperature was over 30 degrees and we felt like shit. The binding of our Rough Guide (borrowed from the CT hostal) melted in the car during the day and all the pages fell out. 
We got back to the tent to find it open with all our stuff missing... imagine how glad we were when we discovered it wasnt theft. The tent had in fact "blown away" during the day (wierdly we had experienced no high winds suring our walking). Having our tent blow away is a first for us. A kindly neighbour had rescued the tent and chucked all our stuff inside. In the evening we had fun with friendly baboons trying to nick all our stuff. Barbied trout for dinner.
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