Alongside the N2, lying just on the outskirts of Heidelberg (and conspicuous thanks to the bright blue roof), is the Blue Crane Farm Shop, a long time favourite with travellers tackling the long road between the Garden Route and Cape Town.
Home to a proper farm stall selling all kinds of home made goodies and baked treats, Blue Crane is also a small restaurant, serving a selection of simple but delicious foods – making it a great stop if your stomach is bugging you to take a break from your roadtrip.
Jessica and I stopped there for the very first time back in March this year, and we both loved the little treats on offer, colourful walls, and the superb mural decorating the wall of one of the main dining rooms.
Also, their blue cheese burger was rather nice! ;)
Great little spot to stop and stretch your legs if you don’t feel like the hustle and bustle that inevitably comes with pulling over in a town whilst on the N2.
Bonus: Seeing as we were on that road anyway, I decided to do an impromptu turn off at the now defunct (and ghost town feeling) bungee jump station at Gouritz River Bridge.
This was the first (and super popular) Bungee Jump station in South Africa, and operated for about 18 years, before shutting up shop for good in 2008 over safety concerns stemming from the rusted, crumbling infrastructure on which both the bungee and rope swinging operations depended on.
Opened in 1983 following a construction period that lasted three years, the Bloukrans Bridge is an arch bridge on the national N2 highway near Nature’s Valley, at the border between the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape in the Tsitsikamma area of South Africa’s Garden Route.
Built through a partnership of Murray & Roberts and Concor, and designed by Liebenberg & Stander, the Bloukrans Bridge was constructed by the free suspended cantilever system. That is, every fourth segment – each averaging 5.25 metres in length – is tied back by the BBR suspension cables. At the time of construction, the Bloukrans Bridge was the largest concrete arch bridge in Africa and the fourth largest in the world. The arch alone, has a mass of nearly 12,000 tonnes!
Standing at a height of 216m above the Bloukrans River, the bridge has a central span of 272m, with a length of 451m in total. This road bridge cost aroud R11 million to construct, and also happens to be the site of the world’s highest commercial bungee jumping operation, becoming the first African bridge for bungee jumping in 1990.
Bloukrans Bridge Bungy, operated by Face Adrenalin since 1997 (when the bridge officially opened for bungy jumping), is the current bungee site operator – just in case you want to go and have a closer look at this engineering marvel!
