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Fri May 16 2003 (Cape Town to Knysna)

This morning the hire car was due around 8am so I got up at the unearthly time of 6.40. I'm really not an early morning person so this is a serious effort for me, especially on holiday, although I did used to get up around 6am every day when I worked at Pace. Managed a quick shower, then started the tricky task of trying to repack everything that by now was distributed around the room. Bang on cue, just as I'd rammed the last bits into the pack, the lady from reception knocked on the door to let me know the car was here. After the paperwork was out of the way I was taken out to the little beastie, a VW Chico. The thing only had 7000km but bore more than a passing resemblance to a Mark I Golf. Not to worry, bit of retro vehicular transport won't do any harm and the first Golf was a cracking car.

After I'd checked out and loaded up the car I headed out, admittedly a bit nervous at first, onto the streets of Cape Town. Thankfully I found my way out of the city on the first attempt and started heading South to Simon's Town. The route twisted and turned out of the foggy valley floor, up onto the ridge that runs along the Cape, and then straight into a long-term diversion. I worked my way back to the coast and was soon heading through the small coastal resort of Simon's Town.

As you exit the bottom end of the town, a sign points to the beach with a penguin symbol. The car park was bordered by a row of stalls selling various souvenirs, which I ignored and made straight for the beach. The sand was very fine, white and completely clean ... apart from an overlaid pattern of penguin footprints everywhere. No penguins though. I made my way to the opposite end of the beach and started clambering over the rocks leading to the next cove. There was a rickety sign asking you to go no further as the birds are nesting. I carried on a few more feet just to see around the corner and caught a glimpse of three of the little blighters standing around in the middle of the next small beach.

I resisted the temptation to run over and introduce myself personally, and just sat there for half an hour, watching through binoculars as they wandered around aimlessly. Now and again a person would appear on a viewing platform on the grassy dunes above them, and I realised that's probably where I should be. I felt much happier where I was though, just me and the penguins without a bunch of people milling around.

I started retracing my steps over the rocks back to the first beach when I saw some penguins appearing from the bushes not too far ahead of me. I quietly dumped the bag and got the camera ready, crawled along the rocks and took a couple of photos as three penguins made their way down to the water and then swam off out of sight. I was well chuffed by this and started walking by the opening the penguins had emerged from. Through the bushes I could see a few flashes of white as more penguins were on their way down. This time I took a couple of steps back and crouched down next to the bushes with the camera ready. They appeared just a few yards away from me, just a few at first, and then joined by a few more. I managed to get a video of them this time as they ambled, hopped and fell their way down to the water. All this excitement had delayed me a fair bit, and it was well after my cut-off time when I got back to the car. Didn't care a bit, I've waited ages to get a close look at wild penguins, although one I saw in the bushes turned out to be headless (literally), which was a bit traumatic!

I headed North on the M4, which has a much better view than its counterpart in England. Then I turned East on the R310 past loads of Surfers on a fantastic looking beach. After a short while I hooked up with the N2 which is the main coastal route between Cape Town and Durban, and was now on the right track again after my penguin detour to the South. The N2 allowed much faster progress with much of it dual carriageway or 'suicide lane' triple lane single carriageway, with very little traffic around. The fairly rugged Cape Town terrain soon gave way to rolling green hills used as arable land with cows and sheep scattered around, much like the English countryside.

I stopped for lunch in a small sleepy town with a big name that straddled the N2, called Riviersonderend. I snaffled some chicken schnitzel and rice and SMSed the girls to see where they'd got to. They were leaving Plettenberg where they had spent a great couple of days and strongly recommended the place they'd stayed. I already had tonight's digs sorted though, incidentally when I phoned up to book it yesterday the chap I spoke to had a familiar accent and turned out to be from Leeds. He'd even been out with a girl from the town where I live, Kippax, poor bloke!

I set off again, now a little closer to the Garden Route. I'd been struggling to find anything useful to listen to on the radio but stumbled on a phone-in show. No idea what station it was, but it was hosted by a chap called Eric. Just before I switched on, he had read out what seemed to be a fairly inflammatory and bigoted email from someone, which was resulting in some interesting calls. Now Eric was a bit antagonistic at times and sometimes cut people off if they got a bit too right wing, but he allowed people to say enough to build up a picture that South Africa still has some way to go before it can shake off the demons of its past. To balance this, a number of the callers slated the author of the email and were keen to make the point that ignorance and intolerance are traits that will ultimately go the same way as the dinosaurs.

Somewhere around the start of the Garden Route, maybe near Mossel Bay, the speed limit dropped to 80km/h and there was a left-hand hairpin in the N2. Then a sign appeared which confused the hell out of me. It seemed to show two lanes, with a 40 symbol on the left and an 80 on the right. I thought it couldn't be the speed limit as that would be daft so I assumed it was to specify what kinds of vehicle could be in each lane. I pulled over to the left lane to allow someone to pass and BAM ... speed camera flashing in my face. I must have been doing about 75km/h, and if the sign was a speed limit after all I was almost double the limit. I'll have to wait and see if a fine turns up on my credit card from the hire car company.

Not too long after I arrived into Knysna, still with a little daylight to spare, and topped up with petrol. In South Africa you don't serve yourself, but rather have a team of people, filling, washing windscreens and checking fluid levels. These people are undoutedly paid next to nothing and, as with almost all low paid workers, are black. I was particularly pleased to get the windscreen washed as the dead insect count was pretty high and it was getting tricky to see the road. The town looked really lovely which was a bit of a shame as I knew I wouldn't get time to see anything here.

I checked into the Peregrin backpackers, which has a Ducati 996 parked outside. One of the organised events from the hostel is to take a ride down the coast on the bike. The place is run by several young English people who rolled up at the place for various reasons. I was given an en-suite double room, bliss after the single bed and shared facilities at the Ashanti. I spent a couple of hours rearranging my pack, trying to separate the emergency stuff from the day to day stuff.

Then I went into the TV lounge, and had a chat with Clare from Essex (she's blonde, but too switched on to match the rest of the stereotype). She seemed keen to come up with any excuse to avoid going back to England, she only really likes London and used to be a restaurant manager in the West End, but doesn't fancy the house prices. Next up was the Dutch girlfriend of the bloke from Leeds, he seems to be the big boss around here. Until recently she played for Dutch ladies' rugby team. Also there was Jess who helps to run the hostel.

I started watching extended highlights of the Sheffield United-Notts F****t game with a Dutch couple who were camping out in the garden and a lass from Lei***ter who now lives up my way in Harrogate. What a cracking game, I did think Bramall Lane was a great ground earlier this season when I made my first trip there and the place must have been buzzing. It was good of Des Walker to make those couple of mistakes to bring the Tree Huggers to their knees, although obviously it would have been much sweeter if they'd lost 5-4 in the final. During the game the resident ladies were bringing me beers and a great lasagne, never moved from my seat all night, cracking service! A little later we were watching Fight Club and a couple of lads came in who turned out to be F****t fans. I couldn't believe I was now surrounded by the enemy in a small town at the bottom of Africa. Us Derby lads are a dignified bunch so I avoided the obvious temptation to run around the room shouting "5-4! You f****d it up, 5-4!".

Fight Club is a great film but I managed to nod off several times and was moaned at on waking up about my snoring getting in the way of the dialogue. One by one the rest of the troopers drifted off to bed until I came to at around half past three in the morning, sprawled full length along the sofa with contact lenses glued to my eyeballs. I hauled myself off to bed as today was a 570km trip and tomorrow should be even longer.

Photos from today