First day's 7th leg De Hoop restuarant and Campsite

This continues the series of my Motorcycle Adventure travels from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth which is the first goal, over a two day period. Details of the whole trip here.

I'd finally arrived at the end of the first day's travel, rather tired and weary. I went to setup the tent so as to settle down for some food and wine at the restaurant, but for the life of me could not find the campsite as there were road markers to everywhere else except the campsite. How many signs to the "camp manager's house" were really needed I wondered having seen about three?

I went into the reception and found someone who could direct me to the campsite but their directions were so vague I ended up having to come back again and clarify! Third time lucky, and I nearly ran into a lone tall ostrich on the now rather dark road.

Finally I found the camp area but then could not find any campsite that had a soft grass area for a small one man tent. Most people were there in 4x4s with fancy roof tents, fold out trailers or canvas 4 bedroomed houses with jacuzzi's (not), etc. I realised I was going to have to simply sleep on solid rock hard gravel, with only a sleeping bag. I was too tired to care really.

Then I pulled the tent out and all that appeared was a sleeping bag, a tent outer rain cover and some pegs and poles. The base actual main tent part was missing! All I could hope for was that the tent inner was in my sleeping bag. Fortunately it was and I breathed a huge sigh of relief and pitched the tent. I'd had someone else wash and dry and repack my tent and sleeping bag from a previous trip to Mozambique. Made mental note to check before hand in future. I freshend up with a shower, change of clothes and went to the restaurant.

This is where the surprise of the day hit me. I was offered a 3 course set meal, which I didn't really think I needed, not feeling hungry enough since I'd had a large lunch. The idea of a nice steak and some red wine and sparkling water was what I'd imagined. They could only do the three course meal but the waitress said it was excellent and so I went for it. WOW! I am so happy I did, it was fantastic!

A five star meal like you'd have expected in the middle of a good restaurant in Cape Town or London. I can't remember what they called the starter but it was incredible. Then the main coarse was a beef dish where the beef was melt in the mouth soft and so tasty, the apparently not so hungry me polished it off in no time aided by a few glasses of red and a litre of spakling water (I was really dehydrated). Still found room for desert - a melba dish and a double espresso.

Picture taken on my mobile phone

I had planned to setup my laptop and mobile to do some tweeting and blogging, but through it would spoil the ambiance if I got it out in this environment, but any way I was tired and needed sleep.

In the morning I took a few more pictures so you could see the campsite in the day-light.

Some visitors to my home

Nice hard floor in the tent!

View from the front porch

Beautiful - right in the Africa Bush proper

I very reluctantly left without even popping down to the sea in the morning, as i knew I had a long way to go again today. I had even further to go today than yesterday as I'd not managed to make it half way the first day.

More tours on our list of tour route summaries are available, where we explore these sorts of motorcycle adventure tour routes. Just choose one of our events and reserve yourself a place on one of the future motorcycle adventure safari events. 

Check out our Facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/Africa4Adventure.MotorbikeTours
Check out our Blog site: http://africa4adventure-motorbiketours.blogspot.com/
Check out the main website: http://www.africa4adventure.com