South Africa is somewhere I have always wanted to visit, and it had the positive of being one of the only international destinations easily accessible from Perth except for Bali!
As soon as work packed up for Christmas on the Friday evening it was straight to the airport with Lion King blasting out on the way. This would be a mistake it would be stuck in our heads for the next two weeks! It also made me feel sorry for the stinky Warthog Pumba, and this was now number one on my wish list to see! Poor thing always gets overlooked for Lions and other far less impressive animals! Anyway we jumped on the red eye flight to Jo'burg, and a couple of holiday Stormy Normies and a few hours kip later we woke up in the Rainbow Country. HAKUNA MATATA!
Naomi and I were aware of the crime in South Africa, and had planned to take extra care whilst travelling, but in the few weeks leading up to the trip every South African friend, any one who had travelled to South Africa and even anyone who had seen Nelson Mandela on TV were telling us horror stories about being mugged, car jacked or worse. Needless to say we were mildly paranoid when we finally emerged from the airport.
We arrived early and caught the Gautrain, a new rail line built between Jo'Burg and Pretoria for the 2010 world cup to whisked us away to Sandton, which was a relatively upmarket suburb on the fringes of Jo'burg city. Sandton and other upmarket suburbs are where the majority of tourists stay, keeping away from the city centre which has become rundown and dangerous. Still paranoid we left the train station and to some relief saw our hotel directly across the road. A quick run across and a few near misses with mini bus taxis and we made it... or so we thought! There were 2 Radisson hotels in Sandton and ours was a little further away. Back out we headed looking like typical tourists and we headed down the road a little further. With suspicious eyes we thought every car was going to stop and shoot at us or mug us. Anyway we made it the extra few hundred metres and could relax in the safety of the hotel.
Looking out over Jo'Burg
Back when we had a few less wrinkles Naomi and I travelled around Asia on one of our first holidays together and met Deb and Wayne, a really fun couple who were taking a long detour back to South Africa having spent some time working in London. We had arranged to meet them in Jo'Burg, with their two lovely kids, Jemma and Kayla, and were relieved to have a couple of friendly faces and some local knowledge to ease us into the SA experience. They treated us to a great tour of the city, stopping off for an amazing and stupidly cheap (compared to Perth prices) burger at Rocomamas, followed by our new favourite milkshakes at Mugg and Bean! We had a great day out and left a lot happier, and less paranoid about getting mugged on every corner!
We headed back to the hotel, and got an early night ready for safari the next day. We got up early and headed to Nelson Mandela square in Sandton where we had an amazing brekkie! We then jumped back on the Gautrain back to the airport for our short flight over to Hoedspruit.
Jo'burg is similar to many other big cities, it has its problems, it has its bad areas, but on the whole it was just a place where everyone lives, shops, eats and gets on with life. It doesn't have the spectacular tourist sights, or stunning cityscape, but it was a perfect opportunity to meet some old friends, eat some good food, and start our adventure into the SA bush.
Don't think this was lifesize!
Good brekkie at Remo's well worth a visit!
Pumba
Impala - very common but still cute!
We arrived at the lodge late afternoon, and were whisked off for a briefing, basically letting us know that there are no fences, plenty of dangerous animals around, and the small african man waving a torch and whistle would almost certainly keep us safe walking us to our room! Hmmm! The lodge was awesome, the main area was a huge covered bar and restaurant area overlooking the river. The lodge had built a watering hole at the back, and we were told we had just missed the elephants coming for their afternoon drink! We were shown to our tent which was amazing, it was a simple Canvas tent with a huge bed, and an awesome outdoor bath and shower overlooking the river. It even had a little private deck to sit out on and go spotting!
Our Home!
We thought we would just be chilling for the afternoon, but we were told we had made it just in time for the afternoon drive! The jeep was awesome! It was a converted Landrover, with a spotter seat hanging off the end of the bonnet, and three rows of seats behind the driver. We were lucky and got the back row hanging over the back, ideal if we were being chased by a lion! The first drive was incredible, the guide Jimmy and spotter Collance, told us everything we needed to know about the bush and animals. We saw Impala, Kudo, Waterbuck (all types of antelope) but it wasn't long before we got a glimpse of our first big sighting. A Rhino... no correct that... a family of Rhinos! We were so excited to see these that we flew past a giraffe to try and get nearer. Naomi and I had both thought that we wouldn't get to see a Rhino so we couldn't believe our luck when we saw this family. Including a baby one! I had to stop Naomi from packing it up to take home. We couldn't afford the excess baggage! The luck continued as we saw two lions, elephants and plenty more impalas! After a few hours of driving around and getting bounced around, we stopped for a sundowner at sunset.
Naomi the safari spotter.
Sundowners
Each day we had 2 game drives, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon finishing at sunset. Over the 4 days we saw the 'Big 5' as well as plenty of other birds and animals. The scenery was pretty stunning too!
Baby Rhino, Our first Big 5 spot
Lion - Number 2 on the big 5. Photo credit Naomi! I spent ages taking photos and they didn't perform, one snap from Naomi and oh I know lets put on a show!
Turned out Naomi was a good Hippospotamus! Big but not a big 5. Amazing that you could hardly see them below the water. You wouldn't want to go for a swim here. Also where the Hippos hid so did the Crocs!
Gloria! Hey Moto Moto!
Mr Buffalo - Number 3. A huge herd passed across the track. Must have been over 200 surrounding us!
Stripy Horse!
Some of the cool animals weren't so big, but could push balls of dung many times their own size! The humble dung beetle!
Cool weird thing!
Kudu - Tasted yummy!
We stopped to have morning tea with the giraffes. It was awesome!
This is a waterbuck or a toilet seat!
Another big 5, The elephants all surrounded the car and one came right up to Naomi and made her jump! It turned out they were heading to camp for a splash and a drink!
One of the rarest animals in the bush the Wild Dogs!
Another lion spotted!
Naomi was now happy as this one had a Mane.
After seeing four of the big 5 within our first couple of drives we were all desperate to see a Leopard. Not to be disappointed, just before sundown on our second day we spotted one, it was just having dinner a tasty baby impala!
Another stripy horse checking us out
After our first Leopard spotting, we couldn't believe we saw another, this time it was stalking an impala. It was unbelievable to see it in action, using bushes and even our jeep to hide from the impala. In the end the Impala got spooked and ran off. The Leopard gave up on the chase, as although they can run fast, they can only run for 100m or so and then need hours to recover.
Back at the lodge we mostly just relaxed and watched the wildlife from our spotting deck whilst conducting an experiment to figure out which gin was the best at preventing malaria! Each day at breakfast time, the elephants would pop along to say hello! This was possibly the highlight of the trip! Another highlight was the amazing Boma dinner, a big open firepit around which we would sample some of the sightings from the day!
The lodge also had other visitors including a number of baboons! Naomi kindly reminded me everytime we got in the tent to secure the doors and keep baboon security at the forefront of my mind! Anyway one afternoon whist having my regular afternoon nap, I had failed to fully secure the tent and was rudely woken up by one of the cheeky buggers stealing the sugar from the tea and coffee shelf! I jumped out of my skin and needless to say Naomi thought it was hilarious!
After an incredible 4 days in Kruger, it was time to move on to Cape Town. This involved a 3 hour drive to Nelspruit Airport then a 2 hour flight to Cape Town. We only just made it to the airport in time after our driver felt like giving us a scenic tour of every dodgy town along the way! Fortunately we arrived just in time and a few hours later landed safely in Cape Town.
Cape Town is a fantastic city to visit! We stayed near the Victoria and Alfred (V&A) Waterfront which is a beautiful area of shops, cafes and restaurants overlooking the water. We spent a lot of time here trying different restaurants and enjoying all the street entertainment. One of our favourite restaurants was a safari restaurant where we tried various different African game meat! Yum!
Naomi posing with some famous South Africasns!
I love a good brekkie in a pan!
Table mountain often forms a layer of cloud over the top which drapes over it and creates the table cloth.
Christmas in Cape Town!
The seals made a regular appearance at the V&A Waterfront.
After a couple of Gin and Tonics and Stormy Normys in the hotel bar it was time for me to show Naomi how to play the bongos! She needed extra lessons whilst I was an expert!
After a night on the G&Ts and Stormy Normys we had a another walk around the waterfront again and found a cool bar where we could do some people watching. We found Kwak beer. This is a belgian beer that Team Slow introduced us to. I asked for two and got given the awesome glasses. I was a little surprised to find out that they wouldn't serve us though until we gave up a flip flop! Apparently this is a security measure to stop everyone running off with the glasses!
Cheers!
No shoe!!
The flip flop basket above the bar!
So we had a good few days exploring the city, but without a doubt though, the highlight of Cape Town was hiking up Table Mountain. We saved this trip for Christmas Day! We booked a guide to take us up the Mountain as we wanted more of a challenge than the usual easy tourist route. Well we certainly got a challenge! We chose to hike the Hiddigh-Ascenscion Route via Ferny Gully. Our guide Rhiann told us this was the most difficult but most scenic route. It didn't disappoint! We started off following an easy dirt track, but is wasn't long before we left the marked pathways and fought our way through the jungle! At several points along the route we had to rope up to climb some of the most technical sections. As some of you may know, Chris is not a huge fan of heights and before long he had gone very quiet. He spent approximately 11.5km of the 12km hike absolutely terrified due to the steep drops all around us! When we finally got to the top even Rhiann was impressed Chris had made it given his obvious fear. Chris commented "I thought I had hidden it well!" We spent just over 5 hours climbing up the 1086m and we didn't see another soul until we reached the very summit. It felt like we had the mountain to ourselves. At the top we treated ourselves to a warm coffee and piece of cake then took the cable car back down... all of us looking forward to our Christmas dinner!
Its a long way down!
Its also a long way up!
Amazing view!
Another Amazing View!
Still a long way up, and where is the path?
Nearly there!
The ropes are out!
Still nearly there!
We made it!
Just under the tablecloth!
View out to Robben Island
We spent the rest of our days in Cape Town driving round the near-by attractions such as the local beaches and national parks. There is some beautiful scenery around, but my favourite park was still Table Mountain National Park. We headed back here for Chris's surprise birthday treat.... Paragliding!
View over the city
View back over the mountains
Trip down to Cape Point the Southern-Most Tip
Looks so inviting for a dip... but its super sharky!
The time had come to leave Cape Town and start our road trip along 'The Garden Route.' This is a 600km drive along the South West Cape. Our first stop was Stellenbosch, a famous SA wine growing region. It is a beautiful little town nestled in and amongst little valleys filled with vines. We booked on a "bikes and wine" tour and set off to see the sights. We had a lazy day in Stellenbosch to start with and visited a local winery. The next day, we set off for another birthday surprise. We sat down for a really nice brekkie before our bike tour, before Naomi realised we had come to the wrong station. A mad rush and a doggie bag of brekkie later and we rang up our driver and headed back to the correct start point. About 100m from our guest house!
After the extreme Table Mountain hike, we were a little worried that we had booked on the 'Adventure' ride, half expecting a drunken downhill mtb run... we needn't have worried, we were joined by two elderly ladies and the ride was a little cruisy... just what we needed to enjoy a few wines!
After Stellenbosch we made our way along the coast stopping of a Knysna, Plettenberg Bay, Jeffreys Bay and finally Port Elizabeth. We stopped of at a number of stunning beaches, went on a nice mountain bike ride, and joined in with the mental new year beach party... well we sort of joined in we drove through and had stormy normies in the hotel bar. It was a little bit too crazy for us cool kids!
We had an amazing trip and saw some great parts of this stunning country. South Africa has its problems, crime, inequality and incredible poverty in places, but it is blessed with stunning scenery and some really great people. I am already planning my return trip, Cape Epic maybe?
Stunning Beach in PE
Just one of the National Parks on our road trip
View from our guest house in Knysna
Mountain biking near Knysna
Another beach... tough life!
Dip the toes in... bloody cold!
More nice scenery
Cheers to a good trip
