Living in Wilderness

Hokay, so today's blog post isn't much. This is due in part to the fact that I was feeling less than spectacular yesterday after combining a really late night, certain culinary indulgences and an early rise in the morning to finish off some work (including an article for my column on NAG online – oh look, purely accidental advertising, y'all!) that I'd originally meant to get out of the way before deciding that the time would be spent better choking on oysters.

Also, it's April Fool's Day. I cannot express just how much I hate the Internet, television and in fact just about any form of media over these next few hours.

I'm currently staying in Wilderness. Not the wilderness: just “Wilderness”. It's a little slice of coastal heaven situated between George and Knysna, and depending on your fancy, you can either stay by the beach or wander into the forest for two equally touristy experiences.

Given the way I was feeling yesterday, I honestly couldn't give a damn and headed for the Beach House lodge. It's not a bad place: the location is great, for a start.

“Fifty metres from the beach,” they said. “Straight down, of course.”

Unfortunately, this place serves as an example of the value of asking about prices before making sleeping plans. This was another of those R120 monsters which came equipped with several extras that I didn't particularly want or need (though the on-call masseuse would have been pretty kickass if I'd had the money for it). Granted, the beds were absolutely fantastic.

Humble at first glance, eh? Ahhh, the cunning ways of furniture!

These have to be by far the most comfortable sleeping devices I've encountered on my Garden Route trip. You get lots of snuggly clean blankets, the pillows are just plain awesome for some reason (I suspect they've been dipped in meth) and I slept very soundly. Granted, me feeling absolutely crap was probably a contributing factor to the enthusiasm with which I received the bunks, but the only drawback that I could really fathom was that they weren't, you know, king-sized. Of course, there IS the annoying little fact that they're equipped with some sort of experimental sonar facility: every time somebody walked near the bed, it would somehow resonate through the floor, go up the legs of the bed and transfer itself to the rumble pad that had been stealthily hidden in my mattress. So I guess that's 8.5 out of 10.

As a final note, the bathrooms are totally super-duper:

MIRRORS!

I probably spent more time in here trying (in vain) to snap cool photos than anywhere else. I'm a pretty weird tourist sometimes.

Also, http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/.