Rainy Drive to Stellenbosch and a Scary Hike

Rainy Drive to Stellenbosch and a Scary Hike

Stellenbosch, South Africa, Africa
Wedgeview Country House & Spa

We got up a little later this morning and had a really nice breakfast at White Shark Guesthouse. We missed the breakfast yesterday because of how early we had to go for the cage diving, but today we took full advantage. We got some tips from Renee on where to go and what to see in Stellenbosch, and then we hit the road. The weather was pretty horrendous this morning, but luckily that wasn’t a big deal as we just had a day of driving ahead of us.

We stopped at the Danger Point Lighthouse at the tip of Gansbaai before we left town. Melissa had never been in a lighthouse before so we took a walk up and couldn’t see a thing due to the rain and winds. We headed past Hermanus to a small town called Betty’s Bay and we wanted to see some penguins at their colony. By the time we got there the weather was the worst we had seen it, so we took a little walk, saw some penguins chilling in the rain, and then got back in the car.

We got to Stellenbosch at about 2:30pm and checked into Wedgeview Country House and Spa. It is absolutely stunning. We have a nice big room with a HUGE bathroom, and a balcony overlooking the vineyards just outside our gate. This is a perfect place to stay at to finish our trip. This is the nicest place since we left Pumba, so it was a perfect place to finish at.

We really wanted to go for a walk today, so we asked where we could go at this time and have a nice walk. We got a recommendation from the receptionist to go to Jonkershoek national park and take a walk to a waterfall. We took the advice, drove over to the park, and paid the entrance fee. The guy at the gate gave us a rudimentary map of the park, and told us that we didn’t have time for the long walk, but we could walk to the first waterfall which is about a 30 minute walk each way.

We drove for about 20 minutes down a really rough dirt road without seeing any other cars. We got to a hairpin turn in the road, which the map showed was the end, so we left the car on the side of the road and found the path to the waterfall. Immediately when we started walking we heard a scuffle and saw a group of about 15 baboons heading down the road toward our car. That made us a bit nervous because they can be very aggressive, but if they were entertained by our shiny car for the next few minutes, that would keep them away from us.

I decided that walking with absolutely no protection was probably a bad idea so I picked up a stick, and Melissa got a rock. Now that we were properly armed, we walked for another five minutes down the path until Melissa pointed something out to me. There were very clear (meaning recent) tracks on our path, and it was very obvious that it was from some kind of cat. We checked the back of our map and the first thing it said was that no pets were allowed, so we knew that these were not a simple housecat (and it also made me think that you can’t bring your pets for fear that they might be attacked by something). There was a list showing what kind of animals you might encounter in the park, and the first one struck a chord: Cape Leopard. That was the only cat on the list, so it was pretty evident that was the track we saw.

We noticed along the way that the tracks were going in the same direction we were, so we were essentially following a leopard down a trail. We continued on hesitantly for another five minutes, but we were both so nervous, we realised it just wasn’t worth continuing. We turned around and started heading back to the car, and noticed more tracks from the same animal, now going in the other direction. So it had waited for us to walk by, and then came back on the path and was now walking in the same direction we were. This made us even more nervous because it is very likely that the leopard was watching us, and we had absolutely no idea where it was. It was a very intense walk back to the car for 15 minutes with our stick and rock at the ready, but lucky for us we never ran into the leopard.

The only thing we were nervous about at the end was what to do if our car was covered in baboons, but fortunately for us, there were none to be seen. We hopped in the car and got out of there as quickly as possible, hardly appreciating just how beautiful the surroundings were. We never saw any other animals on our way out of the park, but we did stop at the ranger’s gate and asked what the paw print was. I had taken a picture of it on my phone to show them, and as soon as the ranger saw it he laughed and said “yeah, that’s a leopard.” Well that’s good. At least we didn’t abandon our walk for something completely harmless.

We drove straight on to Franchoek which is a small French influenced village about 20 minutes from Stellenbosch. It’s much smaller than the university town that Stellenbosch is, and I had pictured where we were going to stay to look a lot more like Franchoek. We went for a beer first at a small bar on the main street to calm our nerves, and then headed to a restaurant that was recommended by the receptionist at our hotel.

We had a great dinner at French Connection restaurant, enjoyed our first glass of wine in the wine region and then headed back to Wedgeview. The day started out pretty dull with a drive in the rain, but it definitely peaked on our unintentional wild safari walk. Tomorrow is a day full of relaxing and wine drinking, so I can’t imagine it will be quite as exciting, unless that leopard has followed us home…

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