We started south from Kruger on October 20, heading toward the
Indian Ocean at St. Lucia, then along the
ocean east toward Capetown.
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Lots of our pictures show green trees, but most of the area around Kruger and in the
north eastern part of South Africa was pretty dry. There had been a drought for seven months
prior to our arrival, so most of the area looked like this.
The lack of trees in this picture may be caused in part by the locals daily going out and
collecting firewood. I think they try to avoid living trees, but some trees may get a little help
on the way to their reward. It is not uncommon to see a woman carrying a bundle of branches
on her head, walking along the roadside miles from anywhere. A book on the tribes of South Africa
shows exactly the same scene taking place many years ago, so little has changed in some parts
of the daily lives of rural South Africans.
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The drive from Kruger to the coast was a very long drive - it was windy and very hilly. The RV seemed
very sluggish - perhaps a gasoline fillup with low grade fuel. It seemed like I was pushing it along
the road. Fueling was a regular problem with this RV - it is very slow to fill and twice would only take 4 litres
when we needed 50 litres. We finally discovered that if I got it rolling then hit the brakes, first in forward then
in reverse, then quickly tried to fuel it, the air lock problem was solved. It took us an hour to discover
this.
We also had a delay while they righted an overturned coal truck - these are very large trucks like
the green truck in the picture. Here we are waiting at a road construction site - a regular occurrence in this area.
They stop all traffic in one direction for 30 minutes since they are paving one lane. This becomes a chance
to sell bananas - the woman is walking along the line of waiting cars selling bananas. There were people selling
food at every one of these traffic delays we came to.
What should have been an easy 5 hour drive ended up taking 10 hours, meaning we had to drive at night in the rain
to our destination that day - the coastal town of St. Lucia. When we got there are around 9pm, the town was closed
for the night. This is actually a tourist town, but this is not tourist season. We ended up driving around until
we found the campground, then driving in and getting a site, without meeting anyone. We shortened our days after
this.
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In a small town called Butterworth along the N2 in the east of South Africa, we found the home of the perfect pie.
A pie is a small pastry with a meat or vegetable filling - like a cornish pasty - that sells for around 5 rand (1$ CDN).
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The next night we stayed at Yellow Sands - right on the Indian Ocean.
The wind, which had been blowing since we left Kruger, continued for several days. This wind appears to be
a feature of South African weather, but since it is there all the time the locals seem to be able to ignore
it. It may be like the cold in winter in some parts of Canada - just background weather after a while.
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The rocks here are typical of many places in South Africa - intricately formed sandstone, with other little bits added.
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From the coast we headed back inland a little to another national park - the Addo Elephant Park. It is a small park
with fewer types of big animals than Kruger but we did encounter good number of elephants, often at pretty close
quarters. This big female gave us a once over before continuing on across the road in front of us.
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Elephants seem to have a regular routine of going out to the bush for lunch, then heading back to the waterhole
for an after dinner drink. This family group, which had about a dozen animals, mostly young, was crossing the
road to the waterhole.
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Addo also turned up this blond warthog! (Personnaly, I suspect this is some other kind of wild pig, but Brenda
insists it is a blond warthog.)
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Then back to the coast, at Tsitsikamma national park at the mouth of the Storms River. Again, a fabulous camp site right
on the ocean, with the waves crashing on the rocks below the RV.
This is the east end of a 5 day hike along the coast called the Otter trail. You have to reserve space for this
hike - they only allow a few people each day. There are huts to stay in each night.
A great park in a great setting.
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This is the mouth of the Storms River. It is interesting for the gorge at the river mouth - great eroded rock formations -
and this suspension bridge.
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The only wildlife we saw in this park was this Rock Dassie. Notice the short legs, rather rabbit like shape. Apparently
its closest related species is the elephant.
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I am not sure why Brenda posed me for this picture in an outdoor classroom, with me at the lecturn and her as the only
student. Perhaps I was going on about the trees, rocks and birds a little too much? You think? Nah, it couldn't be that.
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The rivers in the area are the only places that survived intensive logging and replanting with pine and eucalyptus.
This river is one ridge away from the coast, but very hard to access and hard to get the logs out, so it was skipped.
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The Storms River has a fabulous gorge associated with it. The main road along the coast, the N2, crosses the gorge where
this picture was taken. The geology is interesting. The shale type rock has been folded and lifted, then the river cut
directly across it. The result is this strange looking canyon. You can just see the ocean (the campground above is at
the river mouth) in the top left of the picture.
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You may have noticed that there has been no talk of cycling in South Africa. The bikes remained on the bike rack almost the
whole time we had the RV. The wind and roads were enough to keep them there. [The roads are quite hilly, but that alone would
not have deterred us. The problem is that slower vehicles drive on the paved shoulder when they are being overtaken
so they can be passed more easily. Not a good situation if you happen to be cycling along the paved shoulder. These two
did not think it was a problem, but it sure seemed a problem to us.]
At this point they had been on the road for 15 months and had covered 21,000 kilometers.
Starting in Holland they cycled into India, then flew to Kenya and cycled down into South Africa.
They tented the whole way, going into farms and asking to camp on the lawn when they could not find campgrounds.
Here they are breaking camp in a 40km wind and heading out into the wind toward Capetown. We thought of following them,
at least to the nearest town for breakfast, but the wind is high enough to get sand into the air. We turned back, put the
bikes back on the RV and drove into town.
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We stayed at this camp site for two nights, spending the day hiking around Robberg Peninsula. Here is Brenda at the end
of the peninsula.
This was quite a difficult hike - far more difficult than we normally see in Canada.
It is much more of a hike than a walk - with walks what we expect to find in parks in Canada. Without being dangerous, it
was fairly strenuous. As well, on the return trip we were on the windy side - lots of salt spray and sand in the wind.
It was quite a hike.
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The peninsula has a very large Fur Seal population. These are about 100 metres below the path we are on, but can be
clearly heard barking.
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Here is Brenda climbing down one part of the trail. It was not all like this, but it was not just any old walk in the park.
The rock formations are very interesting, the ocean was crashing on the rocky beach the whole time. We really had a great
time on this hike.
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However it did leave us a little peckish. We headed directly back to town, Plettenberg, and a restaurant we had been
told about called the Lookout and had a seafood platter for dinner. We ended up having two breakfasts and this dinner
in this restaurant. Very nice view of the bay and ocean from the deck.
This meal for two cost about $40 CDN. In general, food and other stuff costs less in South Africa than in Canada. Even
a little less than Spain and Portugal.
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A shot of the beach at Plettenberg Bay, from the Lookout restaurant.
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From Plettenberg it is a short drive to Knysna (K silent like in knife) where we stayed in Jan and Andy's country
house. The home is in a newish 15 home development about 10km from the ocean. This is the view from the deck.
Jan is Lindiann's (a friend back in Victoria) mom. We later spent 5 days at Jan's (picture below) place in Capetown.
We stayed here two nights - spending the days in Knysna and hiking in the forest back here in the hills.
There is some old indigenous forest in this area, but most of the old forests have been logged and replanted
with pine and eucalyptus.
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The forest trail near Knysna has some big old tree ferns - someting we saw in Australia as well.
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Knysna is a tourist town with a fabulous harbour. We had breakfast at Mario's Cafe on a pier in the harbour. These houses
are part of the harbour development, along with a bunch of tourist stores. Victoria should do something like this to get
the tourists onto the water instead of on Government street. Even for people who do not like tourist spots, we thought this
was a very nice tourist trap.
While we were having breakfast, the drawbridge just beside the restaurant was raised to let the sailboat (the fore sail is
just visible in this picture) out to the ocean. Nice touch.
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We spent the next night in Bontebok park, named after this antelope. When there were only 17 of them left, about 50 years
ago, the set this area aside as a park to prevent their extinction. There are now several thousand, here and in private
reserves. We first saw the Bontebok in with cattle in a field near the Yellow Sands campground. It does not occur in
Kruger, so we had no idea what it was until we got to this park.
The Bontebok come into the campground to graze in the morning. Fairly tame, if you move slowly and don't make any noise.
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These are the size of the thorns on the Acacia tree common in the area. They don't do much to prevent weaver birds from
using the tender new leaves to line their nexts though. They probably do help prevent some grazing by the bigger herbivors
though.
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The scenery is pretty nice too. Nice hikes and we did a bit of a morning drive around the park, seeing a
bunch of the Bontebok as well as 3 bat-eared fox. They were too far away from the RV for a good picture.
While not up to Kruger for wildlife, still an nice small park with a swimable river.
The hills or mountains in the background are just one of a number of ridges that run through the south
west part of the country. We were in mountains like these for the rest of the trip.
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Our last campground before Capetown was in the little seaside town of Onrus. Again, no problem getting a spot
right beside the water.
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It happened that the next campsite had a camper from the same company as ours.
I noticed that he had some levelers - jacks that you can lower to make the camper level. No one told
us about these when we got the van, so we had a couple of nights when the bed was tilted a little.
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We headed into town for breakfast, and just as we were getting back into the van I saw a whale dive. The tail
just hung up in the air for 15 seconds. These are Southern Right Whales which were hunted almost to extinction, then when
there were too few left for an economic fishery, left to recover. They are now protected and the populations are
recovering.
The keener eyes will be a faint dark line in the middle of this picture.
After the great look at the tail, it just lay there in the water to 15 minutes, not moving at all. Eventually we
had to give up and head off to Capetown.
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So, we arrived in Capetown on schedule, turned in the camper, rented a small car and headed out to
Lindiann's mom's place. This is the guest cottage Jan let us use for the rest of our time in South
Africa - pretty nice digs. Thank you, Jan!
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We spent a day in Kirstenbosch gardens - just a few kilometers up the road under table mountain. It has
a huge display of plants of South Africa, including many different kinds of Protea.
The plants are peculiar to the Capetown region. Capetown has rain in the winter (May or June through September) then
no rain in the summer (the rest of the year). Plants get too much water when it is too cold to grow, then none at all
during the growing season. The result is a lot of different succulent plants - plants that can store water during the
rainy season and survive the following summer.
The Protea is one of these. Some are very small, some get quite large, all are bushes with these flowers on the
ends of the branches. There are smaller varieties near the ocean, larger varieties in the middle regions, then
smaller ones in the mountains. A huge variety of flower shape and colour.
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Andy and Jan took us out to dinner and then for a ride around Table Mountain.
This is downtown Capetown with the Victoria and Albert harbour on the left. The harbour is one of the classiest
shopping areas in Capetown.
Beyond the harbour you can see some of the town itself. While there are some mountains here, there are also some
very large flat areas which hold the 3 million people who live here. This is a pretty nice large town, with several
smaller older communities on its outskirts that has a 1940s appearance and feel to them.
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This is a shot of table mountain, lit up at night for the tourists. The cloud that often forms at the top of the
mountain is called the table cloth.
You can see from the lights below that the camera was not completely steady during this shot. I was resting the camera
on the car and it should have been steady, but the wind was still blowing and the car what bouncing around. They call
this steady strong wind a black south easter.
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We spent an entire day on a drive from Capetown down to the end of the peninsula - to Cape of Good Hope.
A place of some interest to me, ever since public school and the history classes that covered the early explorers
who circled Africa to find India. If was fun to be here.
The plants in this area are almost all the very strange plants of the Cape ecosystem - Proteas, many different
kinds of heather, succulents, iris, wild onion and garlic, amaryllis.
There are a steady stream of tourists to this area, so you have to be patient and wait your turn for a clear shot
of the sign.
Again, the wind was blowing pretty hard. I has hunkered down behind a car trying to get out of the wind so I would
not be blown around too much getting this shot (and avoid the sand and salt spray on the camera). Brenda was hanging
on to the sign. Just then the car started up! I took this shot and got out of the way.
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During this trip, we stopped in briefly to check out the African Penguins (nee Jackass Penguins). Another success
story at species recovery. This very small park has enclosed enough sand and vegetation to allow these penguins, which
are about 16" tall, to dig their burrows and successfully nest. It also took an end to trawler activity in
the bay, giving the penguins a food source.
The penguins are stuck on the sand for a month while they molt, making them sitting ducks for the tourists. (How's that
for a mixed metaphor!)
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We went for dinner with Jan, her husband Andy, her daughter Debbie and Debbie's fiance Trevor.
Jan and Andy were great hosts for our time in Capetown (before Andy headed back to Jo'burg and Jan had us to herself -
lucky her!)
This restaurant is built right on the rocks just above the tide line. Since the wind was still blowing pretty hard, the
surf was pounding just outside the large picture windows. The windows actually slide, but I suspect they are closed
most of the time.
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We spent a day touring the wine country north and east of Capetown. Lots of old buildings and history to see
in the must see town of Stellenbosch. This is a shot of the church. Most of the buildings in town are not very old, the
town having burned down completely a couple of times.
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As well, we stopped for a great lunch at a small restaurant/winery called La Petite Ferme.
Gourmet food, great wine, fabulous views.
Then we explored the countryside some more, driving up the pass and over then back to Capetown. The area has
extraordinary scenery everywhere you go.
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B&Bs are everywhere - as you drive into any largish town there will be signs along the road.
The standard cost is from 250 to 400 rand ($40 to $70, or so).
Some of the larger campground offer huts or chalets, much like Kruger does. The cost there is about the same.
So, if you don't use an RV, which cost us around 750 rand a day when you add insurance, those are your main
options and your costs.
The plastic bags all over the place problem was solved in two months. The durability of cheap bags in the wild appears
to be much less than people thought. Using economic methods to reduce clutter, a very small charge and a reusable bag,
was very effective.
There was one unexpected consequence of a program that was too successful - there were huge layoffs in the companies
that produce bags, up to 1000 unionized well paid jobs had already been lost. Unions are about the only well organized
group in South Africa. The battle between the environmentalists and the unions has been joined. It will be interesting,
and easy, to see who wins this one - will there be any bags blowing in the wind in 6 months?
