Middle-aged flash packers

S and I had upset tummies this morning. Not sure why. We ate at Barringtons last night, an upmarket craft brewery and restaurant in Plett. We had the taster beers as drinks – maybe one of those wasn’t quite right. Also there has been lots of problems with water pressure while we’ve been here, sometimes the water looks quite cloudy. Whatever, we weren’t feeling our best. However, we had earmarked today as our second and final attempt to visit Tsitsikamma National Park after our abortive attempt yesterday.

The drive up was similar to yesterday – grey cloud and not very warm – but at least it wasn’t raining. On arrival, we were asked all sorts of officious and strange questions such as did we have a cat with us? Very strange. We then both had to sign a book and pay an extortionate amount for the privilege of setting foot in the park.

There are day visitors and there are visitors who stay overnight or even for several days. There are also a few who do the much lauded Otter Trail. (It starts from Storms River Mouth. No doubt they are fleeced too)

As a day visitor, you are treated with barely concealed contempt, even though they’ve taken loads of your money.

You are made to park on the road. The toilets are disgusting with no locks on the doors. (Great for when you’ve got a bad tummy.) There are only a few trails you can do and there are signs forbidding you from going any further.

In contrast, if you are staying in the park , you get loads of parking, a beautiful chalet or plot to park your caravan, pristine toilets and can presumably wander all over the place.

We were permitted to see and walk on the three suspension bridges that span Storms River Mouth, but not allowed to go anywhere once you’d got to the end of them. In a fit of pique, we looked at them but refused to walk across them. What was the point? Plus as it’s one of the few places day visitors can go, it was mobbed. The bridges that went nowhere apart for the lucky few. Plus they were very poor specimens. Call them suspension bridges? Clearly they have never seen the Trift bridge in Switzerland or indeed any bridge in Nepal.

We’d come all this way, so decided to do the waterfall trail, one of the few we were permitted to do. It was billed as extremely difficult and I have to say it wasn’t easy once you reached the rocks and boulders that lined the shore. One part was quite high and if the rocks had been wet and you slipped, you could severely injure yourself.

There is a big cave on the way to the waterfall called Guano Cave that you can walk into and see bats. You have to walk quite a long way in to see them and it’s very narrow, but if you like bats, apparently there’s plenty in there.

We valiantly carried on along the trail, despite being told the waterfall was only a trickle, but after another 30 minutes battling the boulders we decided to turn back. The scenery was far less spectacular than Robberg and it just didn’t seem worth the effort to carry on.

As we drove out of the park at 3.15pm, there were still plenty of people trying to get in. Maybe they were all weekenders, going to either stay or do the Otter Trail. Otherwise I just don’t get it. For me Robberg Reserve wins hands down.