Knysna is among other things famous for its wood work. It is also a tourist attraction and a place for retirement. It has a mild climate. We went there to have a view on the wood craft they make in Knysna. Manfred had a special shop in mind, with lots of interesting items in it. However, the shop was gone. Now there is a video shop in it. Things change. However, we went into another shop, a furniture store. They have lots of different kinds of wooden furniture and decorative items. In all the different wood types available in the region.

While the wood craft part was not a full success, we did some shopping. Manfred needs souvenirs (mitbringsel to be precise) for the people in Germany when he is doing his “home assignment” in Germany. I also got something, but I will not got into too much detail about it right now.

While shopping and sightseeing, I took several photos.

The houses are quite nice and have a typical style. I guess it is some colonial style buildings. Also we found a fountain made out of old machine parts. The town center is very open and “Europeanish”, because people walk on sidewalks. If they would remove the cars and make a pedestrian area out of it, it would look like an Dutch town mixed with a German street village. After a while walking around, we had a capuccino in a nice cafe. The we died some shopping at little shops on the street and went back to the car and on our way to George.

The route from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth is called Garden Route, because a lot of different climate zones can be found along the route. Our first stop on the way to Port Elizabeth was Knysna. On the way there we passed several different climate sceneries, which looked like Canada, Switzerland, Spain, etc. On one side of the mountain we had wine grapes and just ten minutes later, in the next valley, there were apples and  wheat.

I also made two (well I actually made a lot more, but only two pictures are really usable) photos of a township on the trip to Knysna. One shows the average township in South Africa. It is the one with the metal and wood-based huts. However, as I already mentioned in the blog, the South African government tries to develop these areas. Therefore they help building the people so called slef-starter-homes. These homes are stonewalled huts with a height so that a human can actually stand in them. These homes are design to be extended by additional rooms. Therefore one wall of the hut is prepared to have an extra door. Therefore the bricks are arranged in a way that some of them can be removed without damaging the wall.