Having left Lesotho, we had two main items in our calendar for the rest of the year: we had two nights booked in Addo Elephant Park from December 17-19 and then a family gathering in Knysna starting from December 21, give-or-take (my wife is half South African, so we’re making the most of this leg to enjoy a family Christmas).
We left Lesotho on December 14, so had a few days to kill before needing to be in Addo. We had a couple of options: head southeast to the Wild Coast or head southwest to the Karoo. As we expected to b having quite a bit of coast (and beach) time along the Garden Route, we opted for desert and headed towards the Karoo.
Our first stop was completely arbitrary, in Aliwal North. We found a B&B that had a couple of camping spots and so cracked open the tents for the first time since California. This felt strange but good: I was just happy we hadn’t been carrying them around the world for 5 months for no reason (it would certainly have made life easier to…