Our Wild Journey Travel diary

SOUTH AFRICA

Sunday 5th July - Sunday 12th July 2009

...after just a few minutes of paperwork on the Namibian side we crossed over to South Africa and as Mata Mata is only a tourist borderpoint for the Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park (opened in 2007) there was no South African immigration and customs - this would be in Twee Rivieren at the exit of the park.
People who use this border crossing MUST stay in the park for at least 2 nights, which is ok, because from one gate to the next it's about 300 km and there is a lot of wildlife to see in the park. The park is quite well organized, camping is relatively cheap with 6 USD per person in fenced or unfenced campsites with hot water, kitchen, electricity, fireplaces, even swimming pools or a petrol station! And with purchasing a "Wild Card", which we did, park entry fees are free and unlimited during a year's time.

We chose to camp in the Nossob campsite, which was fenced and full of people, because the kids here have half-term holidays. (When we arrived at the Mata Mata entry they told us we had to book in advance, but managed to find place for us, which was Nossob.) On our way along the dry rivers Auob and then Nossob we were lucky to see a lot of animals, wildebeests, oryx (gemsbok), springbok and fortunately also a female cheetah with 4 young cubs feeding on a freshly hunted springbok. We took a few photos and moved on towards the camp. The first evening we spent in good company with Lyzelle and Jannie and Sonya and Gerd, all South Africans, which were surprised and impressed by our way through Africa, and jackals, which were howling outside the fence, smelling all the good food inside the camp! (In Zimbabwe they warned us against hyena, in Namibia and South Africa it's about jackals, which would love to sit next to one's fire and taste good human food :o) ) The next day, on our morning safari-drive, we came across a pride of 6 lions, 5 youngsters with her mum and a jackal "dancing with the mice", trying to get them out of their hole. Together with other animals we saw we had quite a good day (except the horribly corrugated roads). In the evening we watched 2 more jackals close to the fence (2m away), they were still hoping someone would let them in. At night we got woken up by a terribly loud roar - a lion. But it was too cold, temperatures going against 0, so we stayed in the sleeping bag. The next morning our neighbour told us that there was obviously a pride of grown up lions making noise right behind the fence. 2 even managed to get into the camp, but only across the lower fence close to the generator. Scary!
That morning we had gotten up first, because then there is more chance of seeing animals on the road. We drove and Andrea saw the lioness in the grass. As soon as our car stopped there, all 5 youngsters came out of the bush, running towards our car with big eyes (sort of saying "yeah, our toy is here!!!"). 2 hours we spent with them, they sniffed the car, they licked it and they even tried to chew on the tyres, which fortunately they didn't destroy. Then came Gert and Erica with their kids and now we were 2 cars - the young lions tasted their car as well and stole his extra mirror, just ripped it off and one was deliciously chewing on it in the grass - a narcissistic lion! :o) These 2 hours were really great, a fantastic experience with these 6 lions...we took loads of photos and filmed a lot. Then we left them to relax and went back to camp with Gert and Erica to exchange photos of our cars being eaten by lions. :o) These 2 guys have made a book "Guide to the Anglo-Boer war in the Eastern Transvaal", outlining the history of the war between the British and the South African Boers, which they published by themselves. We had a long, very nice chat with them, but unfortunately had to leave as time was pressing...we hope to catch up with them at another time. On the way to the Botswanian side of the park we noticed a lion with a fresh kill (oryx) and a gang of jackals hanging around hoping to get a snack too. The last night we spent in the unfenced Rooiputs camp in Botswana, but except some distant howling of jackals we heard nothing else.

On the immigration post at the Twee Rivieren exit of the park they surprised us. In their old computer system they had written that Czech people need a visa to South Africa. Our pulse went up, but the official made a few phone calls and found out that this was old info. Phew! He apologized, stamped us and off we went into South Africa. We don't need to mention much that trying to call Andrea's embassy was to no avail, during the office hours we couldn't reach no one within 30 min! Sad! Well, we continued towards the Cederberg Mountains Wilderness Area. As usual, all the area along the way is fenced, all farms, around Upington and Calvinia we also saw some vineyards. From Calvinia down towards Clanwilliam on the side roads is an area where there are lots of wildflowers, the landscape blossoming in all different colors. Unfortunately we were 2 weeks early, but the area was still nice, lush and green, a few wildflowers among the mountainous landscapes. Here we also saw a lot of citrus plantations in the beautiful valleys along the Olifants River. At the outlines of the Cederberg mountains we came over a pass and down into Clanwilliam - the centre of Rooibos, red bush tea. Rooibos is a relatively small plant, more a shrub. The plant is not used for tea in the first year, only pruned. From the second year on they cut the plant off completely above knee-height. The branches are then cut, crushed and spread out to ferment (this only happens when the branches are crushed), where they get the red colour. Finally the broken pieces are graded and put on a giant "hairdryer" to dry them. Each rooibos plant is used for 6 years, then the plants are ripped out and the field left barren for 6 years as well. We visited a Rooibos factory (big exporter, also to Europe), tasted their tea and bought some rooibos. Other than that we stocked up on food etc in Clanwilliam. Through a dirt road we got into the Cederberg National Park, which is a very mountainous area, good for trekking, here one gets calm and fresh air. We visited a bushman's cave with paintings between 300 and 6000 years old, then we camped at Stadsal, a "city of caves" in the rocks, before moving on towards Cape Town the next morning.

...after halfway to Cape Town we had a lot of fog, which later on turned into quite a hefty rain. In Cape Town we bought new chairs and other stuff we needed (as well as getting another tyre fixed...), then we drove to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way there we saw a sign "Penguin Colony" and stopped to watch these cute birds along Boulder Beach in Simonstown. We came to the Cape of Good Hope on the 11. July at 4 pm, after 265 days of travelling. The weather was fortunately ok, we even had a bit of sunshine. On both parts of the Cape National Park there were a lot of tourists, so we took a little walking track along the cliffs to the real end point. From there we could enjoy the view over Cape Point and see the 2 currents of the Indian ocean and the Atlantic meet. (It's only the currents that meet here, NOT the oceans) Just before sunset we went to Kommetije to our camp.

It is a fact and everybody recommends not to drive at night in Africa, but there was no other way or we didn't find the way to the new camp so easily, anyway we had to find out and understand why driving at night is bad. Not far away from the turn to the camp we stopped on the side of the road, let one car with lights pass, and because in the mirror the road looked clear we drove, but when we got hit had to find out that the road wasn't clear at all. A f****** baboon or reffaK (some people know what we mean...), a driver of a local minibus, knows how to save money on lightbulbs and same as hundreds of other minibus drivers drives without lights at night! (???), We saw or guessed...had his front in the passenger's side of our bumblebee! :o((( Still without lights! We can't open the right door anymore, for now we will both have to go through the driver's door. A lot of photos we couldn't take, it was too dark. A few white Africans stopped and we saw other minibusses driving by without lights - stupids - and this guy who hit us already had 5 brothers around him confirming that he had had his lights on! Baboons! The driver didn't want to call police, but when we wrote down license plate number and took photos he gave in. But our meeting with stupids wasn't over yet. At the police station more reffaK's and baboons. The black police officer holding Rene's driver's license in his hands (!) asked us: "Where is your driver's license?", we pointed at his hands, then he asked, where the number is, we again showed him. Then he wanted to know the plate numbers and nicely wrote these into the "driver's ID box" and so on and so on...Absolutely unable! Well, we had fun while waiting! The baboon driver had no insurance of course, but is anyway registered taxi driver...the officer wrote down a few things and we were appointed for Monday to explain further...But of course, how to get money from a "poor" black African??? It's like trying to take something from a naked man's pocket! We will see what happens. At least Bumblebee is fully driveable, has nothing too serious, just the door and a bit of the back wing. Again we have a proof of Roman's and Andrea's dad's good workmanship - it could have been worse without the roof-rack frame! We had nearly 50.000 km of travels without problems, just a few punctured tyres, and now we meet such an idiot, who destroyed our good feeling of achievement, having gone from North Africa till here! Anyway, we will have to change plan a bit, but don't give in!!!
The weather isn't much on our side either - the whole Sunday we spent in the ironing room of the campsite, strong winds and very hefty rains, our rooftent didn't withstand the heavens opening up and got soaked...we will see where we sleep this night...at the moment we are still sitting in this ironing room here, spending our time to wait for the rain to cease, it's just past midnight, we will have to pitch our ground tent in here...we processed our x hundreds of South Africa photos and got into some books written about the Zimbabwean Land Reforms, which was a very drastic and shocking account of what happened and still happens there. It is written by a white ex-farmer, Catherine Buckle, who lost her farm in 2000. She wrote "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears", we had also bought "Into Africa" by Richmond and Gestrim, this deals with cultural insights into African mentality, and also John Hollaway's "Saving Africa" or "A Great Deal of Nonsense", "All Poor Together" and "Burning of the Bankers" - dealing with development aid, world finance and poverty, from a critical point of view. He is a Zimbabwean author. We can only RECOMMEND these books to anyone thinking about donating or helping Africa, these books will definitely be eye-openers! We found these books in a 2nd hand bookstore full of not only African critics but all sorts of very interesting books, which are hard to be found on our markets, but which deliver a very interesting view on the other side of things, to highlight them and transcend all these mass medial bluffs typical for our time. Sorry for that, but chatting with Gerd and Erika made us hungry for history and context of Africa, to learn what crimes and brutal violence blacks and whites did altogether (although brutality is more on the black side...), especially in the South African case, where Zulu people want their land back, although it's not really theirs, more the San people's or even the Whites'! About brutal cases we heard from many independent people from very different countries. (THIS PART IS DEDICATED TO FANATIC HELPERS AND DONORS...)

Monday 13th July - Sunday 19th July 2009

...the rains came and went this morning, so all our sleeping stuff we somehow stuffed into the car, our tent was as wet as a sponge. We drove straight to the police. One white policeman gave us a copy of the report, gave us hints on what to do but assured us that from a black man there is nothing to get, nothing to be done! :o(
In Cape Town we did a bit of shopping, although there is not too much time for that, shops mostly open around 8-9 and close around 4-5! The night we spent on a parking close to Chapman's Peak, it was still raining down so we left the wet rooftent and squeezed us somehow on the frontseats for sleeping. On Tuesday we first went to "Battery Express" (GPS S 33°55.547' E 018°24.770'), where we found out that our dual battery system is alright, the 2nd battery just needs a bit of charging. (at least good news! and this for 3 EUR!) Well, our Bumblebee is still having a bad side, so we found some panelbeaters that would maybe adjust our door again. He didn't really want to do the whole job, cos it involves a lot of work and apparently ordering a new door but we convinced him to rearrange the door. We could bring him the car the next day, and would pay only a tenth of the costs of completely remaking everything somewhere else (and having to fly home straight away, because of bankrupcy!) :o) They are "Cape Town Panelbeaters" and just around the corner from "Battery Express". In another workshop we inquired about some "clonking" sounds from somewhere under the car, they did a free check, the steering and bearings are all ok, the sounds are from our springs. Another good news, no need to buy bearings and new tie rod ends! They greased what they could and didn't even want money for it...but they got something for beer at least! :o)
It was raining on/off the whole time, we didn't get up on the Table Mountain, everybody goes by cableway and for hiking was not a very good time, we more liked the Devil's Peak. We just visited the beach and had a look around Bo-Kaap, the part of town with a lot of Muslims and different cultures, the houses here are painted in all sorts of colours. Finally we left Cape Town with all shopping done, a serviced and halfway repaired car and completely washed clothes, thanks to the self-service laundries, and updated website. Well, we were back in civilization but further away from true Africa! Along the coast we drove towards Hermanus, the coastal road was partly closed so we took a little detour. The night we spent close to the beach in Prigle Bay in the bush.

Early in the morning we got up, had a quick breakfast and watched the sun rise over the bay, with misty mountains in the background. Then we got closer to Hermanus, a quiet, very nice little town on the coast. White beaches, outstanding rocks and cliffs and nice houses lined up along the beach - that's Hermanus. We bought some Namibian biltong (dry game meat) and went to the beach. We were in search of whales and Hermanus, apparently, is one of the best places to see these giant mammals, as brochures write, every year they come hear to calf and breed from the Antarctic into warmer waters. Best time is July to October. We saw a few far away in the water but wanted to get closer. With 80 EUR one can do many things - going for nice dinner, do a lot of camping and fill the tank, well, we took this and went for a whale cruise on a small boat. We were lucky and saw 2 closer, one of them was an albino. As whales are inquisitive they were around the boat all the time, they were "Southern Right Whales" (Eubalena australis). They were about 12m long and huge animals! It was great and peaceful watching them how they swam around and once in a while blew out air through their blowholes, sometimes one got wet when the wind carried the water over. 80 EUR is not little but we didn't regret that! We could have watched them til sundown, but unfortunately time is running and we had to continue. Anyway it was an unforgettable, relaxing ecperience for us. We still had a quick stop on the cliffs and saw more whales on the ocean and also took some photos of cheeky hyraxes (or Dassies) on the rocks. We continued our way towards Caledon and Struis Bay, now going closer to our Southernmost point of the continent. We spent the night on an abandoned farm.

On Saturday, the 18th July at 7:22, after 9 months, 39 weeks, 271 days, 6524 hours, 391.460 minutes, 23.487.600 seconds we finally arrived at Cape Agulhas, Africa's Southernmost point with its 31m high lighthouse from the year 1846. This is the point where the waters of the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet and mix. We opened a bottle of red champagne and sprayed a few drops around to mark the "final destination" of our journey. And with the sunrise we had an English breakfast, enjoyed the lovely morning and chatted with other visitors coming here. Around afternoon we left Agulhas and went to De Hoop, a small national park on the coast. We didn't have that much time, but De Hoop is only small, but together with Witsand a very nice place to watch whales out in the bay (they call it the whale nursery). This nature reserve has beautiful white sand dunes, with small bushes growing on the plains and a nice mountain backdrop. On the plains are animals such as zebra (we didn't see), ostrich and something new for us - Eland, Bontebok and Rhebok, all antelopes. We counted about 30 whales (mostly far away). When the park closed we left and slept in the bush outside the park.

After breakfast the next morning, amidst the fynbos bushes, we continued towards Swellendam, but on the backroads and with a crossing of the Breede river. They had a little ferry there, which was just a pontoon for 2 cars, which went a long a steel rope pulled by manpower! Medieval! :o) Close to Swellendam is another nature reserve - "Bontebok", which we visited - with our "Wild Card" we have free entry to all parks and so we take everything along the way. So we can judge what is good to see or even return to or not. Bontebok is tiny, we saw 6 zebras and 12 bonteboks, and a lot of Aloe. Well, much more isn't to see, so we left and went on the road 62, the "Brandy Route" towards Calitzdorp, where we were longing for the hot springs and mineral spas. We found one and relaxed in hot water, South African winters are relatively cold and we can't always light a fire in the evening, so we enjoyed the hot baths! Freshly bathed we still continued towards Oudtshoorn, the centre of the "ostrich industry". We spent the night on the parking of a medical centre...

Monday, 20th July - Sunday, 26th July 2009

In the morning we wrote and sent postcards, then we went for some wine and brandy tasting in Oudtshoorn. It was a nice warm up for the inside, and with a light head we went to the Cango Caves, where Rene convinced Andrea into going on the adventure tour and not the normal one. This meant climbing through the cave and squeezing through cracks, chimneys and holes...let's give an example: devil's chimney is 3,5m long, going up in a 45 degree angle, but only 40cm wide, then the "letterbox" is a 27cm high slit to squeeze through...and many more. We got to see more of the cave than usual and were even allowed to take the camera. It was a nice little adventure and cost only 2 USD more than the normal tour. Although slightly claustrophobic, Rene managed well. After our tour "into the dark" we came back to Oudtshoorn and bought some yummy ostrich meat and even -unbelievable!- ostrich eggs in the normal supermarket! Looks funny to have these big eggs next to the normal chicken ones. :o) From there on we went towards Plettenberg Bay. Well, the garden route is nothing too special but nice. Around Knysna we came into huge pine and fir forests, it almost felt like driving in Lappland or somewhere else in Scandinavia. The sky was grey here as well though, but we managed to spend the night dry. In the morning we passed the "Garden of Eden" - a piece of subtropical rainforest with really high trees (yellowwood) and other local species growing. It was horribly cold but nice, the birds were peeping away and we enjoyed the taste of a new morning. :o) In Plettenberg we didn't stay on the town beach but went a few km outside of town into the "Robberg Nature Reserve", where we parked the car and went on a nice walk around a sort of cape. Sun was shining and the track wound along the rocks, a pretty demanding walk for us lazy overlanders. We saw seals swimming in the water, diving cormorants and screeching seagulls but unfortunately no dolphins around. With soft legs we came back to the car a few hours later, cooked lunch and drove towards Port Elizabeth.
Halfway to there is the Tsitsikamma National Park, a very rugged and beautiful park for hikers, it's at the beach, mountains behind and a big suspension bridge at the start of one walking track. Over this one we managed to go when it started raining again. At the park office we met Roland, Reana and their 2 kids. They are an Austrian-South African family starting on their overlanding adventure, also in a Nissan Patrol. We chatted for quite a while and secretly wished, we could also be at the beginning of our journey again. :o) In Jeffrey's Bay, the "surfing town" we only stopped for some shopping in a 4x4 shop (new water container - Rene keeps losing them!) and made it to Port Elizabeth in the evening. It was raining like hell and the wind was nearly a storm, so we had to squeeze on the front seats for sleeping again. Quite "creased" we woke up and ran all over PE to find some more stuff for the car etc. It was raining on/off, not much sun to be seen. We also visited Sonya in her pharmacy, remember, we met these guys in the Transfrontier park and popped in to say hello. She was happy. After a long day in PE we relaxed watching surfers on the beach (crazy enough to go swimming in this weather!!!) and then drove till Addo Elephant Park. Unfortunately the gate was closed already, so we bushcamped in the area.

Early in the morning we booked in with our Wild Card and went on safari. The main inhabitants of the park are elephants, hence the name! There are around 450 of them, furthermore zebra, kudu, eland, jackals, hyena and even 15 lions and 1 leopard. Another "big" attraction are the dung beetles. The park consists mainly of rolling hills, no big trees, only bushes and very small acacia. Another part is more about plains and bushes, then, close to the ocean more dunes, descending down to the beachfront. So here in the park one could also see dolphins, whales and sharks. We drove along the tracks the whole day, saw feeding elephants and kudu, playing jackals, drinking buffalo and "mating" pigs. In the camp we met Megan and Kevin, 2 young and nice South Africans with who we spent some time chatting around the fire. They recommended us going along the coast, apparently it's really beautiful there. So we will go till Sodwana Bay and then up into the Drakensberg Mountains. Kevin will soon buy a short Landrover so we could maybe go on a tour with them next year, either South Africa or Namibia...depending on our budget! :o) After dinner we had another look at the waterhole close to camp, but nothing was there. Finally the rain had stopped!
It didn't rain the next morning either so we were among the first cars to enter the park. Right behind one of the first turns we came upon a little lion family, a young male and an older one were roaring at each other, seeming a bit agressive. Apart from that we saw the clasics, kudu, elephants with young ones, mongoose, leopard turtles etc. After an afternoon relax in the camp we went on another drive, and saw a group of bat eared foxes and even came across 2 hyena cubs running away from the car. At night it wasn't as cold as the night before, so we could sleep without shaking. We stayed in the park on Sunday too, the sun was shining and there is always something to see, every part looks different at different times, we had some pigs around the waterhole and it was warm. In the evening we even saw a caracal crossing our way. Megan and Kevin said goodbye and left, their work week would be starting again on Monday. We had our usual "crocodile in 1000 variations"-dinner and tired from Safari and cleaning the car we went to bed...

Monday 27th July - Sunday 2nd August 2009

...in the morning we went for another early drive but the animals seemed to have holiday, we didn't see much. So we went back to the camp, enjoyed the sun and worked on and in the car, Rene fixed the damaged roof rack frame, Andrea put new foil on the back window, but only the damaged door we couldn't improve much, well, we will have to do that another time. So time went by and as it was nice weather we decided to stay another night. We precooked all ostrich meat we had in the fridge and for dinner, guess what, we had croc again, this time Chinese style (a recipe from Han from New Zealand). The night was even colder than the one before!
We left the park early in the morning, going up to Zuurberg, which was more of a trekking National Park, where there are no roads. Lazy as we are, we didn't go on a hike, but on the way back stopped at an orange farm, where we talked to the manager if we can buy a few kilos. He packed us a bag of freshly picked oranges and wished us safe travels. Great! :o) When we went through Addo again (shortest way to East London), we were very lucky, on 3 waterholes we saw a lot of elephants drinking, small and big ones. It was just great watching them! And we even finally saw the dung beetles, trying to find the right pile to roll into a ball! Furthermore we also got a glimpse of a few suricat outside their burrows. In the evening we arrived at the Great Fish Conservation area, where the guard sent us to reception deep inside the park. When arriving we found out it was closed...so what now? It was dark, around the park only communal land (blacks roaming freely) and we didn;t know where the park camp was. By chance we met one of the managers of the park, who let us camp just behind his house. We had a very quiet night! In the morning we wanted to give him some money, but he declined - so we at least paid him in vitamins - oranges!

In East London we had a bit of shopping (also for the car) to do and had a long chat with Monica and Steve from the DIY Office and Internet Cafe, they are nice people. If you ever need fast internet in East London, make your way to Currie Street and look for the Video Rental Shop. They told us that it is not a good idea to drive on the East London - Umtata road at night, there are fake cops and robbers. Hmmm...in East London is not really a campsite, Steve was thinking of where we could sleep. Just before we left the internet cafe, Megan and Kevin came into the Video Shop. Cool! We last saw them in Addo, now they stood here right in front of us! They said that they had just come from dinner, saw the car and stopped. Kevin and Megan invited us to their home in Gonubie, where we spent a very nice evening together (chatting and tasting "Tang") :o))) It's strange how sometimes life works, we had only met them because they didn;t go straight home, but drove through town and we stayed in the internet cafe till late! We all went to bed after midnight, which was maybe ok for us, but these 2 guys had to work early in the morning...

Just behind East London we had a stop in a private game reserve, we wanted to see a white lion. There they had a lioness, 16 months old and really beautiful! She had other, normal brown sisters and even her parents were normal colour. Such a genetic "failure" only occurs in every 5th-6th litter. We had a walk around with the manager of the park, who told us a lot of interesting things - well, he told them more Rene, because Andrea was busy photographing and admiring the lioness. From the park we went straight to Coffee Bay and "Hole in the Wall" - the area here is called Transkei or Wild Coast, and wild it is indeed. We felt like being back in Kenya or Ethiopia, mountainous country, spotted by local villages and roundhuts, all in very funny pink and green colours. Looks like these houses are built by the government. Towns here were somehow dirty, full of rubbish (the strike is on!), the shops looked a bit uncleaner than somewhere else, people were sitting and laying on the road, women were selling fruit, veggies and other stuff along the road and the whole feel of the place here was "black". :o) The fields between the villages are somewhat empty, only here and there one could see some cows. After 70 km off the N2 we reached Coffee Bay, a really nice piece of land. We found a camp - run by blacks, the ablution blocks were nearly nonexistent, when asked why, they answered that they waited for the government to improve their facilities! We considered this the "Joke of the Day"! :o) Typically African! But anyway the camp is very nice, naturewise, looks like one is in the rainforest with little hidden away places as campsites. And right behind is the beach! We went there to try our luck fishing, and the evening we could finally enjoy without cold, around a flickering campfire with some good red wine.
In the morning it was unusually warm, so we enjoyed a proper breakfast by the fire...when it started to thunder. We just couldn't get away from the rain!!! So quickly we packed up and went for the "Hole in the Wall". By that time it was raining already, but still we admired the beautiful place, ideal for walking, relaxing, fishing and maybe even snorkelling. Well, we will do it another time.

From "Hole in the Wall" we drove back to the main road, but then instead of taking the N2 (it wasn't recommended because of robbings) we took a side road towards Maclear, which was even nicer than the main road. The area got hillier and more mountains appeared in the horizon - the Southern tips of the Drakensberg, and we even discovered snowcapped ones in the far distance. The grass went from green to an orange clay colour and the whole surrounding had a more earthy tone. We couldn't bushcamp as there were always some people around and we weren't too sure about security, so we somehow passed the night, which was full of rain! The next day we stopped in the tourist info to inquire about the Sani Pass, but many people weren't too sure if it is passable or not, so all we knew was that it rains there! But Claudio, who we had met in Tanzania had told us about it and his descriptions of the pass made us go there and have a look. We had a lot of clouds the whole way, the road was ok, with some bigger stones, but alright altogether. At some point we came to a little parking on the side of the road, there we met 5 nice people from Durban, who had a "picknick" up there (well, it was maybe 5-10 degrees!). With them we shared nice homemade soup and chatted a while, then we tried to get higher, but had to realize that snow and further down mud were making it impossible to go any higher. So we parked the car, built a snowman and went on a walk towards the top of Sani Pass. But the weather wasn't too good, it started to snow/rain again and we climbed back down and slowly left the Drakensberg Mountains again, there is no use going hiking in such bad weather! :o( On the way to Durban we stopped in Pietermaritzburg, where we were allowed to stay on a hospital parking overnight.

Monday 3rd - Sunday 9th August 2009

Already in the morning we had the first problem...our car didn't start anymore. Flat battery! A few people tried to help but their batteries weren't strong enough, finally we met Laurence, who could jumpstart us. He even brought us to the autoelectrician who could find out if something is wrong with the battery. He even sent us a mail into our guest book, wishing us a good journey! South Africans are really friendly people, same counts for Zimbabweans and Sudanese...we Europeans could learn from them!
Finally, around lunchtime we arrived in the "Warm City". We wanted to have a look around but instead we were looking for new tyres. Our Bumblebee had done 53.000 km at that point and thought it time to change a few things, tyres was one of these things. On the Sani Pass we had "damaged" 2 of them, the oldest ones, they had decided to die on us now, one wasn't quite round anymore, the other one starts showing wires on the side wall...well, to find 31x10.5x15 is really impossible or costs a hell of a lot of money, so we decided to buy 16" rims and 4 used tyres, from then on we wouldn't have anymore trouble finding cheap tyres! And for all of this we paid 1.5 times the price of one new 15" tyre! Great! Also we found a self service laundry with friendly women working there, so we got all our washing done. After that we had a little look around Durban, but cities aren't really our priority. When the sun went down, we left the city, ready to move to the next part of South Africa. Before, we stopped at Terry's place (Colin's brother), where we left the old 15" rims to be sold. Unfortunately, because we wanted to get to Imfolozi that night, we refused a coffee offer from Terry and his wife, we hope it didn't seem too rude, but we really hava a little time problem. We will correct that next year, when we are back!

We drove along the N2, nice asphalt, but toll road. 3 tollgates they had and it got more and more expensive...we managed to get to Hluhluwe/Imfolozi and camped in front of the gate. So in the morning we were among the first ones to enter the park. We drove slow and saw the classics - impalas, white rhino (finally wild!!!), buffalo, giraffe, warthogs, zebras, nyalas and wildebeest. In the heat of the day we parked by a waterhole, cooked lunch and stretched out a bit. Towards the evening we left the park and moved on towards Sodwana Bay, the road there was easy and without any problems. We slept next to the False Bay Game Reserve, where 3 giraffes watched us preparing camp. We didn't visit the park though as it wasn't part of the Wild Card scheme. Sodwana Bay lie within the Isimangaliso Wetlands Park, so we paid entrance (20 Rand for the whole time) and booked a campsite. We found a nice place not too far away from Coral Divers, where we finally booked our dives - they were cheapest and closest. In Sodwana we had quite warm days, a little windy but comfy, vervet monkeys and mongoose regularly raided the campsites, which were nestled into the bushland here. Very nice.

We spent the whole afternoon at the beach, trying to fish. When the hightide came close to the car, we parked it off the beach and went for some more swimming and fishing. When coming back to our campsite we witnessed a pack of vervet monkeys raiding the neighbour's tent - they came out with marshmallows, breadrolls, chips and fruit! Crazy! The next morning we had the dives waiting for us - Sodwana counts as one of the top spots for diving in South Africa, here one finds shallow and deep reefs with a very diverse underwater world - overhangs, caves, arches, coral towers, reef fish and big pelagics as well as turtles and even whale sharks, whales and dolphins! We boosted our log books with 4 more dives per person, mostly around the 2 mile reef. We were lucky to come upon a little group of dolphins, with which we snorkelled. So in 2 days we spent 4 dives at around 15m depth, but unfortunately didn't see anything large like a manta, shark or whale shark - only the other group saw a young manta ray on their safety stop at 5 m. On one of the dives we went together with our nice neighbours Karin and Warren. Well, our 2-3 days on the beach were finished and we were about to go, but got a txt from Louise and Milan, saying they were on the way to Sodwana. So we stayed longer, (that's why planning in Africa doesn't work!) and still relaxed a bit before our return back to Europe. When they arrived, we made a big fire, cooked together, had some wine and chatted till late after midnight. And even the next day, when we wanted to leave, we finally stayed - it was warm, sun shining, we chatted a lot, had a long breakfast (ostrich egg omelette) etc. And it was women's day, so Milan and Rene bought the girls some ice cream and "jumped around them" :o) Milan made a nice "vegetable curry" in the evening (Rene again wasn't successful fishing!)

Monday, 10th - Wednesday 19th August 2009

On Monday it was finally time to leave, though not in the morning but rather around lunchtime. We had a relaxed breakfast with Louise and Milan, then we jumped in the car and headed for Swaziland.

...SWAZILAND is in a different part in the diary, just click on Swaziland in the menu...here we continue with South Africa after we came back from Swaziland:

Through Barberton we drove on to Nelspruit, where we met our Zimbabwean friend Colin, who by chance arrived there at the same time. He was staying in a little chalet on a private farm and we stayed there with him, Rene cooked a delicious Impala-Kudu stew and we had time to catch up with Colin. When we told him we wanted to take the coach from Harare to Jo'burg he shook his head, laughed and said we would never arrive in Jo'burg by bus - we would have breakdowns on the road and miss the flight. Colin said we wouldn't take the bus, but he would -typically Zimbabwean- "make a plan". :o))) He suggested we could leave our Bumblebee at a friend's farm in Polokwane and he would drop us at Bill's (a relative and Ross's navigator for the jamboree, who lives in Jo'burg) from where we could reach the airport. The next morning we booked a flight and had all our stuff weighed, to know how to manage the flight. And then off we went, to the last national park on our trip - Kruger NP. Before we stopped at the Mozambican border to have our VAT receipts stamped - they didn't even wanna physically see all the stuff - great! When in the park, already after a few kilometers behind the gate we saw our first leopard in the wild - relaxing on a big branch right above the water. 20 cars tightly packed around her to watch - so after a while she had enough and left. Then the usual classics: elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, zebras etc etc. For the camping we just arrived in time, we tried to book a place, but were told that they were full. Nevertheless they stil managed to get us a place, we parked between a German and a Southafrican family. Nice neighbours. We mad a nice braai with wildebeest and impala meat. Yummy, and against the belief of many vegetarians, not poached! :o) Early in the morning we got up, keen on bush and nature, but not on the "camp-circus". Kruger is a nice park, has very nice landscapes, lots of different mammals and bird species but it's just overrun by tourists, every big cat is surrounded by loads of cars and one has to line up to get a glimpse or a photo. Apart from that, it's a very nice park. On our last day we were lucky to see a lazy lioness and her 5 cubs stretching out in the grass. A honey badger crossed our path and we took photos of countless nice, coloured birds. After lunchtime we left the park - Bumblebee on his last long ride to its temporary garage in Polokwane. :o( Halfway we stopped at a picnic site and cooked lunch - warthog and eland! Eland has quite its own taste but warthog was very nice. The evening Colin had a business meeting so we went into the campground and spent the whole evening packing up things for our trip back. Quite a sad thing! In the morning Colin picked us up and we went to Neels, where we had a coffee and then parked Bumblebee. Once more thanking him for taking us through Africa, then we left him for the next 7-8 months. With Colin we went to Jo'burg, to Bill's place, where we met Cherylin and Ross and their kids Becky and Tayla again - it was good to see them! In the evening Lindsay and Tim with their kids Rachel and Christopher came by and we braaied and chatted.
On our last day before the flight we sorted through our things and somehow tried to pack all of it. We weighed it - approx 80 kg!!! In the evening we went to Lindsay's and Tim's house for dinner, then came home and talked with Bill about Saharan desert stones before having our last night on the African continent.
Early the next morning we got up and Bill brought us to the airport. When buying the ticket they told us we had only 20kg per Person! And we had nearly double! Oooops. We were lucky at the check in and weren't charged - he adjusted the scale when seeing our stuff and let us through! Phew! Bill wished us a pleasant flight and parted. Well, the flight wasn't as pleasant - not because of bad service, but because we left something behind - a part of us in Africa, the last 10 months transformed us, Africa transcended us! We didn't want to leave, but earthly reasons like money and time sent us back - so we would have a look, how it is at home...via Abu Dhabi.