April 3, 2011

Once again, we have had a completely awesome day of exploring the natural areas of Knysna.

Aaron and I got up early this morning and went to mass at St. Boniface again. The music was much better than last week, so I liked the service better  After church we basically jogged down to the waterfront. We had planned on doing a tour of the Featherbed Reserve, which is the nature reserve on top of the western head in Knysna. We had heard that you had to make reservations in advance, but we had failed to do that, so we were rushing down there to see if there was any room at all on the tour. We totally lucked out! There was plenty of room! Not only that, but it was supposed to rain all day and the weather ended up being absolutely gorgeous!

The tour to the heads started with a boat ride on “The Spirit of Knysna” across the lagoon. Our captain was a local named Avril and our guide was also a local named Debbie. Apparently a local celebrity was driving us because Avril is the current oyster-eating champion in the Knysna Oyster Festival. He ate 33 oysters in 77 seconds last year! We learned that the lagoon isn’t really a lagoon at all; it is a river estuary that spills into the Indian Ocean. Locals here call it the lagoon though, so the name has stuck. The boat took us by the salt grasslands that we walked past yesterday going to the beach, and we also passed the actual island and beach that we went to. The salty grassland areas serve as the main food for the birds in the area. Apparently the grass mixed with the salt from the ocean water provides the birds with the full amount of nutrients that they need. So we saw all kinds of birds in this area. We also learned that there is what is called a “Spring Tide” going on right now. It isn’t spring, so I am not sure where the name comes from, but the water levels are quite low because of it. In some areas the waters are so low that fishermen were walking out to the middle of the lagoon on sand bars. It was really neat to see. The boat dripped us off at Featherbed Nature Reserve on the opposite side of the lagoon. From here we took a 4 x 4 truck ride up the side of the cliffs to the top of the western head. I was a little nervous on this trip. You see, in South Africa there is no such thing as a railing…anywhere…so the only thing between Aaron and the rocky cliffs below was, well, nothing. The trip was lovely though, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. From the top we could see the Indian Ocean beyond the heads and the massive rocky area of choppy water between them. The waves were incredible, and I literally could have sat and watched them crash on the rocks for the rest of the day. We saw the Blue Crane, which is the national bird of South Africa, and we saw the Blue Dukiery, which is a small deer-like creature with itty-bitty horns and sharp teeth. It is quite a sight to behold. Unfortunately it is also quite shy, so we weren’t able to sneak any pictures of it today. After our ride to the top we were given the opportunity to hike back down, sow e jumped at the chance and enjoyed another long walk in the South African sunshine. Part of the walk led us to some ocean caves. They were amazing. The rest of the walk was through extremely green forests and an absolutely gorgeous stretch of sandy coastline. Again, South Africa obviously does not believe in railings because every time we crossed a walking bridge there were none, not even if there was a cliff edge and the churning ocean below. Of course, because of my luck, there was a high school group of students as part of the tour, so I was constantly fearful of one of them playing around too much and falling. They were pretty good kids though. They definitely reminded me of my Met students, and they made me miss them more than just a little  When we reached the end of our hike we approached a nice outdoor restaurant with a beautiful and humongous buffet lunch. Lucky for us it was included in our ticket!! We have definitely been saving when it has come to food on this trip, so we were so excited to dive into an unlimited buffet!  My favorite part by far was the ice cream with passion fruit, pineapple, strawberries, and hot fudge sauce…yummy!!!! I am still full…

After our tour we went grocery shopping for the week with Nicole and Catherine, and now we are just hanging out and chilling before another week of work. I am excited to be going to Sinethemba this week. I think that it will be a lot of fun and a nice change from schools for a while. Aaron is excited and ready to head back to work. He has done such a great job with his design logo for the “On the Beach” guesthouse. I can’t wait to hear what the owner thinks of it!