south africa | No 1 Adventurers travel blog

Back where it all began

We had planned to spend our last night in the tent at Glentana. We stayed at a nice campground there last time, just set back from the beach, lots of grass, good amenities. But when we left the Mountain Zebra National Park it rained for most of the trip and while we don’t really mind camping in the rain, packing up a wet tent is horrible, especially when we need it to be completely dry for the trip home. So we re-thought that idea and booked a hotel room in Mossel Bay, about 400kms east of Cape Town. We had dinner at Cafe Gannet and I had the seafood stew, a true bargain at 220 rand – about AUD$24. It had prawns, fish, mussels, calamari and half a crayfish! I have no idea how much it would cost at home – at least double, and probably a lot more. It was delicious.

We made a bit of a detour on the way back to Cape Town, to Cape Agulhas, southern-most point of Africa, and the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. It had rained on and off during the day, but we were lucky that it stayed dry while we hopped out of the car, read the plaque and took photos. After the mayhem of cars, buses and people at The Cape of Good Hope earlier in the year, we were very surprised that there were only a few people at Agulhas, and no tour buses.

And then the drive on the N2 back to Cape Town. It must have rained a lot recently – a couple of rivers and creeks had broken their banks, dams were looking full, water on flat low-lying areas. The rural part of the drive was just endless rolling green and yellow (canola) hills, and the livestock looked good. Lots of heavily pregnant cows, and tiny white lambs. Even though it’s now Spring, there’s not much evidence around – we passed orchards where the trees still looked dormant, no blossoms or any hint of green yet.

We’ve done the big cull of stuff we aren’t taking home – 3 quilts, a set of fleece sheets, folding chairs, a spade, tent pegs, SA extension cord, a black denim skirt that I bought when I realised I didn’t have enough summer clothes (what on earth was I thinking – I hardly ever wear skirts!), the food we didn’t get around to eating and various other bits and pieces. Our Airbnb host has offered to take it all to an op shop for us.

Greg took the 4WD to be cleaned this morning and we have returned it and picked up another car that we’ll take back to the airport tomorrow. It was easier and cheaper to do that than get a taxi back to where we’re staying today, and then another taxi to the airport tomorrow morning.

So that’s it … another grand adventure almost over. Thanks for travelling with us. Sorry for the lack of musical accompaniment to this trip – internet access was mostly just too slow to be able to do more than write posts and add photos.

Our friend Wayne Manna is a keen musicologist and he made the following suggestion for our trip’s theme song. Thanks Wayne!

“The Great Heart” by Johnny Clegg. He is a British-born muso (and I think an anthropologist) living in South African who incorporates a lot of African themes into his music and has recorded heavily with South African musicians.”

Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlpKDYJRzMk

A selfie at the southern most point in Africa

In case you can't read the plaque behind — In case you can’t read the plaque behind

While I waited for the car to be cleaned - these are everywhere in South Africa — While I waited for the car to be cleaned – these are everywhere in South Africa

Security at the AirBnB house we are staying at (hope there is no fire!) This is the steel security door in front of the Front door

One of the windows (all the windows have internal steel grills)

Mountain Zebra National Park

We really did try hard to camp in Lesotho, but in our hunt for a flat, level spot to pitch the tent on, we realised that there’s probably almost no such thing in the whole country. It’s all above 1000 metres, and most of it is either mountainous, rocky and usually both. We have a 4WD guide book that has a self-guided driving tour through Lesotho, which recommends campsites and alternatives, but we were unexcited by their camping suggestions, so we headed straight to Maseru. Lesotho’s capital has a population of just under 250,000 .. so large enough to be a decent-sized city, but it still has constant reminders that we’re in Africa – cows and goats roaming around suburban streets, crazy traffic and even crazier pedestrians, invisible road markings because they haven’t been painted in at least 20 years.

We booked a room at a ‘Guest House’ on booking.com, but it all got a bit confusing. We turned up at the Trinity Guest House, conveniently located close to the SA/LS border, only to discover that there are 2 guest houses of the same name, and the one we had booked was 12 kms away. Then when we got there, the receptionist claimed to have no knowledge of our booking. Luckily there was a vacancy, driving in the dark here is … challenging.

Crossing back in to South Africa the next morning was the usual chaos. We’ve done quite a few African border crossings now, and the only thing they all have in common is that they are all different. Some need slips of paper stamped by several different departments, a couple demand health checks, some want all the paperwork for the car, and some just scan our passports and send us on our way.

We spent a night at the Onze Rust campground at Colesberg. We stayed there on our way to Cape Town last time.

We’ve just spent a couple of days camping in the Mountain Zebra National Park, about 1000kms north east of Cape Town. Went for a drive yesterday and saw lots of mountain zebras (they only have black stripes, no grey ones like plains zebras) and heaps of different species of antelopes. This morning it’s very misty and we wouldn’t see much, so we picked the right days to stay. Heading back to Cape Town today and have booked an Airbnb place for our last couple of nights.

The chaos of cars and trucks at the Lesotho/South Africa border crossing

A truck full of ....Pidgeons — A truck full of ….Pigeons

Everything closed up after another monkey stole a bannana — Everything closed up after another monkey stole a banana at Mountain Zebra Park

Sun setting over the rest camp at Mountain Zebra Park

Windmill pump, a common site over the Karoo just like they are in Outback Australia

Heading to Lesotho

We left Jo’burg on Saturday to drive east along the N2 freeway tollroad towards Durban. One of the closest towns to the Sani Pass is Himeville, which is about 650kms from Jo’burg, so we split the drive into 2 days, planning on staying overnight at Harrismith. There’s one campground there, but it’s very close to the N2, set behind a service station complex with at least 12 fast food choices, cafes, a bus station, and loads of parking. We thought it might be a bit noisy, so decided to head out of town a bit to a campground within the Sterkfontein Dam and Nature Reserve. Much better choice.

We were the only ones in the campground, but there were other campers near the edge of the lake. Finding a cleanish site without too much horse poo on it was a bit tricky, but we did find one, and learnt later that the ‘horse poo’ was actually zebra poo! How exotic! Sadly we didn’t see any zebras.

Something that has really puzzled me about South African campgrounds is that they always have at least as many bathtub cubicles as shower cubicles. This one had 8 baths, 3 showers and a disabled shower cubicle with a broken shower head … so that would actually be a disabled disabled shower cubicle ….HA! Yes, I think I’m hilarious, you may beg to differ.

Last time we were in South Africa, we listed some of the things we saw people selling by the side of the road. We saw the funniest one so far in Harrismith … a guy selling whips! Obviously a rural area, unless he was including a free copy of ’50 Shades of Grey’ with every whip he sold.

Last night we stayed in an Airbnb cottage in Himeville, and we’re very glad we did that rather than camp. Huge electrical storm and heaps of rain in the early evening, not typical weather for this time of the year according to our host. This morning it’s fine and clear, so hopefully the drive through Sani Pass will be okay. I’ll leave it to Greg to add some photos.

See you in a few days, we won’t have internet access while we’re in Lesotho.

Finding room for the solar panels in between the Zebra poo

Camped at Sterkfontein Dam. Ground is dry because it only rains in summer and it is winter. Trees are bare because its winter.

Shopping at Pick n Pay Supermarket Harrismith

Its only a bit broken...Harrismith — Its only a bit broken…Harrismith

White Sand, Blue Water

We only had one full day in Windhoek, and no plans on what we’d see or do … which was probably a good thing, as it turned out. We went to a suburban shopping centre in the morning to get a few things. The outside of the centre was very eye-catching, painted in bright pastel colours. We parked towards the end of the car park, about 20 metres from a police station. Didn’t help much, because someone chucked a brick through the passenger window and stole Greg’s camera. Yeah, we know, he shouldn’t have left it in the car. The locals we talked to were really surprised that it happened, apparently stuff like that doesn’t happen in Windhoek, or it only happens in the centre of town, or only on weekends, or something. But that sort of thing happens at home too – it happened to my mum when her car was parked outside a friend’s place in the ‘leafy Eastern Suburbs of Adelaide’, and when Greg had the child care centre, it happened to the family of a child who attended … and their car was unlocked!

Anyway, that took care of the rest of our day in the big city. I started cleaning up the glass while Greg went and joined the enormous queue in the nearby cop shop, only to finally reach the head of the line and be told that they only stamped forms or something. If we wanted to report it, we’d have to go to the main station in town. We also had another problem with the car – it made a clunking noise when it was in 4-wheel drive, and we had to take it to the rental office to either be looked at or swapped for one that (hopefully) didn’t make clunking noises. The rental office and our hotel were very helpful and told Greg where to take the car to have the window replaced, which took a couple of hours and cost $100. We didn’t bother about reporting it to the police as we aren’t claiming anything on insurance, and the rental office were pretty half-hearted about whether they needed it or not. When we returned the car, you couldn’t tell there had been a problem, apart from a bit of glass under the passenger seat that we couldn’t reach.

We swapped all our stuff from one single cab Hilux to an almost-identical car, apart from the ‘new’ one having 45,000 fewer kms on its odometer, and the back door of the canopy being much easier to open. Even the number plate is very similar. There was a roof tent on it, which was removed because we didn’t want it – those things look like canvas torture chambers to me – several metres off the ground, only accessible by a flimsy ladder, very unstable in high winds, and apparently prone to collapsing if not put up properly. Because of its weight and increased roof height, it increases wind resistance and lowers fuel economy. Here endeth my rant against roof tents.

So, we’re back on the west coast – at Swakopmund. It’s about 350kms west of Windhoek, sort of like the Gold Coast of Namibia, but on a much lower scale. Some nice houses, lots of holiday accommodation, fancy shops, beaches, cafes. You know the kind of thing. We’re spent the last 2 days at the Alte Bruck Holiday Resort and Conference Centre, camping in our tent in an en-suite campsite. Bathroom, huge paved area with sink, braai (bbq), drying rack, power … all the things. It’s lovely. Yesterday we drove 30kms south to Walvis Bay, another seaside resort that offers lots of holiday activities – cruises, sand activities including sand-boarding, go carts, 4WD tours. Undeterred by our recent sand dune experience, Greg was keen to do some more sand dune driving to the northern end of the Namib-Naufluft National Park (Sossusvlei is also part of the same part, but further south), so we headed for the dunes, with more success this time, despite my reservations. Just a bit south of Walvis Bay is a large flamingo colony, and a sand mine.

We’re heading north towards the Skeleton Coast today, and will probably be ‘off the grid’ for a few days. Have a good weekend, all.

The fanciest campground we have ever stayed in with our own onsuite

judy on the sand dune south of Swakopmund

The beach north of Sandwich Harbour. In the background is the ever present mist that hangs over the coast because of the Benguela Current, the cold current that makes Namibia and desert and affects the weather along the coast — The beach north of Sandwich Harbour. In the background is the ever present mist that hangs over the coast because of the Benguela Current, the cold current that makes Namibia a desert and affects the weather along the coast

Dune 7 outside Walvis Bay. 383 metres high half the height of Mount Lofty in Adelaide

Ina shopping centre in Windhoek outside a Police Station — In a shopping centre in Windhoek outside a Police Station

Birthday lunch

No, it’s not my birthday, or Greg’s birthday. I spent my birthday driving part of the way from Jo’burg to Cape Town the last time we were here. For my birthday, Greg had tried to book us into The Test Kitchen in Cape Town, but it is booked out months in advance. As soon as we knew we were coming back, Greg emailed to make a booking and got us in. Which was pretty lucky as at about the same time as he emailed, The Test Kitchen made it to number 28 in the Top 50 Restaurants in the world. It’s also regarded as the best restaurant in Africa. It is now booked out until March next year.

We had lunch there yesterday and it was superb. Beautiful setting, in part of an old biscuit mill in Woodstock. The restaurant has an open kitchen and we were able to watch the 15 or so chefs at work. We sat near the dessert chefs who were baking micron-thin sheets of pastry and doing various other components of the 2 desserts, then later in service all the action was right there as 4 of them got busy plating up.

We decided to have the 7-course tasting menu and even though it sounds like a lot of food, it was ‘just right’ and we were hungry again by dinner time. It was all delicious, beautifully presented and very artistic with lots of different parts to each dish – foams, barks, crumbs, sauces. Greg took a photo of the menu, but I don’t think the resolution is high enough to be able to read. I didn’t make notes because each dish was very complicated and I wanted to just enjoy it all. You can read more about the restaurant and the food here . The service was excellent, the waitstaff knew all about every dish they served. I had a glass of wine, Greg stuck with water. The whole thing cost about the same as a not-very-fancy restaurant meal at home.

And then we went and bought a small mountain of food and other ‘essentials’ to go with the 56kg of camping gear we brought with us and came back to the apartment to cook the lasagne we’d bought at Woolworths the day before. Woolworths here is like David Jones at home. And to complicate things just a little bit more, David Jones at home is owned by Woolworths here.

the tasting menu (click for a larger version)

Back to the other SA

We had such a great time travelling in South Africa earlier in the year that we decided to go back and see some more. This time we’re hiring a 4WD, so we can get to more places, although you may recall that we did take the ‘road less travelled’ a few times on our last trip.

We’re starting and finishing in Cape Town, and the basic plan is to drive north to Namibia, hopefully as far north as the Angola border, then head east to Botswana and see more of The Beautiful Country, then back to Cape Town. Alexander McCall Smith fans will note that we have given him a nod in the title of this blog.

Okay, plane’s boarding, gotta go xx