#Travel

Centurion, an anonymous no man’s land between Joburg and Pretoria, is home to a magical place called Buyuk Chamlija: a self-described “Socio Eco Techno Village” that grows fat, juicy pomegranates and has a Turkish restaurant shaped like a beehive.

Read Quirky South Africa Part 1, about padstals, and Quirky South Africa Part 2, about Bethulie and the Gariep Dam.

I was talking to some South African friends about my visit to the Garden Route recently, and one of them said: “Maybe this is a dumb question. But what is the Garden Route, exactly?” And I realized that even though I’ve been there multiple times I did not exactly know.

This post is not part of my Hidden Joburg series, which I started last year (and will eventually return to). But it should be. St. Alban’s Anglican Mission Church in Ferreirasdorp would have been a perfect addition to the Hidden Joburg book and I don’t know why it was left out. This church is so hidden, you can’t even see it on Google Street view.

As described in my previous post, my mom and I took a road trip from Joburg to the Garden Route and back. Along the way we stopped over in Bethulie for a journey through South African history and a drive around the Gariep Dam, among other things.

My mom came for a visit and the two of us took a weeklong road trip through the South African platteland (Afrikaans for countryside). We drove from Joburg to Bethulie, Bethulie to the Garden Route, up through the Karoo Desert to Hanover, and then back to Joburg.