While doing a three month trip around South Africa in 2014, we managed to turn my little Ford Ka into a 4×4 in its own right (without meaning to of course). This was still in the days of accommodation specials on Groupon and spending most of our nights camping, we really needed to do the occasional night in a hotel.
One such night was to a place I’d always dreamed about staying because their rooms actually look like you’re sleeping inside a cave. I thought this was truly amazing and really unique. So, when Kagga Kamma came on Groupon for half its original price, I was like “Hell Yes”.
I’m usually pretty good at searching for directions beforehand, but when looking on the map, it looked like we would have to do a short amount of driving on gravel/sand (like 2 kms) and then the rest of the way would be tarred. Oh how wrong I was.
I am always of the impression that it is a good idea to leave incredibly early, just in case something happens a long the way, so we gave ourselves more than 3 hours to arrive at our destination in time. I was sure it would be more than enough time.
So we started off on what should have been a short bit of gravel (it ended up being about 20kms) and if that wasn’t enough, it started to rain, it was incredibly misty (like we were actually driving through the clouds) and we had to climb some serious hills with no railings to prevent us from crashing to our deaths.
I was terrified the whole time. I don’t like driving in the rain as it is, but now we were driving on a muddy road, up a hill and cars and taxis kept passing us; because we couldn’t go more than about 20km an hour. Luckily Luch was driving, because if it was me, I would have climbed out and walked.
It might have only been a road of just over 20km’s long, but it ended up taking us a full 3 hours. Not only that, but I realised the closer we got to our accommodation that it was in a reserve and they probably lock the gate at a specific time. I duly phoned ahead and let them know we would be late, but they said it was no problem.
There were a couple of times on the journey there when both of us thought about just turning around and giving it a skip, but we’d already paid and Jen had so been looking forward to the unique accommodation, that we had to stick with it.
All I kept saying was “Don’t stop Luch, because if you do, I won’t be strong enough to push this car the rest of the way”. I also kept looking over the edge, since we were incredibly close to it and I was starting to get slightly hysterical.
The first time we saw the sign from the main road for Kagga Kamma, was the first time we’d spoken in hours. Jen was so white that I thought she might pass out from relief.
A few minutes after we saw the first sign, we were faced with our first obstacle: a gate to the reserve which was closed and looked incredibly locked. I got out of the car and was about to cry in frustration when I realised that the lock on the gate was actually open. I quickly got back in the car for the last bit of our journey to our room for the night. The only problem was, we had another 16km on yet another gravel road to do before we arrived and it was almost dark already.
To say that I speeded down those last 16km’s was a bit of an understatement. We were both exhausted and just wanted to eat and sleep already. At least the gravel here was relatively dry and not uphill all the way.
When we went to check in after finally parking the car outside our accommodation, they handed us a sherry and asked about our drive there, we just exchanged glances and downed out sherries in one go. I could have kissed the ground I was so happy to be alive!
As we walked to our cave for the night, we were told that the electricity was out, but not to worry as they had a generator. All we wanted was a hot shower and some food. We didn’t care how we got it.
After such a stressful day in the car, the food was the best I’ve ever tasted. It could have been because we weren’t entirely sure we’d make it through the day, but it was great and a glass of wine couldn’t have gone down easier. I even ate dessert, even though I don’t have a big sweet tooth. The only thing that dampened our spirits a bit was the fact that we’d only booked one night and would have to drive out again tomorrow. At least we could take a different road this time.
All in all, we managed to take some beautiful photos in and around our cave bedroom the next day and we’d probably go there again (and our friends have heard the story of that road many times), but next time we’d take another road.
Or just take a 4×4 next time. That would be way more fun! 🙂
I’m usually pretty good at searching for directions beforehand, but when looking on the map, it looked like we would have to do a short amount of driving on gravel/sand (like 2 kms) and then the rest of the way would be tarred. Oh how wrong I was.
