KNYSNA (Day 8)

Fortunately the rain had stopped. We headed to a small cafe to warm up and plan our day. Knysna (pronounced Nysna) is located on the shores of a large lagoon where the Knysna River meets the Indian Ocean. The deep channel which leads to the sea is lined by a pair of imposing cliffs known as The Heads.

We booked a tour for the afternoon, then visited the Mitchell's Knysna Brewery. We had some delicious samples and got a wonderful tour from Natalie.

We then met with Tom and Chris for our abseiling (or rappelling) tour. [We decided to skip the kayaking tour since the water was far too choppy... which tended to attract sharks!] We hiked up to the western Head through the Featherbed Nature Resesrve. Our first site, called Nature's Arch, was to serve as our training cliff at a mere 98 feet high. We got some instruction and then over we went! Afterwards came Needle's Point, a 180 foot descent onto a rocky beach. What they didn't tell us at the top (but rather called down to us once we were standing on the beach) was that the hiking trail back up 'might' have some puff adders (large venomous vipers) and that we should be sure to walk up in pairs. An option for the final run was to go down face first (called rap jumping).

We had a delicious homemade dinner at the hostel, a few beers, and had some lovely conversations with our fellow guests.

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