Thursday, March 31, 2011

Day 39 – From Zim to Zam

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) to Livingstone (Zambia) – Jollyboys Backpackers

We set off for our 14 minute helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. It was K’s first time in a helicopter. We had planned to fly over the Grand Canyon a few years back but the weather was abysmal and the flight was cancelled.  Not the same in Zim, the weather was perfect.

Even at the helicopter office we couldn’t escape people trying to sell us 200 trillion dollar notes. We were approached by one of the employees who we brushed off pretty quickly, we then heard one of the employees trying to sell one to the other couple for $50. We’d been offered one for just a dollar the day before while walking down the street (and that reminds me, we also had offers for M’s shoes, shirt and hat as well)!

M was spoilt and was selected to sit up the front of the five seater with the pilot, while K was squashed in the back 3 seats with a larger couple – but at least it was the window seat! It gave a great perspective of the falls and it has to be one of the quickest ways you could get rid of $250 without throwing it out the window. A lovely way to celebrate our anniversary in fact!


The border crossing to Zambia was very easy and our accommodation at Jollyboys was conveniently close to the town of Livingstone. M lashed out big time for the special occasion and bought K a $4 copper bracelet, followed by a nice dinner at a spot called The Spot.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Day 38 - Do not wear a white top when visiting Victoria Falls

Kasane (Botswana) to Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe) – Shoestrings Backpackers

We caught the shuttle bus at 8.00am to do the border crossing into Zimbabwe, very straightforward and painless. We arrived at our accommodation by 9.30 and fortunately were allowed to check in immediately.

We then headed off to Victoria Falls, an easy walk of just over a kilometer. There were many people working very hard to sell you hundred trillion dollar notes (old Zim money), souvenirs, rain coats – very very demanding and pushy.

The falls were awesome! The amount of water is so phenomenal, and as it's not high season there weren't very many people there. We did the entire walk through the park that left us 100% drenched to the bone by the spray (hence the title to this blog) – however as it was so hot it was great to be so wet. We then walked to see the “Big Tree” – which is where the Zimbabweans and Zambians used to trade in the old days. This is how we discovered that the map we had seen at Vic Falls was not to scale – it was much further to the tree than anticipated (and in the heat) and there was really nothing much to see, other than a big tree. We did pretty much dry out by the time we got back into town though.

Back in town we decided to go to the famous Victoria Falls Hotel (we skipped High Tea but did have a drink). A very grand colonial place with the most wonderful view of the Vic Falls bridge - however even the posh can’t keep the warthogs off their lawn! After strolling through the corridors hung with photos of UK royalty we slummed it back to Shoestrings (which we are actually quite happy with). After a disappointing dinner at Spurs at the casino (our tip: give it a miss) we called it a day.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Day 37 – Elephants abound!

Kasane – Thebe River Safaris

Today we thought we should try another safari, but at a different time of day to improve our chances of seeing something different, so we booked in with the up-market Chobe Safari Lodge for 10am (also a more civilized time).

We stood on the road outside Thebe to flag a taxi, where we were approached by some local guys who said “don’t wait for a taxi, flag anyone down”. Our answer was “are you sure?” “Yes, they will be honoured to have white people in their car.” “Really??”

So we tried it. The first car went past without stopping so K said to our new pals “Well they didn’t feel honoured!”, and the response was “then they must be from Zimbabwe”! The next vehicle was an empty school bus and sure enough it stopped and took us exactly where we wanted to go!

The safari was very enjoyable as we managed to see a hippo by the side of the road (instead of submerged), and many more elephants than yesterday. So many in fact that we are now over elephants and will only take notice if there are cute babies or there are more than forty!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing by (but not in) the pool at Chobe Safari Lodge, followed by our final meal at Thebe.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Day 36 - Chobe didn’t let us down!

Kasane, Thebe River Safaris

5.45am start today for the dawn game drive, we had been told great things about Chobe so our expectations were high. The first hour was disappointing, but then things started to pick up. By the time we came across a pride of lions – yes, we can call them that as there was a daddy, 4 mums and five cubs - we felt Chobe had delivered.

However the most elephants we saw were actually outside the park on the side of the road on the way back to our lodge. Chobe doesn’t have any fences – it is not possible to keep the estimated 40,000 to 60,000 elephants contained behind a fence, so they roam free outside the town across the roads – a truly astonishing sight.

After the safari we headed in to Kasane where for only $5, M had the long talked about “hair cut” – the results of which he is currently undecided about, but he is pleased he will not need another one in a very long time!

We checked in for our river cruise at 3pm and came across heaps of hippos, elephants, crocs. We saw hundreds of impalas in one group - quite a sight when the most we'd seen previously in other parks was about 30 or so. Once again however we still saw the biggest group of elephants on the way back home outside the park – there were about 50 elephants standing only 500 meters from our lodge. In general however Chobe has had the largest concentration of wildlife we've seen so far, and this is the quiet season!


Sunday, March 27, 2011

Day 35 – Nearly a wipeout!

Maun to Kasane, Thebe River Safaris

The night before we had been convinced by the kind, helpful owners of Discovery that we were crazy to take the 9 hour bus ride to Kasane when the flight was so cheap, so we opted for a sleep-in instead. Unfortunately K had one of her appalling, vomiting migraines all night – so we would never have made the 6am bus anyway! However she did just manage to scrape it together to crawl onto the 50 minute fight to Kasane. 

This is the first airport we have ever arrived in that doesn’t have taxis waiting at the terminal, but we eventually managed a lift and we made it to Thebe River Safaris, where K checked into bed and M took a walk to town (about 5km or so from our lodge), encountering an elephant on the side of the road on the way back (which as it turns out is a very common occurrence around here).

By the time evening came K had improved to the point where we booked some activities for the next day, but it was looking pretty shaky for a while there.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Day 34 – Three showers in one day!

Maun, Discovery B&B

Today we had a mokoro trip and game walk in the Okavango Delta.. We were delivered to the pickup point by our gracious hosts, and on arrival we were provided with some ponchos to keep us dry, as it’s currently the wet season and it pretty much rains every day, though when and for how long is quite unpredictable.

We hopped into a motor boat to take us to the start of the trip proper, which was in a small village called Boro. At Boro, we transferred to the mokoro, a low dugout style canoe, which is propelled using a long pole. This one was fibreglass, but traditionally they were made from trees.

It was quite a pleasant journey as we glided through the water lilies and reeds while our guide pointed out things of interest. As we progressed the reeds got taller, and the channel we were following became narrower, until we were holding our hands up to keep from getting speared through the cheek by a stray reed. It was also starting to warm up, and it looked like we might have a beautiful day,

After passing through a huge area covered with water lilies, we stopped at an island, where we were told we were going for a walk. This was where we hoped to see some animals – elephants, hippos etc. For some reason we thought this bit wasn’t going to take long, so we left our ponchos in the mokoro. About 25 minutes into our “short” walk, the sky got darker, the wind picked up, and it started to rain. Five minutes later we were totally drenched! Being the intrepid adventurers that we are, we carried on, hoping the rain would stop ….. but it didn’t! M was keen to continue (we weren’t gong to get any wetter!) – but by this time K had had enough, and decided to abort the walk, so we turned back, and this time the nice sandy trail we’d followed in had become a waterlogged trench! The only exotic animal we got to see on our “game walk” was a chameleon.

We finally made it back to the boat, K put her poncho on (better late than never – but as she puts it “did you mention how blinking cold I was?”). We then headed back to Boro in the mokoro, and of course on the way back the weather improved, so by the time we had returned to our original starting point (which included an hour and a half waiting at Boro for the motor boat, which was actually quite interesting, as it gave us an insight into modern African village life, as opposed to the Himba version) the weather was quite nice!

And so ends the sad and sorry tale of our first failed African Expedition.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Day 33 – What is it about buses in Africa?

Windhoek (Namibia) to Maun (Botswana), Discovery B&B

Today we’d booked an early bus from Windhoek to Maun, our base for exploring the Okavango Delta (well, one very small part of it). Pickup time was 6am – and as appears to be a persistent problem, the bus didn’t turn up. We called the bus company around 6:20am to find out what was happening ….. first we were told it was meant to be a 7am bus, then a call back told us it was on its way. We finally headed off around 7:10am ….. 70 minutes of lost sleep!

The trip was pretty easy – we were the only ones on the bus, a 14 seater, so Kathryn made her own first class section by lying on the back seat, and tried as hard as she could  to get those 70 minutes back! The only minor hiccup was when the bus driver tried to enter Botswana via the Namibian immigration lane – it was if he had never done the trip before! We also had to get the GPS out to direct the driver to our accommodation in Maun, another common problem it seems!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Day 32 - Try the Windhoek Experience!

Windhoek, Chameleon Backpackers

Last day of the van today, and also our last full day in Namibia. We didn't know what to expect when we arrived, but over the last week or so we've come to enjoy the country very much, the scenery has been amazing, and the people very pleasant and friendly (except for some sort of scam artist we met one day who swore when we only gave him N$10 - about A$1.50 - for his "soccer team's bus trip").

One thing to mention, we keep being mistaken for Germans, as we have been continually approached (especially today in Windhoek) by people asking us questions in German. Generally we tell them we don't understand, at which point they switch to English, and ask us where we're from. If we're in a playful mood, we don't tell them anything and allow them to keep guessing all the countries they know .... and not one person has come up with Australia yet - shows how few Australians must travel here!

Today we took a little van tour of Windhoek, checking out a few of the interesting buildings (the usual stuff ... churches, museums, parliament buildings, gardens), after which we had a nice lunch at the very swish Windhoek Country Club.

We dropped the van off, got a taxi back to our accommodation in town (the place with the warning signs - no, we didn't try out the suggestion in the photo!), and spent the rest of the evening trying to use up all of our 3G data allocation tonight before it becomes  unusable when we cross the border into Botswana.

This means a couple of things:
  1. We have now uploaded another Picase album of photos for Namibia. You can click here to see it (or the Namibia link at the right of this page)
  2. We've managed to get some videos uploaded to YouTube as well, our YouTube channel can be accessed at this link, and we'll also embed the videos into the associated blog posts. The direction leaves a lot to be desired, but you should be able to get some idea of what we've been seeing along the way!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Day 31 - Onwards preparation

Otjiwarango to Windhoek, Arebusch Lodge

Not much driving today, just a couple of hundred or so kms to Windhoek, which we reached by about 1pm. We pretty much headed straight for our caravan park, to prepare the van and get our now dispersed luggage in order for the van's return tomorrow.

As a result it was a pretty quiet day - we dropped in to the backpackers we'll be staying at tomorrow night (which seems to be in a pretty dodgy area, judging by the sign out the front), and K did some further planning for the next week or so, where we'll head to Botswana for more safari-ing, but this time with someone other than M driving!

The caravan park had a very nice restaurant, and as the only food we had left was two minute noodles, we opted to eat at the restaurant for both lunch and dinner.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Day 30 – It’s official – donkey’s are stupid

Opuwo to Otjiwarongo, Acacia Park


Today we start heading to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, which is where we need to return the campervan on Thursday.

As a result, there isn’t much to blog about – other than the bit where we only just made it to Kamanjab with the petrol gauge reading below “empty”, and then the car not starting once we had filled it up, it was pretty uneventful. Oh yeah … we also saw some giraffes, zebras and antelope in the bush on the side of the road (apparently the elephants often break out of Etosha and let the other animals free)…but we’re pretty ho-hum about those sorts of things now, being the great African adventurers that we are …….

Over the last couple of days, we’ve had to negotiate all sorts of animals (both wild and domesticated) on the road, and if there’s any correlation between an animal’s intelligence and its road sense, then from smartest to dumbest, they are:
  • Elephants – the only time we saw one on the road it moved off as quickly as it could when it saw a car approaching – which might also explain why we’ve seen so few elephants so far.
  • Antelopes- there are a number of types of antelope, with slightly different behaviours, but they generally get going – fast – as soon as they work out you’re heading for them.
  • Giraffes – They are almost always seen off the road, but if they are on the road when you are approaching they quickly move away when they see you, in a loping canter.
  • Goats - they see you coming and start moving off the road, and are pretty much out of the way by the time you get to where they were
  • Zebras – they stay on the road for a while, but as you get closer they start moving faster, though if you drive up on them slowly they tend to stay in place a little longer
  • Cows – they see you coming, but don’t bother to start moving until you get close, and even then they only move slowly. At least they do move though
  • Donkeys – I have no idea whether they can see you coming – they don’t move, they don’t look up, and they don’t even register when you drive past them at 100kmh – which might  explain the dead donkeys on the side of the road!
Of course, we haven’t yet worked out what the animals are doing on the road in the first place – there’s nothing to eat, and there’s all that traffic to avoid!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Day 29 - "Moro Moro Moro Moro Moro"

Ongwediva to Opuwo, Opuwo Country Lodge
We can’t believe it’s been a month since we left, a twelfth of the way through our trip already!
With the help of a Namibia touring map we’d planned our routes yesterday and today so that we could take the shortest possible path to Opuwo, while minimizing the amount of gravel road we had to negotiate.
It all started well as we drove through a number of flooded townships, though some of the roads had been damaged by the flooding. This part of Namibia was much more populated than where we had been earlier – there were lots of town and villages, with locals walking along the road in the rain, as well as cattle, goats and donkeys everywhere. It was also apparent that campervans are rarely seen in this area, judging by the number of people that stared at us as we drove past.
We started getting nervous when the turnoff we expected to see based on our map turned out to be a flooded gravel road – way too deep for us to risk. So we kept driving to another turnoff further along. This took us onto a gravel road into a more “traditional” Namibian village (called Onesi). We took a really bumpy road at the edge of the village that we thought would get us back on track, but this was a much worse road than before, and we decided it also wasn’t worth risking, as we were getting further and further away from “civilization”. After a few u-turns in Onesi (with bemused locals looking on), we headed back to the next option – much longer than originally planned – which included gravel road for hundreds of kilometers. We had to press on though – we weren’t going to admit defeat!
There was a short stretch of tarred road as we approached Ruacana, the border crossing to Angola (so now we can say we’ve seen Angola), before getting back onto gravel. After more bone-shaking driving we finally saw a sign that said “Opuwo” – meaning we weren’t hopelessly lost. We eventually made it to the tarred stretch of C41 which took us into Opuwo – our base for a trip to see a Himba village. K had watched a documentary (twice) on an English girl who lived in a village for a month so was really keen to visit there
We booked a tour to visit the Himba for that afternoon. The tour cost included a gift for the village, as well as a very knowledgeable guide, who was half Himba and half Herero, and spoke very good English. Everything he told us was fascinating, we were told some basic Himba words and questions to expect. He explained that they would be shocked that M only had one wife and we only had one child. They do not approve of school as they are worried (rightly so) that it would destroy their culture.
The women only use water for drinking, none touches their skin. They cover themselves in red ochre twice a day and only wear a goat skin around their waist plus different jewelry that signifies their marital status, number of children etc. The men however pretty much wear regular clothes i.e. tshirts and trousers!
There are villages everywhere and our guide only ever visits the same one every three weeks, partly to ensure the Himba don’t become reliant on tourism. We walked around the village shaking hands and greeting them (saying “Moro Moro”), and we were then shown into their sleeping hut, where we were shown how the Himba make their “perfume”, which is by burning herbs and wafting the smoke over themselves (somehow I can't see it catching on back home). They then finished with singing and dancing, and we presented them with our gift, which was a few supermarket bags of food and some matches.
One of the older Himba women then asked if she could go in our car to the hospital as she had been ill for a week and it is an 18km walk each way. The others loaded her up with fresh produce for her to sell on the streets the next morning to pay for her doctors visit. She would sleep wherever she could on the streets for the night as the hospital is cheaper in the mornings. The Himba can be seen in the streets in the towns around the area going about their daily business – it’s the kind of Africa that you really didn’t think existed anymore, except maybe in old National Geographic magazines!


Sunday, March 20, 2011

Day 28 – Are there any animals in this park?

Etosha Wildlife Park to Ongwediva, Afrika Stadt Haus

We started the day with a return visit to the Halali waterhole – but of course there was nothing to be seen! So, it was off to drive around Etosha looking for wild animals.

Etosha is based around a number of waterholes, all accessed via dirt roads. We headed to the western half of the park (we had quickly driven through the eastern half last night to get to our campsite). We stopped at lots of waterholes, negotiating potholes, flooded roads, and overhanging trees in our search - but we saw nothing but birds and butterflies. As the day progressed, disappointment started creeping in, we were expecting something better than this, especially after what we saw when we first entered the park!

We reached the westernmost camp after about 3 hours of driving, without seeing anything of note. As there had been a lot of rain, we guessed that there was no need for animals to hang around waterholes, so we decided to head back across the park to the eastern gate, and check out the waterholes closer to the main road on our way out of the park.

So of course, once we decided to leave, we started seeing animals! First it was one giraffe – then two, then larger groups – by the road, on the road, running across the road. There were large groups of antelopes and zebras, and smaller numbers of wildebeest. K managed to spot a jackal moving through the grass, it didn’t seem to care that we were there, but it didn’t come very close. There was a huge flock of vultures feeding on a zebra carcass, with a few hyenas hovering about the pack.

We reached the eastern camp (Namutoni) for lunch, where we decided to take the north park exit, as that would give us a head start on our drive to Opuwo, our next Namibian “must see”. It was on this north road that we finally managed to see two elephants – pretty much canceling any lingering disappointment we had been feeling!

We exited the north gate, and encountered a very large patch of water over the road. We didn’t want to turn back, so we tried to power through – and got stuck! It was a long way back to the camp gate, and we were on the seldom used north road – so we were a little worried that we’d be stuck there for some time (actually K was very worried)  – but we eventually managed to escape the quagmire – disaster averted!

As night started to fall, we hadn’t found any camping grounds, so we stopped at a hotel and asked to stay over in their car park – they said yes, but we had to pay for a room, so we took the cheapest room possible (a single room with shared bath), and spent the rest of the evening taking advantage of the hotel’s lounge, TV and restaurant!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Day 27 - Cheetahs and more

Usakos to Etosha Wildlife Park, Halali Campsite

Our goal for today was Etosha Wildlife Park – another of the "must see" attractions in Namibia.

Along the way we diverted to visit the Cheetah Conservation Reserve, which K had her heart set on seeing. Once again we had our own tour leader as we went on a mini safari to find cheetahs. The cheetahs we were looking for had been orphaned at birth and reared in such a way that they are comfortable with humans (although not in close proximity – we weren’t allowed to leave the jeep, as they would run off). So unfortunately they can’t really be called “wild” animals, and can't be released to the wild (although they have many others at the park that can) as being orphaned and brought up by humans they have not learnt any  survival or hunting instincts from their mother. We then witnessed feeding time – which was a good chance to see how fast they are!

We then drove on to Etosha. After heading through the gate into the park, M said something about the lack of animals and how he wanted his money back (we had been there less than five minutes mind you) – then around the very next bend we were greeted by giraffes standing on the side of the road! Another few minutes and the plains were teeming with wildlife - giraffes, zebras, and antelopes. As we drove the 70km to our campsite for the night, we didn't see much else though - it seemed all of the wildlife was concentrated in a small area..


We chose the Halali camping site about 70km into the park, as it had a floodlit waterhole. However after two nocturnal visits all we came across was mosquitoes. Hopefully we will see more tomorrow on our self drive safari – we pretty much have the whole day to track something down!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Day 26 - I've always wanted to visit Germany

Sesriem to Usakos, Namib Wuste Farm Stall


Today we were heading from the desert to the coast – another long drive, and more dirt road as well. We drove from the red sandy desert, through some eery looking mountains with a mix of yellow flowers, green grass, red rock and grey sky, to emerge into a white sandy desert as we headed into Walvis Bay where we had lunch.

We then spent the afternoon at Swakopmund -  a slice of Germany on the Namibian coast, with architecture and cusine to match! One of the many tourist stalls was run by girls from the Himba tribe (normally from much further north near Opuwo). K had seen a documentary on the tribe (twice), where an English woman lives with them for a month – so seeing the Himba was on K’s to-do list. A bracelet was purchased, which came with permission to take a photo – they are well aware of their “novel” value.

After a pleasant afternoon at Swapok we pressed on to Usakos so we could get some more km’s out of the way before stopping for the night, as we have a lot to see in Namibia and our campervan time is running out! We ended up at a camping ground which had some resident shetland ponies, who were quite inquisitive - and K thought she was finished with horses!

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Day 25 - Sand, Sand, Sand

Mariental to Sesriem, Sesriem Camping Site NWR

Another early start to drive through the desert – this time we had a couple of hundred kilometers of dirt road to negotiate. Although some sections had water over the road, we managed OK, in fact some sections of the road could be driven at over 100kmh. They’ve had so much rain that the grass looked like soft green carpet running up to the edges of the mountains in the distance.

We arrived at Sesriem just after lunch and took the drive to the famous Namibian sand dunes, extraordinary orange colours, and too hot to walk in even in sandals. We climbed a couple of dunes on the way in, including Dune 45 (which is 45km from Sesriem). We reached the end of the 2WD road, where we were expecting to find a 4WD shuttle to take us the last 5km to part to Sossusvlei, but there was no drive – just four empty jeeps.

We started heading back and made ourselves comfortable perched halfway up Dune 45 to watch the sun set, after which we returned to camp, and on the way through the gate we were asked whether we knew anything about the car stuck at Sossusvlei. We explained that we hadn’t seen it as we couldn’t get to Sossusvlei – so it sounds like someone must have attempted the 4WD section (because the drivers had knocked off early) and got stuck - so we're lucky we didn't try the same thing.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Day 24 - Can I look after your car?

Noordoewer to Mariental, Hardap Wildlife Reserve

Most of today was driving again – unfortunately we have to deliver the campervan to Windhoek by the 24th, which means we can’t travel as leisurely as we’d like if we’re to fit some of the “must see” sights in Namibia.

Initially it was a little like driving across the Nullarbor, very little vegetation, however unlike the Nullarbor there were hills and mountains in the distance. Then the scenery changed and we came across the green desert. Namibia had received more rain since November than most people can remember, so the desert is covered in a green tinge and the temperature was quite pleasant (heat crisis adverted for the moment!).

We stopped at Keetmanshoop for some groceries and were seriously hassled by the local teenagers to buy their wares. It was really full on (the first time in Africa we have felt under siege), we jumped in the van and locked the doors. A kid of all about 12 had “looked after” the van for us while we shopped and seemed pleased with the 30 cents we paid him. We had a laugh afterwards, if some thugs wanted to break into the van he would have been totally useless (so you may question why we needed to lock the doors - but there were lots of them!)

We decided to spend the night in a Namibia Wildlife Reserve, once again we found we were the only people here! We took ourselves on a short safari before sunset – we didn’t find the rhino’s but did see a warthog, ostriches, antelopes and baboons.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Day 23 - It's not just Australia that's had flooding problems

Citrusdal (South Africa) to Noordoewer (Namibia)  – Felix Unite Campsite.

Another day of driving, the landscape is very similar to many parts of Australia.We had planned to stop at Springbok for the night but when we had a look at the town and the campsite we thought we would be pretty bored so decided to keep on driving. We picked Viooldrif as our night stop as all the camping guides said it was in South Africa. We planned to spend a big night on the internet using up the last of the data allocation we had bought for the iPhone. However what we actually arrived at was the border to Namibia, so we had no option but to cross over. 

South Africa had generally been quite coolish, early 20’s during the day and chilly at night so we were shocked to get out of the van and into a furnace! K asked the police (who were very friendly and chatty) how hot it was and they said “quite cool, 35 or 36, we are used to 45 – 50”. Now K was wondering how she was going to cope with Africa as from here on in we are just heading north and it’s going to get hotter! The customs police also did a “customs inspection” – it just turned out to be another case of them wanting a guided tour of the campervan!

After crossing the border we found Namibia to be totally desolate, moonscapeish, not unlike Coober Pedy and the Breakaways. We found the delightful Felix Unite campsite to stay at for the evening, a beautiful oasis on the Orange River. It would take a huge amount of water (from the river) to make the grass and plants grow as well as they do. The owner of the camp also told us that Namibia had just had more rain than he has ever seen (sound familiar?) – so the green Namibia that we will be seeing is quite different to normal.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Day 22 - Standing on the table

Cape Town to Citrusdal, Citrus Creek Campsite

This morning we headed off to Table Mountain only to discover that the 35,000 cyclists and their families who are in town also had the same idea. After about a 40 minute wait we made it onto the cable car for the ride up to the top. The cable car holds 65 people and the floor revolves so you get to see all the scenery on your way up and down regardless of where you are standing.

We walked around the “table” for a while, even with so many people there we still found some areas where there was almost no-one around. The scenery was stunning, with the beaches, city, Robben Island, and the mountains around, Cape Town is a beautiful city – and the locals know it!

We then headed to the District 6 Museum, which has exhibits related to the forced evacuation of blacks from a part of Cape Town, resulting from apartheid policies, and then commenced our drive northwards along the N7 towards Namibia, stopping overnight in a small town called Citrusdal.  

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Day 21 – Cyclist Invasion

Cape Town, Die Ou Skip Caravan Park

We took the boat out to Robben Island for a tour  - this is where Nelson Mandela was kept for 18 years of his 27 years in gaol. We were herded onto buses and taken around the main sites, then dropped off at the cells where an ex-political prisoner gave us a very informative tour. We felt very fortunate to  be luck enough to hear a witness’s account of his 7 years here, in another 20 years people will only be hearing the stories from guides.

The Cape Town waterfront was very busy, it was Sunday, plus there were cyclists everywhere as this was the weekend of the Cape Town cycle tour – the biggest event of its type in the world, with 35000 cyclists!

We then drove to the Botanical Gardens and enjoyed a pleasant walk, the gardens are famous and rightly so, very beautiful and well maintained.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Day 20 – To the Cape!

Mossel Bay to Cape Town, Die Ou Skip Caravan Park

A longish drive to Cape Town, but only after a very nice breakfast at one of Mossel Bay’s cafes, looking out onto the ocean. As we approached Cape Town we were expecting to see Table Mountain but didn’t really see anything that looked familiar. There were long stretches of nice looking  beaches, and some mountains around us, but it wasn’t until we changed our mind about where we were going to stay and headed through the centre of town (after the GPS tried to send us up some very narrow and steep streets) and out the other side of the cape that we saw the familiar profile.

We headed about 25km out on the north side of town to our caravan park for the night, just across the road from a beach on the Atlantic Ocean.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Day 19 – Beware the Dassie!

Jeffrey’s Bay to Mossel Bay, Mossel Bay Caravan Park

We drove to the delightful Mossel Bay, with the caravan park this time opposite the beach and only metres from some lovely restaurants and cafes. A lovely walk around the bay with dolphins swimming in the distance, and then a walk to the caves which were an archaeological site. Here we first met the rock hyrax – known locally as the dassie – they look like large rabbits with very small ears but amazingly their closest relative is the elephant! Our first experience was when we watched a woman in the car park below shriek and drop her shopping when a dassie started following her because she had food in her shopping bag!

We have been good for a week and have cooked in the van so tonight enjoyed a beautiful steak at the restaurant next door to the camping ground. K is enjoying the SA wine, its very nice and only $5AU a bottle, while M is enjoying the different flavours of chips available here!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Day 18 – Coasting along the coast

Gonubie to Jeffrey’s Bay – Jeffrey’s Bay Caravan Park

Another day of coastal driving, through Port Alfred, Port Elizabeth and finally stopping at Jeffrey’s Bay. A lot of the time we need to remind ourselves we are in South Africa. The countryside, scenery and towns are very similar to any costal drive you take in Australia.

A beautiful spot at the caravan park, right on the beach, with very  few people around. We are lucky it is in the same shoulder season that Australia is in, so the weather is pleasant but the children are back at school and most people have finished their holidays.

Jeffrey’s Bay is known as the best surfing spot in South Africa, but we were surprised at how quiet it was – the shops and restaurants all seemed to close by around 7pm, not what we’d expect from a tourist spot like this.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Day 17 – The long drive

Gonubie, Gonubie Caravan Park

Today we had a destination in mind – a place called Gonubie, close to East London. The owner of the caravan park at Shelly Beach had told us that there were no caravan parks before that – which meant a long drive, and therefore an early start. She also told us we we were not to stop enroute, so we locked our doors and drove through very busy black towns until we finally arrived at Gonubie.

On arrival at Gonubie we found a secluded spot at the local caravan park very close to the beach, before settling down for the evening.

As this was such a big driving day, K was able to refine her observations on South African driving:
  1. Please move to Australia or we are going to move here – the driving over here is so much better than back home.
  2. Everyone moves to the left immediately after overtaking and then thanks the person by flashing their hazard lights twice.
  3. If you drive a slow vehicle they all pull as far to the left as they can to give you the best possible chance of overtaking.
  4. No one hinders anyone else, the courtesy is amazing.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Day 16 – Hot pink and hairpieces

Shelly Beach, Shelly Beach Caravan Park

Not much to report today – mainly a driving day. We stopped in a couple of places – Durban, then Scottsburgh for lunch, and eventually made it to Shelly Beach, where we stayed at the local caravan park – which was a long way from the beach, but very nice as it was almost deserted and we pretty much had the run of the place.

Along the way K, being a keen student of the human condition, has been using the trip to develop her anthropological theories on African women, as follows (M would like to stress that these have not undergone any form of rigorous statistical analysis - as far as he is aware):
  1. Their favourite colour is hot pink – and it suits them so well – followed by red.
  2. The majority of them wear wigs and hairpieces.  They cut their hair close to their scalps & then wear every style you can imagine, from coiffured updo’s to long curled locks to bobs, you name it and it is all sold here – but only in black.
  3. They only come in two sizes – very thin or very fat. This goes for the men also.
  4. The women who work in tourist orientated jobs i.e reception, ticket selling etc treat you as a huge imposition. However the ones that work in other jobs i.e supermarket, petrol stations are very friendly. In contrast all the men are open and friendly.
  5. They walk at the same speed as every teenage girl who cleaned up paddocks at Danbury Park.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Day 15 – Beachcombing in SA

Dolphin Holiday Resort, Ballito (South Africa)

Today we left Swaziland, to head south and back into South Africa. The border crossing was relatively painless, but time consuming as we wanted to spend our remaining Swazi money (about $6 worth) and the construction of a new border post meant we had to walk from the border back into the shopping area. On the SA side, the border officer also spent some time examining M’s license (we wonder what she was looking for?) …. but we were eventually told we could “Proceed”.

After driving some way (where K had her first stint behind the wheel of the campervan we have fondly come to know as "The Love Bug"), we ended up on the coast just north of Durban, in the resort town of Ballito – lots of timeshare apartments, large blocks of units etc. We had a great spot at the caravan park there, a short walk from the beach and shops. We strolled along the beach, hand in hand, until the waves came rushing up, at which point M quickly let go and ran off, leaving K to get her shorts all wet.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Day 14 – Our first real safari

Ezulwini, Timbali Lodge
 
We headed off to Mkhaya Big Game Park to meet the guide outside at 10am. Once again we were lucky and there was only us, we climbed into the back of his open jeep and headed off to the park. As we were signing in an older guy started chatting with us and told us about the horrid history of Rhino’s being killed for their horns. Later on our guide told us he was the owner of all the Big Game Parks in Swaziland – Ted Reilly – what a lovely unassuming man, he never let on.

Before long we came across a massive white rhino, followed by elephants, zebra, giraffes, hippos, wildebeests, warthogs, buffalo, gazelles etc. The guide kept telling us how lucky we were as he often drives around for 2 hours and can’t find any animals. He also said it was unusual to see so many animals out when the day was so hot.

We had a beautiful lunch with table service set just for us in a gorgeous African Bush setting - one of the items we tried was impala pie!. Then we started back seeing more animals as we went along.

Another evening catching up on the computer –can’t believe we have finally caught up with the blog! Tomorrow we drive to Zululand (and if M asks me one more time if it's Africa's answer to Disneyland I'm going to feed him to the lions .....)


Update: Here's a short video of the first big game animal we ever saw in the wild:




Saturday, March 5, 2011

Day 13 – Campervanning in Swaziland!

Ezulwini, Timbali Lodge
Surprisingly, the campsite had free wireless internet accessible from our campervan … so we spent the morning (after a reasonable sleep in) researching and organising our itinerary for the next few days in Swaziland.

After that, we headed off to see some of the local sights here in the Ezulwini Valley, which is quite picturesque with mountains all around us. First to a place called “House on Fire”, set up by local artists with interesting sculptures and buildings, as well as a pub where we had lunch. Then off to Mlilwane Wildlife Park, our first chance to see some animals on a self drive safari.

We managed to see some warthogs, zebras, deer, wildebeest, buffalo. We were hoping to see hippos but that will have to wait until tomorrow . At one stage we tried to get a photo of M standing near a zebra, where K (allegedly) was able to use her horse skills to stop it from (supposedly) getting ready to kick M …. (I thought it was just adjusting its position so we could get a better photo).

Back to the campsite for a pleasant evening, a little more blogging and organising while we still have internet access. We’re almost up to date now on the blog, managing to keep to a post per day, but we suspect our posts may become less frequent over the coming days/weeks.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Day 12 – On the road again!

Johannesburg to Ezulwini (Swaziland), Timbali Lodge

We headed off to pick up the campervan, finding out that as normal the taxi driver had no idea where to go, luckily we had the GPS on M’s phone. We were given a thorough tour of the van and how everything worked (which we pretty much forgot five minutes later).

We had been upgraded from the “Spirit 3” to the “Spirit 5”, the numbers relate to the berths. Although this means we have a lot more room, the downside is we are almost driving a manual “truck” through Africa – big and unwieldy, and in a strange country. The Maui people told us where the supermarket was around the corner and gave us a map – an hour later we managed to find it!

After buying up at the supermarket we finally hit the road for the 350km drive to Swaziland. Once on the open road (the roads are in good condition, similar to home) at 120kmh it was pretty plain sailing. We decided to stop off at eMalahleni to get a local sim for our phone, as having no phone to book anything with is very frustrating ….. an hour later we were on the road again (without a working sim) and rapidly running out of time to reach Swaziland before dark.

We arrived at the border just after 6pm, the whole thing was painful and took almost an hour - we are just going to have to get used to this sort of thing! We had to complete customs paperwork as we were “exporting” a car, laptop and camera! Both sides of the border everyone’s vehicle was searched by the police – but so perfunctorily the only thing they would find by moving a couple of bags around would be an illegal immigrant! We were treated a little differently, as they wanted to come inside the van to have a look around! All in all though they were quite friendly.

By the time we left the border it was dark, and we were still had to find a campsite! Fortunately the trusty GPS saved the day, directing us to a place just outside Mbabane. We finally we checked in and set up, cooked a little dinner and fell asleep.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Day 11 – “I’ve got magic hands”

Maputo to Johannesburg, Melville Palm

We were allowed to sleep in until 6am today, as we had to get the bus back to Joburg. This was another Greyhound – so we spent the trip in the comfortable seats listening to our iPods and watching the scenery rush past.

The border crossing took quite some time – the police insisted on checking all the luggage on the bus. This was done mainly by touch, the policeman felt for what he was after (and we’re not sure what it was, presumably drugs or weapons). However, although the search was time consuming, it didn’t seem very thorough, he just felt around the inside of the cases. (M later heard the policeman tell someone he had “magic hands”!).

Along the way K managed to persuade the bus driver to change our surplus Mozambican Meticais to SA Rand – the rate wasn’t the best, but it was better than being stuck with money we couldn’t use.

At the Joburg bus station , we picked up a taxi back to Melville, and booked the same driver for 9am the next day as we had to head out to pick up our campervan. We used the rest of the day to catch up on emails, and then enjoyed a great steak dinner at one of Melville’s many restaurants.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Day 10 – 3am start – thought this was meant to be a holiday!

Praia Tofo to Maputo, Hotel Turismo

The bus back to Maputo left at 4am, we were hoping it was going to be better than the one we arrived in and it was marginally, we were on first so had the pick of the seats. It was the same deal as last time – try to cram as many people in as possible!

We finally arrived into Maputo about 1pm, but as the bus driver couldn’t find our hotel we were dropped off on the wrong side of town and we had to catch a taxi – not what we felt like doing after all those hours in the bus.

We checked into the horrid Hotel Turismo – shame Palmerias Guest House was booked out, a very poor room for the price we paid, with the sight of (unused) condoms in the bathroom causing us some mirth! (We later found that they also gave them away on the border – so hopefully this had more to do with addressing Africa’s AIDS problem than the dubious nature of our hotel).

The afternoon was spent slowly making our way through the streets of Maputo to the waterside restaurant we had lunched at on day one, with refreshment stops on the way of course! The day ended with watching the sunset and a nice dinner overlooking the bay.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Day 9 - What happened to Paradise?

Praia Tofo, Annex of Aquatico Ocean Lodge

After listening to a night of pouring rain we expected to wake up to sunshine and be able to go for our last swim in the surf but instead it was overcast and before long the rain set in and we were stuck in our room. Even the maids didn't arrive to clean.

We were hoping to go snorkelling with the whale sharks, but a check at 10:30am confirmed they weren't going out today. So we waited for a break in the rain and headed up the road to book our bus trip back to Maputo (a 4am departure the next day!). 

The afternoon cleared well enough to go for a walk on the beach and find somewhere new for lunch, then the rain set in again – perhaps we should have left today!