Wake up to the sound of unidentified birds and the river trickling beside our camp. I look out the window of my truck treehouse. Nice place we ended up at here.

“Make me coffee bitch!” We’re a little groggy this morning after knocking out 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of Klipdrift and some dew. “Where’d you put the Powerade?”, “Did you check the freezer?”, “Freezers not the first place I’d look for Powerade”, “Would it be the second?” lol

Jamie reports that he’s somehow lost his pants. Day 1. “Look, we don’t want to know what you guys get up to on the bottom bunk.”

A handful of cute olive colored birds are flitting about, snacking on the lamb we baked into the grill last night.

We get the coffee going and start packing things up. It’s a pretty morning. I still can’t get over the no bugs thing. Or this truck.

“Pass the bumbies my good man.”

Looks like Peter may have crushed some more giant caterpillars by accident on his way back from the facilities. That sucks.

It’s Mark’s maiden voyage with Belinda, let’s see how this goes. As we drive away from camp the side tent pops open and expands. Ho shit! Haha good thing we weren’t on the actual road. Give Drisdelle and Peter the pretend stink eye and hop out to fix it, “I latched it!” The ladder should be more secured too. “Still working out the kinks.”

Ho’k let’s really go this time. Hit the bluegrass and Mark guns it up the hill from the campsites. Pretty orchard on the way out.

This is a good place to test drive Belinda. Lots of space and no other traffic. Mark picks it up quickly enough, having had some right-hand drive practice before in Japan. This Cederburg Wilderness area is great, makes for a pleasant morning drive.

Just before we get to Clanwilliam we pass by a place called Caleta Cove right on the Olifantsrivier. Picturesque spot with brown cottages of some resort looking out on the river.

We pass Clanwillaim and take the R364 West towards Lambert’s Bay figuring we’ll grab lunch there. Taking a left and the wipers go off instead of the blinker haha. “Oh, Belinda Blinks!”, Mark is racking up the accidental windshield wiper tally.

The outskirts of the town are lined with makeshift shanties.

We come round to Lambert’s Bay proper and it’s an odd mix of surfer town, industrial port, medium sketch, and also quaintly attractive. Park up by a corner store and head in for supplies. We pick up some firewood, ice for our future negronis and other random supplies noticeably lacking from our previous run. 

This Pineapple blend looks good w apple &/or grape &/or pear.

Megan had given us a suggestion for lunch here in Lambert’s Bay but unfortunately it doesn’t open for a few hours and we won’t be waiting around for that to happen. A short cruise around the small town brings us to an umbrella’d patio at a place called Isabella’s on the Water.

Isabella’s on the water

The server drops some menus as a troupe of ridiculous three wheeler motorbikes pulls in.

This pretty much sums up our state of being this morning.

Lots of seafood on the menu, we order a rugby platter of fried goodies, some schnitzel, mussels and calamari.

See how it runs? Wow, there’s something tone deaf about this salt

While we’re waiting for the food we get buzzed by a prop plane that’s flying so low and close to the water that we can see it below the table umbrella. Jeeeebuzz

The food comes out and it looks like a glorious spread of fried mess and seafood.

I can’t speak to the seafood, but unfortunately the fried mess is just that and somewhat overcooked and tasteless. Schnitzel is disappointing. The highlight is the sausage actually. It’s hard to meet the high expectations that Bertus Basson left us with yesterday. But we still stuff it all in our hungover guts regardless in the hopes it will soak up our ‘mistakes’ from last night and fill the void until our next stop.

Afterwards we take a second down by the waterfront and quietly watch some fishermen put out to sea.

We’ve got a good amount of time left in the day to drive. Hopefully we can find the amazing camping spot that the owner of The Backpack was talking about in Namaqua. She said something about the diamond coast and maybe not being allowed in there. Diamond hunters. Or miners? Diamonds on the beach and in the bellies of the ostriches that eat them? I dunno. We’re on the case…