Roadtrip to Cedarberg

One of the things I love most about South Africa is that you don’t have to travel for hundreds of kilometres to be on holiday. Just a few hours drive from any of the major cities can take you out into the wilderness to experience some peace and quiet that makes it feel like you are days away from your normal busy life.

Cape Town is no different. There are dozens of places that offer the opportunity for a great weekend away that don’t require you leaving at 5am just so you reach your destination with half a day still at your disposal. One such place is Cedarberg. This offers a number of great camping spots and great scenery, which myself and a few friends discovered when we decided to take a weekend roadtrip.

Cedarberg is about 200km from Cape Town so the drive should typically be around 2.5 hours. Our trip took a little longer than this due to a few detours (some intentional and some not so intentional ;)). We decided to stop at Blouberg Beach on our way out to eat some breakfast while watching the ocean. This plan didn’t work out as well as we had hoped – it was so windy on the beach that it was impossible to sit and eat there. Instead we went to the Primi that overlooks the beach, where we could have a much hotter, less windy breakfast experience but still see the ocean!

We then officially started our roadtrip. The drive was really beautiful, with lots of gorgeous views and wide open spaces.

After stopping at a shop in Citrusdal to get some food, we started feeling excited, thinking that we must be almost at our destination. But after missing the not so obvious sign for our camping site, we ended up taking an extra 2o minute detour before turning back and finally finding it the second time around! The place we stayed at was called Gecko Creek Lodge and is one of the best camping spots I’ve stayed at. Although you still get the full camping experience, including tents and a camp fire, you also get luxurious, clean bathrooms, a fully equipped communal kitchen, a gorgeous pool and comfortable beds inside the tents! Well worth the slightly steep R180 per night.

There are lots of activities to do in and around the lodge, especially if you enjoy hiking/walking. Although we didn’t have time to go on all the hikes, we did manage to take a short walk to the rock caves on the lodge. Apparently the main attraction of this walk is to see the ancient rock paintings in the caves. However, when we got there we found that these were slightly more faded than they were made out to be! But the walk was still good and very scenic.

The not so obvious rock paintings

We also planned another short walk but this was cut short after we came across a huge puff adder about 10 minutes into our walk! Not too keen to run into any more of these we decided to head back!

The lodge also offers beautiful views of the sunset from the pool, the tents and the eating area.

In the evening you can have a traditional South African braai and then sit by the fire enjoying a beautiful view of the moon (if it happens to be full). Supposedly there are shooting stars every 15 minutes, but we weren’t lucky enough to see one 😦

The trip was a real success and we headed back to Cape Town feeling relaxed and rejuvenated. Of course it wasn’t long before we were sitting in traffic and knew we were back to our everyday lives again!

The Cedarberg is definitely worth seeing if you’re looking for a weekend away. Its a little far for a day drive but with such great camp sites available there’s no reason not to stay overnight.