The best Currywurst on the Garden Route

Everybody has their preferred road trip food and drink stops.  Some like to pull over at a Wimpy for their favorite coffee, stop at the same farm stall for a pie and fresh pineapple juice or that certain restaurant where the owner is also the chef and makes his pizza bases himself before popping it into the wood fire oven.  I don't travel on the Garden Route as often as I would like to, but my fav Garden Route food stop at the moment is Jan's Wurst Express (@WurstExpress) in Sedgefield. 

Jan serves the most delectable curry wurst from his mobile food trailer next to the N2 from Tuesdays to Fridays while he sets up at the popular Mosaic Market on Saturdays.  The Currywurst is grilled bratwurst, sliced and served with Jan's own home made curry sauce (flip, but my mouth is watering just thinking of it right now), a bit of curry powder sprinkled over and next to a crisp bun.  This is an absolute winner.  Best of all, Jan rewards his regular customers with a loyalty car which will give you every 10th purchase for free.  I've got to be honest and say that I have never stopped there and not seen locals stop for their daily Currywurst fix.  Wonder when my next trip is down that way *checks calendar*

The Cormorant and the Kingfisher

"Hey bro, my wings are bigger than yours"

 

A Cormorant and Pied Kingfisher sitting at the end of a jetty on Groenvlei outside Sedgefield

Groenvlei jetty

The lakes district between Knysna and Wilderness on the Garden Route is made up of a series of lakes, most of them visible from the N2 itself.  Out of all those lakes, Groenvlei - just east of Sedgefield - is the only one that is a fresh water lake and without an inlet or an outlet.  The lake is maintained by rainwater and springs alone.  There are very strict restrictions on boating on Groenvlei with only electric motors, and no outboard motors, allowed.  The lake contains largemouth bass and is one of only a few lakes in the country that has them occur there naturally.

Swartvlei

The area between Sedgefield and Wilderness on the Garden Route is known as the lakes district with five lakes found here.  The biggest of these lakes is Swartvlei just to the west of Sedgefield.  Swartvlei is the only one of these lakes that embraces a lake, lagoon and estuary and is clearly divided into a fresh water section in its upper region and a salt water section in the estuarine area where the tides have an influence.  The main Swartvlei lake visible on the left as you drive eastwards on the N2 is a drowned river valley created 16000 - 45000 years ago by the merging of three rivers, the Hôekraal, Wolwe and Karatara.  The waters gradually receded to a lake in the deepest depression and is darkened by the humic forest vegetation through which the rivers flow.

Paragliders over Sedgefield

Sedgefield is a very popular paragliding destination and you can often look up from town and see a number of paragliders leisurely hanging overhead.  A slow (but still adrenalin filled for first timers) sport for an official Slow Town.  Looking up from the Steam Whistle Stop Cafe at Sedgefield Station this was the scene with my last visit.

A slightly closer look

Sedgefield Easter Egg Drop

One of the events that was held during the recent Sedgefield Slow Festival was an Easter Egg drop on the beach next to the Swartvlei lagoon.  The crowd that turned up exceeded the wildest expectations of the organisers, so the kids were split up into three groups according to age and size.

After the splitting of the kids (nearly as hard as the splitting of an atom) were finally done, the wait started. Everybody was scanning the horizon as the Easter Bunny (who seemed to have forgotten his suit) was making his Easter egg drop from a paraglider.  He came by three times to make drops for each group and with each pass the chaos just increased as with anything that involves throngs and throngs of kids.

 ...and they are off...  Fastest in front and unfortunately the smallest in the back

Hey! Whay is there a mother with curlers in her hair picking up eggs in the middle of the picture? LOL! I just couldn't halp but laugh.  She ran with her daughter and got so into the thing that she also dived down to pick up.  Unfortunately the turnout, as mentioned, was a lot more than expected which meant the they didn't have enough eggs for all the kids which in my book was a big FAIL!  A number of parents, me included, gave the main organiser on the beach an ear full before taking our very disappointed kids back to the cars to try and make it up to them elsewhere.  I have received the reassurance that for next year's event they will make sure that there are enough.  I hope so, cause I will be there to check up on their promise... 

Sedgefield Slow Festival parade

The town of Sedgefield on the Garden Route was confirmed as Africa’s first Cittaslow Town by the International Cittaslow movement at the end of 2010.  Inspired by the concept of ‘slow food’, Cittaslow is a worldwide membership organisation promoting quality of life and resisting fast-lane lifestyle.  As part of their continued celebration of being a Slow Town, Sedgefield had their Slow Festival over Easter weekend.  One of the highlights of the festival was the parade through town which was led by the newly crowned Miss Slow Festival on the back of the red vintage car.

Behind the vintage cars came Sedgefield's own Chinese style dragon / bird / something else.  The team of the Smutsville performers operating it was awesome bobbing and weaving at the tune of the music and "scaring" little kids and dogs.

 The music was provided by the brilliant local church marching band from St. James and the two guys on the trumpets didn't hold back one little bit.

Following them was the most popular part of the parade.  Life sized animal puppets by Roger Titley who also created the ‘Elephant puppets’ that did the closing ceremony for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

The animals included everything from geese to a sea horse and just about every four legged wild animal you can imagine.

 Following right in the back of the parade was the epitome of slow... a snail

The best part of the parade was that as it past the people lining the street, everybody just joined in and walked along.  Here Drama Princess is having a chat with the two warthogs...

... while Chaos Boy is getting a bit closer acquainted with the T Rex.

Steam Whistle Stop at Sedgefield Station

The Sedgefield Station was a popular spot with tourists while the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe was still running past there twice a day, but since the tracks were damaged in the floods of 2006, traffic to the station has slowed down... drastically.  

This wasn't good news for Joe and Louisa who own the Steam Whistle Stop coffee shop in the old station building and saw a great part of their business turnover leave with the last train.  But they didn't give up and kept pushing on.  They still greeted everybody that came in with a hearty smile and knew most of their regulars on a first name basis.  They still kept on producing the most scrumptious breakfasts and the best pies on the Garden Route.  They persevered.

We headed out to Sedgefield for breakfast while where were in Knysna and enjoyed their warm hospitality right next to the cosy fireplace.  Although we had breakfast, I ventured behind the counter for a closer look at Joe's pies that make people do special trips to Sedgefield. Yummy. By the way, their Apple Crumble "pie" is the best I have every had.

The previous week there was a feature about Sedgefield on the Afrikaans lifestyle magazine show Pasella (see Knysna Tourism article) and during the insert they showed a bicycle made by a local gentleman that he rides with on the train tracks.  As luck would have it he was taking a rest at the station when we were there and we all had a chance to try out the bike.  Here Drama Princess is taking a turn after initially not wanting to go when we had a ride.

Fairy Garden

About halfway between the towns of Sedgefield and Wilderness on the Garden Route is a spot called Timbervillage.  Having never stopped there before, I decided to pull over and check it out.  It consists of a number of shops and eateries housed in timber buildings similar to those the woodcutters and gold miners in the area used to live in.  One of the shops is a fairy shop selling little fairies and other mythical creatures while they also maintain a fairy garden next door.  Here are a couple of photos from the fairy garden.