We didn't expect this!

We had made arrangements with a couchsurfer who offered us a place to stay at a "nature reserve". It's located about 70 kms (44 miles) north of Cape Town, on the Atlantic Ocean.

It's actually in the opposite direction of what we were planning, but it was described to us as being a bit remote and "not ideal for some couchsurfers but possibly heaven for some", so we figured it would be worth the detour.

But we weren't quite sure what to expect.

We left Mark's place in Cape Town at around 11:30am. A little later than planned, however we it wasn't going to be that far, and we only had to make sure we got there before 4:30pm, so we still had lots of time. We don't have a GPS with us, although we had bought a South Africa road atlas. The map of the city area wasn't that detailed though, so I made some notes from google maps, and off we went.

Made it through the city without a problem, and found our  way onto the coast road heading north through the beach communities of Bloubergstrand and Melkbosstrand.

We stopped at Blouberg Beach to watch the kitesurfers having fun.

Looking back at Cape Town and Table Mountain.

The peak to the far right is Lion's Head Mountain. That's the one we climbed the other day. Devil's Peak is on the far left, with Table Mountain of course in the middle. We never made it up Table Mountain because of the weather, but we hope to do so when we return to this area at the end of February.

Blouberg beach is really popular with the kitesurfers.

Looks like fun!

Yikes!

This is our car for the next couple of months.

We carried on and stopped again in Melkbos. Bought some groceries and wine and beer. Food prices are much cheaper here than in Namibia, and seem quite a bit cheaper than Cape Town itself. A package of three boneless skinless chicken breasts was only R23.7 ($2.52), and we bought a package of grapes for only R7.99 (85 cents).

Bought a 5 litre box of white wine, a bottle of red wine, and 24 beer. Total for all items was R287.94 ($30.52). Nice!

We carried on, and found the entrance gate to Jakkalsfontein, a private nature preserve. Spoke to the guard and he gave us a map and directions to Leoni's house. It was another 4 kms (2.5 miles) to the house.

We expected from the description that it would be a fairly rustic, older cottage. We certainly didn't expect the beautiful home with the stunning views right on the beach! Leoni wasn't home when we got there, but the cleaning lady showed us to our room. 

We set our bags down and said "wow".

Our bedroom.

I think there will be a few hours spent looking at this!

There was another couchsurfer here already, a young girl from Germany. So we sat and spoke to Angie until Leoni got home around 6:00pm. Ruth made us all a Thai curry for dinner, and we sat around and got acquainted in the evening.