As we had a long day ahead, we had decided that cars should be packed before breakfast, breakfast at 7am and then we head home. It was just over 800 kms we needed to travel and we all wanted to arrive home before it was too late in the afternoon.

We had the car packed by sunrise which gave us 30 minutes to do some birding before breakfast but we didn’t add anything new despite there being a lot of bird life around. I know everyone is dying to know how many birds I saw for the trip – total count in the end was 117. Less than I would have liked at the outset but I think we were affected by some mornings of rain, cold weather and migrants having left already. It wasn’t for lack of trying with numerous bird walks and drives. 5 lifers though for me was more than I expected as we have done these areas before and basically gotten most of the lifers available in the area already. I also said to S that we should get her to 300 lifers on the trip and so I am pleased we managed to do that. Pretty impressive for someone who has only been birding for 2.5 years. H also manged to cross the 300 birds for this year mark on the trip. That is also very impressive.

We were on the road before 8am and stopped for our first refueling & coffee at Richmond and then back on the N1. BSAO stopped at Beaufort West for an emptying but we headed on to Laingsberg where we stopped to refuel and then went to KFC for lunch. We usually do KFC at least once during a road trip (it wouldn’t be a road trip otherwise). This was one of the more efficient KFCs we have encountered on road trips. BSAO caught up to us at the KFC and then we headed out again on the last section back into Cape Town. We all got home safely around 5pm.

We all agreed that we wouldn’t ever repeat Coffee Bay and we probably had done Golden Gate NP enough times now (it was pretty cold braaiing ever night and the cabins get no sun basically from 3pm onwards). We all enjoyed Ganora farm but we regretted not doing the Valley of Desolation & Camdeboo National Park. Some of us would like to go back and also revisit Mountain Zebra NP (which is in the same area). The Underberg is worth another visit and we could have spent 2 nights at Colesberg and done some Orange River activities on the one day. The general consensus is a desire to do the Natal Midlands and battlefields on the next trip.

Until next time

P & H
B & S
R & J
A & O