Leaving the baking hot Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park behind, we made our way to Durban, where we readied Big Bertha for shipping to South America. On the way we visited Kimberly, home of the ‘Big Hole’ – a huge diamond mine, our friends Johan and Lyn, Terry (our champion mechanic) and the Drakensburg mountains. Here we are with Johan and […]
Perhaps not the prettiest of waterfalls, but certainly one of the most powerful we have seen, Augrabies Falls was almost at full flow when we visited. Eastern South Africa had experienced very high rainfall (unusually high, locals said) during February and a number of sluice gates on the Orange River had been opened to try to prevent flooding in the […]
On the way across from the West Coast to the Kgalagadi National Park we camped for a night at the Kalahari Trails Meerkat Sanctuary. Aside from a very nice welcome from Richard, a fellow Brit making his home in South Africa, we were treated to some fun encounters with their resident mob (yes, that’s the correct term) of meerkats. We were first […]
After the excitement of the new washing machine and a quick detour back to Cape Town (so that we could join the friendly Fish Hoek Scottish Dancing group for a class), we continued our journey north up the West Coast. The village of Paternoster has a laid-back feeling to it and it was nice to see pretty white-painted bungalows, rather […]
The Garden Route is a famous route in South Africa and it didn’t disappoint. For us, the coast and inland areas just got better and better as we approached Cape Town. We were lucky to be able to stay at some of the more popular campsites (Storms River and Nature’s Valley) before the busy Christmas period started. From mid December […]
Having left Lesotho behind, we headed for the foothills of the Drakensburg to meet up with our friend Bud and go hiking together. The scenery in the Garden Castle was spectacular, but the weather was so-so. Good enough to hike though. From the Drakensburg we headed towards the Wild Coast. Our first stop was the remote coastal village of Mboyti. […]
Between eSwatini and Lesotho are South Africa’s historic battlefields. the Zulus vs the Boers, the Boers vs the British, and the British vs the Zulus. But not necessarily in that order. We first visited Isandlwana – the site of the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom on 22 January 1879. 20,000 […]
Sometimes we are intent on going to a place that’s off the beaten track and/or difficult to get to and the reward at the end is not really worth the effort taken (“a long walk down a windy beach to a café that is closed”, as comedian Bill Bailey once said). Francine had heard about Adam’s Calendar, a stone circle […]
Bertha had not benefited from so much attention for a long while, as she received at TM Trucking’s “spa” and she made it known that she was not ready to leave soon. Every time we took a test drive, there was some new small issue that needed sorting. A week after our “goodbye” braai (bbq) we were still there! However, […]
We had great expectations of South Africa. Whenever we talked about buying bits or getting things done for Bertha (or for us!), we always said “we can do that in South Africa …”, but perhaps what we had failed to appreciate fully were the other reasons for visiting – beautiful scenery, amazing wildlife, friendly people and a rich, if turbulent, […]