The day before we left Jeffrey's Bay we thought we would go and do a little shopping and browsing at the local outlets. To our surprise we found them all closed on a Saturday afternoon. Thus we learned of one of South Africa's local traditions; shops close up at about 3 p.m. on a Saturday. Fortunately they were open for a few hours on Sunday morning so we stopped in before we hit the road.

Our next destination was a town called Plettenberg Bay down the coast about two hours or so. The sun was out, which pleased us after a couple of windy, rainy days. The drive wasn't too bad and the coastal scenery started to improve with mountains coming closer to the sea making for more drama. There are a lot of small rivers that come out of the mountains and empty into the sea creating great cracks in the landscape. We stopped at the Storms River to admire one such gully.

About half way along to Plett we made a detour to check out Nature's Valley. This is a nature preserve at a river mouth which has a big sand beach and a lagoon. It was quite windy but we wandered out to the beach and admired the views. There were a few families having a Sunday afternoon braai. Braai is the South African term for a barbeque. It's also a favorite national pastime, to which we can easily relate!

The lagoon

Sea snails devouring a blue bottle jelly

We arrived in Plettenberg Bay in mid-afternoon and found Bayside Lodge, our B & B. Our room was delightful with lots of natural light and the gardens were fragrant with jasmine and roses. Adrienne and Bernie, our hosts, purchased Bayside Lodge about 7 months ago having moved back to South Africa from Botswana where they managed several safari lodges. We got a nice orientation from Adrienne, decided on a venue for dinner which she booked for us, and settled in for a sundowner on the patio, where I did some writing.

Our dinner at The Fat Fish was good with the atmosphere quite busy and boisterous. I enjoyed a local fish called Kingclip. We have found the quality of the food to be very high in South Africa. In addition it is also quite reasonably priced. Of course it helps that the dollar is pretty strong right now, but in general, food is cheap and drink is cheaper! A glass of wine is about $3 and a beer $2.