| South Africa |
| CAPE TOWN We landed in Cape Town late in the evening and we were both thrilled to be in Africa finally. After the familiar civilisation in New Zealand, the excitement of the African continent elevated our spirits. Arriving in a new country and getting yourself organised for another month or so of travelling always takes time, so we decided to stay in Cape Town for a week. Lots of things to do though, including visiting some friends and relatives. Jeroen's cousin Goedele moved out to Cape Town just over a year ago and we had a really nice catching-up day with her little family. Wine was very much the theme of the day as we emptied many bottles as well as visited the beautiful vineyards of Groot Constantia. On another day, after a hot and long day of climbing and descending Table Mountain, we met up with Meriel's friend Anna and her husband Chris for a Christmas Carol picnic in the Botanical Gardens. We also went into the townships with a guide, seeing the South Africa "behind the rainbow". It was very much a "New South Africa" day, as we visited Robben Island in the afternoon, where Nelson Mandela had spent 18 years of his sentence. ON TO THE GARDEN ROUTE So, after a week of Cape Towning, we had our rental car delivered and set off eastbound. We first followed the scenic coast and drove through the Klein Karoo on the way to the famous Garden Route. Two days before commencing the Garden Route we received an email from our Belgian friend Boudewijn, suggesting we give his in-laws a ring. We were only about 100 km away from Knysna, where they live, so we rang them with one day's notice and were promptly and cordially invited. We actually ended up staying a week at their lovely house and spending Christmas with them. There were also one American and one Australian exchange student staying, so we had quite an unexpectedly large Christmas gathering. We had such a nice and relaxing time. FROM DRAKENSBERG TO ZULULAND AND THE GAME RESERVES We spent New Year's Eve at the Zuurberg Mountain Inn, a remote nineteenth century inn next to the Zuurberg National Park. Since Meriel had to rest because of her kidney infection, we decided to stay three nights in these tranquil surroundings. Whilst Meriel rested, Jeroen ran or cycled around in the park during the day and watched football in the evenings. After the long rest, we visited the Addo Elephant National Park, where we bumped from one large elephant gathering into another. You just couldn't miss them. After Addo, we made a short visit to the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock, not a spectacular game park, but with beautiful views of the Karoo landscape and good sightings of the rare mountain zebra. After Cradock, we needed a long day's drive through the Karoo and round Lesotho to reach the Drakensberg range. We spent around four days in the Drakensberg and nipped into Lesotho for one day to visit a rural village. The views in the Drakensberg were phenomenal, as you can look from the plateau for miles and miles into the distance. At the foot of the Drakensberg range is the battlefield zone, where many battles from the Boer War and the Anglo-Zulu war were fought. We visited the famous Spionkop at midday. The heat at that time of the day must have been unbearable for those poor Rednecks who got stuck on that koppie for 24 hours without supplies. We then drove into Zululand where we spent the weekend. We had hoped to attend a Zulu wedding or something, but instead ended up at a Zionist-Christian celebration in one of the rural villages. During this weekend we also met Victor Mdluli, our local Zulu guide, who inspired us to come back later for "our project" (see below). After Zululand, we had nearly a week of intensive game viewing. Our first stop was the St.-Lucia Wetlands, known for its crocodiles and hippos. We took a lovely boat trip on the St-Lucia estuary, floating past tens of inundated hippos. The Umfolozi National Park is only a few hours' drive from St-Lucia and we spent two nights in this game park. The park is not very large, but has a very high density of animals, particularly white rhinos. We had a great time there and our longest day of game viewing must have been nearly 10 hours: obsessed or what! After Umfolozi we drove to Kruger National Park, straight through Swaziland, where we spent exactly 2 hours. Kruger is meant to be one of the best game parks in Africa. It certainly is, but is huge and it takes a lot of driving to see things. We got a bit game-tired and we actually left the park after only three days .... in order to see the Leeds - Arsenal game. |
| The Route |
| Highs and Lows Highs Wining in the vineyards - Emptying bottles of South African wine in the beautiful surroundings of the Groot Constantia vineyards around Cape Town with cousin Goedele and her husband Rudi, catching up on a "long time no see". Christmas dinner - We had absolutely no idea where or how we were going to spend Christmas this year, until our Belgian friend Boudewijn gave us the phone number of his in-laws in Knysna. Hans and Doke had two Rotary exchange students staying. All six of us spent a really fun Christmas day. We all got involved in the cooking and decorating and had such a laugh poking fun at each other's cooking results. Playing UNO - We had such a great time playing UNO with Crystal and Elaine, the two girls staying with us in Knysna. We couldn't let a day pass without a game! Walking the dogs - Meriel really enjoyed those evening walks with Doke, taking the dog for a walk and chatting in Dutch under the beautiful African sky. Elephants in Addo - Our first "serious" game park of our trip, Addo was no disappointment. Meriel's friend, Anna Whitehouse, had been involved in research at the park and it was fun to see half of the elephant herd named after her family members. We saw around one hundred elephants gathered around the Hapoor waterhole. It was so sweet to see the baby ones struggling to climb out of the mudpool, slipping over and being pushed up by mummy's trunk. Drakensberg views - Up on The Sentinel in the Drakensberg mountain range the views were absolutely spectacular, second only to the views from Gokyo in the Himalayas. The horizon was more than a hundred kilometers away and two thousand meters down. Four rhinos in the thunder storm - This must have been our most spectular game sighting. We were rushing back to our rest camp in Umfolozi National Park in order to meet the 7pm curfew, when four rhinos appeared just next to the road, framed by the thunder and lightning. Hyena - We had never seen one before and we definitely didn't expect it to nonchalantly cross the road behind our car whilst we were watching a vulture's nest. Lows Hypo on Table Mountain - Climbing Table Mountain at the hottest time of a hot day was never going to be a stroll, but having a frighteningly low sugar level one third up was not what Meriel had been looking forward to. Going back down and taking the cable car was her best idea of the day. Car immobilised - We managed to immobilise ourselves, when we went for a swim in the Knysna lagoon and took the car keys with us into the water. Great was our surprise, when we found out that the immobiliser got wet and the car wouldn't start (you have to stick the immobiliser into a plug in order to complete the electrical circuit). So we had to leave the car behind and get a lift back to our hosts in Knysna, who could not have been very impressed with our travel survival skills. Elephant rip off - Being charged Rand 60 to look at two locked up elephants in the Knysna Elephant Park, a real tourist trap. I told you !!! (Jeroen) Kidney infection - Comes highly recommended if you want to spoil your year end celebrations! Meriel incurred a viral infection of her kidneys and spent five days on antibiotics, including New Year's eve. New Year's Eve has never been so alcohol free for her! Down the ladder - On our hike in the Drakensberg we had to descend from a steep escarpment with the use of a chain ladder: 100 steps to negotiate 20 meters of vertical rock and the wind was blowing fiercely. Jeroen absolutely hated it, but there was not much choice! Caught in the lightning - We had been warned that lightning kills seven people a year in the Drakensberg. So we had good reasons to panic when we got caught in a thunder storm at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a hike in Central Drakensberg plateau. SInce we were the highest point around for miles, we slid down a gorge towards the river, mostly on our bum, and then rushed up again on the other side to get to our car. Chased by a horny elephant - We bumped into an elephant "on heat" who was in a pretty nasty mood. He just wouldn't let us pass and kept advancing towards us whilst we kept backing off. Men ... they're all the same! Lions lost- We can now officially confirm that there are absolutely no lions in Kruger National Park! We just checked it: drove around for three days and didn't see a single one! Cave Canem - Hugh and Loueen, the owners of our B&B in Eshowe, were very kind to let us use the facilities in their house (computer, washing machine, satellite TV). Unfortunately, the house was well guarded by four dogs and one of them realised what a whimp Meriel is, so he jumped and caught her arm! For the rest of our stay in Eshowe, entering the house became a cumbersome procedure. Les frogs ennuyeux - It actually became our little evening routine in our Eshowe B&B: Jeroen with the broom and Meriel with the pillow chasing a frog out of the room. One night we had the pleasure of the company of three frogs! Stuck in the mud - Once we got stuck in the mud on a rural gravel road, we realised we could not be on the road to Johannesburg. We had left a two hour margin for our six hour drive from Eshowe to Johannesburg and our margin was already eaten up after three hours driving. Missed a junction ! |
| Detailed Trip Schedule |
| 10 December: Sydney - Cape Town 11 December: Cape Town 12 December: Cape Town 13 December: Cape Town 14 December: Cape Town 15 December: Cape Town 16 December: Cape Town 17 December: Cape Town - Houtbay 18 December: Houtbay - Hermanus 19 December: Hermanus - Swellendam 20 December: Swellendam - Oudtshoorn 21 December: Oudtshoorn 22 December: Oudtshoorn - Knysna 23 December: Knysna 24 December: Knysna 25 December: Knysna 26 December: Knysna 27 December: Knysna 28 December: Knysna 29 December: Knysna 30 December: Knysna - Stormriver 31 December: Stormriver - Zuurberg 1 January: Zuurberg 2 January: Zuurberg 3 January: Zuurberg - Cradock 4 January: Cradock 5 January: Cradock - Clarens 6 January: Clarens - Oliviershoek Pass 7 January: Oliviershoek Pass 8 Janaury: Oliviershoek Pass 9 January: Oliviershoek Pass - Kamberg |
 |
| Map of South Africa |
 |
| 10 January: Kamberg 11 January: Kamberg - Eshowe 12 January: Eshowe 13 January: Eshowe 14 January: St.-Lucia Resort 15 January: Umfulozi 16 January: Umfulozi 17 January: St.-Lucia Resort 18 January: Kruger National Park 19 January: Kruger National Park 20 January: Phalabara 21 January: Piet Retief 22 January: Eshowe 23 January: Eshowe 24 January: Eshowe 25 January: Eshowe 26 January: Eshowe 27 January: Eshowe 28 January: Eshowe 29 January: Eshowe 30 January: Eshowe 31 January: Eshowe 1 February: Eshowe 2 February: Richard's Bay 3 February: Eshowe 4 February: Eshowe 5 February: Eshowe 6 February: Eshowe 7 February: Eshowe 8 February: Eshowe 9 February: Eshowe - Johannesburg 10 February: Johannesburg - Dar Es Salam |
| When we were in Eshowe a week earlier, we had decided to try and do something to help some poor Zulu children from the rural villages to go to school. You may remember that we met the founder of Belgian charity Cunina, Sophie Van Gheel, in Sao Paulo nearly six months ago. Seeing the lack of good schooling in rural Zululand, we thought we might try and convince Cunina to start sponsoring some Zulu children. We tested Sophie's appetite by e-mail and when she replied "maybe, but ...", we took this as a "yes" and decided to return to Eshowe to try and set up a proper project structure. We set up camp in a little self-catering hut at the Eshowe B&B, rented a video player and got to work. The task was fairly simple, albeit very time consuming: find trustworthy people who can run the project locally once we are gone and find ten children who need the money most. We contacted a Franciscan sister from the Holy Childhood Convent in Eshowe, Sister Innocentia. The lady who runs our Bed & Breakfast, Loueen, volunteered to manage the finances. So, together with Victor, who had prompted our plan in the first place, they formed our team of three volunteers. We also needed to do quite a bit of research into the quality of the local schools, so we spent a few days visiting schools and talking to school principals. After a week of research, we submitted an 8-page proposal to Sophie . We have decided to leave the project at the stage that it is at - we will be returning to complete it later, hopefully with Sophie. While waiting for a reply, however, we had the opportunity to do some more sightseeing in the area. We spent an evening at Shakaland, a Zulu cultural village, where you can see the Zulu dancing. A bit DIsney-like, but still pretty well done. |
| Our Project in Eshowe |