Today was our last day here in Plett before moving on and we were keen to see a bit more of Knysna as we had only driven past it earlier in our trip. After a light breakfast in our little cottage, we headed up the R2 and parked at the waterfront in Knysna central. We spent a lovely couple of hours wandering about and checking out the shops and even found the hotel my parents had stayed at when they had visited – Knysna Log Inn.
We ate Pizza’s for lunch at 34 Degrees South which was a great little place overlooking the water before heading back east for the hours drive to Plettenberg Bay Elephant Sanctuary. Our trip back coincided with the scheduled Load Shedding and it was interesting navigating some busy junctions without the ‘Robots’ (SA for traffic lights!!) working. Thankfully once we got back on the main route we had traffic officers directing the traffic which made things a little more orderly!
The Elephant Sanctuary was an amazing place and currently has 5 elephants (4 females and a male) in residence, all rescued as orphaned babies. 2 were rescued in Kruger National park and the other 3 were intercepted whilst travelling en-route from Botswana to somewhere in the Far East illegally. None of them would have survived in the wild so thankfully they have found a good home!
We were able to walk hand in trunk with them, interact with them and feed them and it was a real privilege to share an hour with these magnificent creatures. We walked with Tandi, Marula (the matriarch) and Jabul and they were so gentle and responsive. It really was a highlight of our trip so far. As well, as interacting with them, Patrick our guide was an amazing authority on the elephants and we all learned so much from him.
After saying goodbye to the elephants, we headed back to the cottage for a couple of hours before our final excursion back into Plett for a meal at `The Fat Fish’ which had come highly recommended and didn’t disappoint. We had a lovely meal before returning home shattered after another busy day.
Tomorrow we set off on our final leg of this journey with a 4 hour drive East on Route 2 to Kariega Game Reserve.
The Perry’s Travel Blog 