Hello readers! Alright, so hard truth, I’m 5 weeks and 2 blogs behind schedule and that’s not including all of the bonus posts I was “definitely going to have time to write” about our prep for a year abroad. While I’ve really enjoyed writing down our stories and travels, I underestimated how long it would take to write something coherent and review it at least enough to catch some of my spelling and grammar mistakes. I have a new respect for anyone who writes consistently, be it a journal, blog or book.
The irony is that this next leg of our journey has likely been the longest stay of the year in one location, three weeks, which should have left me copious amounts of time. I am notorious for going in to a weekend with 20 things on our To Do list (sorry Madeline) that I think we should be able to knock out in a few hours and THEN relax. Unfortunately I routinely overestimate my capabilities and after spending a half day on one item fall in to an anxiety/guilt spiral of not doing enough mixed with “Why am I working? I should be enjoying the weekend!”. Healthy right? So, of course, I did the same thing here during our break from traveling. I’m not working, so I can easily convert that eight hours a day into: three blogs, three podcasts, exercising each day, sort the last four years of Google Photos, redo our website and plan the remaining 10 months of travel we have. That was my actual list and, spoiler alert, I did not get it all done.
Obviously missing from the list above was anything related to family, which was THE major reason for going on the trip in the first place. It also doesn’t take into account that while I no longer have 8+ hours of engineering a day, I have 8+ hours of child raising. The energy and negotiation required to convince a toddler to get into a car seat easily exceeds what I’ve had to expend in design reviews for rocket engine test facilities. But enough rambling about all the things I didn’t do, enjoy what we did do as a family together!
Also FYI – we’ve stopped the podcast since this blog has transformed into more than the high-level summary we expected, and it felt, well, redundant at this point. We realized we wanted something different for our kids, specifically, and are now recording more personal stories of our travels to give them one day.
Where Are We?
We’ve returned to South Africa, specifically the town of Noordhoek, 35 minutes south of Cape Town. I did a lot of research (AKA going through Reddit) to find a neighborhood that was still close to the city but oriented more to families. What I found was a suburb at the base of Chapmans Peak, with a beach, restaurants, and parks within walking distance of our Airbnb. We absolutely loved it and fell into a routine that gave us a bit of normalcy. I even got to a point where I didn’t need the GPS to get between the grocery store and home (5 minutes away…)!
The wider area we stayed in is known locally as the “Deep South”. While we definitely felt similar hospitality, the culture was more West Coast than the stereotypical “Deep South” of the USA. The other name for the region is the “Lentil Curtain”, an area of the Cape where hippies and vegetarians go beyond the Table Mountain dividing “curtain” to eat their salads and, well, lentils. The southern peninsula was stunning, with huge rock formations up to the sea’s edge and idyllic beaches and towns scattered in between (one of those being Noordhoek).
The food was extraordinary, and I’ll get to that in a later section, but my hippie embodiment was obsessing over the local flora called Fynbos (“Fine Bush” in Afrikaans). The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest of the six kingdoms on the planet but with by far the highest density with over 9000 species. It blew my mind that this entire massive set of flora was literally located only in this small area of Africa. Madeline initially made fun of me for my odd focus on the local bushes before I eventually recruited her through the fynbos buchu tea and seeing them all flower in the spring. So I guess my 30s hobby will be weird horticultural guy.
South Africa again spoiled us with kid friendly eateries, vineyards and playgrounds everywhere. Things we found at wineries this time: A petting zoo with an ostrich, a restaurant pavilion with six different world cuisines to choose from and an epic mountain bike park with tracks the kids cruised down. Most of our days, though, were spent deciding on which picturesque beach to explore or what nature walk to take through the Fynbos and generally just slowing down.
I’m a type A person who is totally cool with unplanned time as long as it’s on the calendar marked as “unplanned time”. A personal goal of mine from this travel was to try and be more present and while I’ve got a long way to go, our time in Noordhoek was a good first step. We arrived with zero specific plans, unheard of for a Devereaux trip, and took most things day-by-day. Madeline and I each took some one-on-one time with Mae, walking with her to the bakery to get a treat and the conversations I had with my four and three quarter year old are a core memory. These are all things you don’t have to travel literally half-way around the world for, but for us, the shakeup was needed to recognize it.
Favorite Experiences
Here were some of our favorite experiences from our time in the Southern Cape and surrounding areas. I put these on the map along with everywhere else we visited in South Africa at the end of the post for those interested.
Places
- Cape of Good Hope – (header pic) The most Southwesterly point of Africa! This sounds like a singular rock but is a whole national park with multiple beaches, hiking trails and ostriches. We started out with a small hike right at the Point that ended up turning in to half day excursion because it was so beautiful that we kept saying “just one more ridge”. We ended up at Dias beach which was our all time favorite of South Africa. The views from the main visitor and lighthouse were also amazing. We took a full day in the park and still wanted to come back.
- Kalk Bay – Kalk Bay is a small town sitting on the rocks above the eastern side of the Cape known for storm watching since the waves crash right below it on the rocks. We loved walking around the small downtown shops and got fresh caught fish down at the harbor. The fisherman there were awesome with the kids, letting them pick the fish and helping them throw the scraps to the sea lion waiting below. We had dinner at a place (Harbor House) that had floor to ceiling windows that both kids were glued to, watching the waves and kelp forests sway below.
- Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens – Ok, I know, taking kids to a botanical garden doesn’t sound like a great time but these ones were cool. In addition to me getting to nerd out with the Fynbos, the gardens are full of paths for them to explore and roam. There is a “smelling” garden where each plant has a distinct smell that the kids loved and the tree canopy path with bridges that goes up above the forest made a great pretend race track for Emmett. Definitely a must go for anyone who visits Cape Town and likes nature.
- Utsig Bike Park (and Winery)– Another Winery + crazy kids activity location, Utsig had the coolest bike park for kids and adults. We rented strider bikes for the kids and watched them cruise for hours down tracks that initially gave me pause as a parent. Somehow Emmett, our two year old, was going up and down dirt rollers and every time he fell he would just yell “I’m ok!” and keep going. Madeline I enjoyed sitting on a bench watching the kids and also the staff chase baboons out of the bike park 10 feet in front of us.
Food (& Wine)
Where to start, South Africa has been a treat for us foodies. Everywhere we go the food has been well above average with our biggest problem being not enough time to eat at them all. We had a variety of cuisines, but the local favorites were the traditional pap (think extra thick polenta) with sauteed greens/beans, Chakalaka (sweet beans/cabbage mix) and the Cape Malay foods such as sweet curries and Bobotie (kind of like a shepherds pie with egg custard on top). The ingredients took center stage, with most items being locally sourced. The carrots at the grocery store were sweetest and tastiest I’ve ever had.
- The Food Barn – The Food Barn is in my top five restaurants of all time. It was so good that we went back four separate times to make sure we tried their breakfast, lunch and dinner. They had the best shared plates, in house custom wine blends and the best viewable-from-the-table playground to date. Not food related, but they also had a restaurant cat with special seat and a cat door. Did I mention the head chef’s name is Franck DANGERAUX!?!?
- Lake Side Provisions – This place in Kalk Bay was in the back of a clothing store and we only went in because we were reaching the danger point of “hangry”. It turned out to be a great lunch, but made the list because of the atmosphere and staff. We sat next to a wood burning fire enjoying hot drinks and the staff played with the kids. At some point in the past, a waiter cleared Emmett’s plate before he was done and that atrocity has been seared in to his brain. Now whenever someone comes near him he just yells “I’m still eating!”. The staff had fun pretending to come take his plate and he would yell and then laugh.
- The Coffee Guys – What’s not to love about a coffee shop that is blaring reggae music at a plant nursery? The kids got babychinos (steamed milks with chocolate powder on top) and we all got to pick out a rusk (think really hard cookie) from the jars filled with them at the checkout. My favorite part was when someone on a horse came up and ordered coffee, while remaining on the horse, of course.
Family Moments
- Walking to the Farm Village – Our Airbnb in Noordhoek was walking distance to what I can best describe as a commune of stores and restaurants called the Farm Village. The walk to the Village went past a Horse Park (think dog park but for horses) hopping stones across a stream and a string of trees where someone had put tiny little fairy doors in them. When we arrived the kids would runoff to the fenced in playground while we got to shop, drink coffee or fresh pressed juice and figure out what to do that day. I badly want recreate this in the States, so if anyone has a few acres and is a world class chef, let me know.
- A Typical Day – It’s not a specific event, but just in general what our days looked like while here. We would start with an easy morning of making breakfast at home at 7 am when Mae would come in and tell us how she was “super duper duper hungry”. We would then go to our list of beaches and towns to visit, choose one, load up and head out for the morning. We’d eat a tasty lunch while the kids played on the adjacent playground before coming home for an afternoon of naps, pretend play and watching the sunset. Mae and Emmett shared a bed, so bedtime was one of us reading to them both and then snuggling them until they fell asleep.
- Per Mae (4 Yr Old): Favorite moment was “Fairy Doors” – Mae’s favorite thing from our time in Noordhoek were the fairy doors I mentioned above at the nearby park. She loved finding all of them and then individually showing Madeline, Emmett and me each door to make sure we knew where each one was and what kind of fairy might live there.
- Per Emmett (2 Yr Old): Favorite moment was “Ice Cream” – Normally I’d say this is just a generic answer for what a two year old likes, but he actually specifically talked about the time he got chocolate and Mae got honeycomb, which was at the Farm Village in Noordhoek with the amazing playground.
Tips & Lessons Learned
This is where we put all of the things we learned along the way about traveling in the region as well as traveling in general with toddlers.
About South Africa:
- Prior Lessons – The lessons we learned from our prior time in Cape Town are still true: Blog Link
- Southern Cape for Families – For families looking for more space and kid friendly activities I can’t recommend the Southern Cape towns and Constantia area enough. We could have spent months here and still not see all of the beaches and play parks.
About Traveling with Toddlers:
- Get a Ream of Paper – This sounds silly, but our best purchase for the longer stay was a ream of printer paper that we could use for coloring, paper airplanes, boxes, Mae and Emmet Bucks (paper money), books and all sorts of pretend items. Each day Mae would pick a new Disney princess and I would look up a youtube video of how to draw it and then she would color it and keep her pile of paper princesses in her backpack.
- Take 1-on-1 Days – Traveling all together as a family is rewarding but we found the kids were missing some of the 1-on-1 time we had at home with them. We did a few 1-on-1 days where Me and Mae would go to the bakery together or Madeline and Emmett go to the beach. Getting that individual attention helped overall regulate moods (all of ours) and made some really fun memories.
Such a great trip! The Cape flora is famous among bulb and alpine gardeners. Glad you made it to the Botanical Gardens, ranked among the best in the world. I Don’t gain too much weight from all the great food!
Classic 3! A friend recently told me “Your ambition is greater than your follow through.” Um, rude, but not untrue! 😉 Sounds like overall a wonderful adventure so far! Hopefully you can give yourself a break and relax a little, too!