Weekend 20-21 August 2011
In the quest to find some flatter roads to cycle not too far from town I looked at the area around St Francis Bay. We did some training there before from Paradise Beach to Cape St Francis and I remembered the road to Oysterbay not being too hilly either.
Armchair exploration with Google Earth showed a camping called Brakkeduine a few kilometres past Oysterbay, at R50 a person a much better bet than the overpriced camping at Cape St Francis so we booked and were pleasantly surprised to find this tranquil spot at the side of a large dam.
There were only a few other people there, mainly to enjoy the fishing there and we found a lovely spot right at the waters edge with a grand view of Centrepile and Witels mountains.
I had laid out a circular cycle route back past Oysterbay, then inland and back to camp, unfortunately the wind had come up and it was quite a push at first, the hills were not too bad but not quite as easy as hoped for.
We had a bit of a mystery when our map showed a crossing where we were supposed to turn right and there was no right turn so we carried on and found that the turnoff was about one kilometre further, beware relying too much on Garmin.
After the rain there are lots of puddles and lots of flowers:
Forty kilometres later we were back at camp for some deserved liquid refreshment and later some nice sunsets.
Sunday morning after a leisurely breakfast we set out to explore the 4×4 trail on foot, like “Choppie”, the manager, told us later more a playpen than a proper trail. The trail winds through a bit of forest, more alien than indigenous and then makes a loop through a very nice dune field. Also due to the recent rain this section is closed because sections are under water.
An inquisitive ngunu cow came and said hello and then a dune pan made for a nice swimming hole, nice and refreshing I might add.
It was very nice to wander around in the dune field, looking at plant and animal tracks and climbing some to have a view over the dam and the farms.
Got back close to lunchtime but rather opted for some coffee before packing up and then have lunch at Oyster Bay beach, we hadn’t been there for years. For obvious reasons though we couldn’t get there, nature had decided to rearrange things somewhat:
Where there once was a road is now a river, the ablution block is at a bit of a tilt and some of the adjacent properties are also quite under threat.
No problem though, at the far end of town we found ourselves a beautiful spot, complete with dolphin show, a perfect end to a perfect weekend.
