Friday, August 18, 2006
In Search Of The Big Five
Well, the big trip is nearly at an end, but we wanted to make sure that we ended it in style so we saved the Kruger National Park until the end of our time in South Africa. We decided to visit the main 'public' area of the park rather than the far more expensive private reserves, so we were a little bit worried that we might not see as much as we headed off into the park at 6am on the first day.There are of course many different animals in the park but most people are here to see the 'Big Five'. There's not really an official league table but we decided that the animal kingdom here is definitely divided, at least in the eyes of the tourists. At the top of the list you have the Big Five, these are your Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United, the Premier League of the park, so named because they were ones considered by the old hunters to be the most challenging. The rest of the animals can be considered to be merely 'League One', and some of them are very clearly 'Vauxhall Conference', with apologies to all the non-football fans out there (which will of course be soccer to some of you!).
Anyhow, it is apparently quite tricky to spot all of the Big Five, and to do so in a single visit to the park would be quite an achievement. So armed with our list of the 5 at 6am on our first day we let battle commence. We were through the park gates by 7am (you see it isn't all lay-ins this travelling lark!) and by 9am we had done 80% of the list, not bad going, at this rate we could pack up early and save ourselves a few quid! Something made us look at the list again and we realised that we had in fact only seen 20% of the list, the Elephant. Somehow, Giraffe doesn't make it into the Premiership (come on, how difficult would it have been to shoot one?!), and neither do the Zebra or the Hippo, clearly BIG doesn't necessarily mean LARGE in this game.......
So having properly reviewed the list and established that we were in fact looking for Elephant, Rhino, Buffalo, Lion and Leopard we carried on into the park. Any doubts that we would drive for hours and see nothing were very quickly quashed as by about 11am we had clocked up a list of around 10 different animals that we had seen, still only the one in the Big Five though but based on what we had heard from other people, we were pretty convinced that we would at least get 60% of the list ticked off on this trip.
There are just a few rules that you have to obey in the park. First of all, the speed limit is less than 40mph and you are restricted to only 25mph on the dirt roads, although you often need to be travelling even more slowly than that if you want to see much. Then there's the rather important 'staying alive' rule, so you aren't allowed to get out of the car, in fact "no part of your body or camera may protrude from the vehicle". (There are a few picnic areas but these are well fenced off from the wildlife!).
You also need to pay close attention to the park closing times. The main gates to the park close overnight and the 'campgrounds' where the accommodation is are also locked overnight. So by 6pm you either need to be out of the park or safely inside a campground, now this might seem straightforward but when you're driving 150 miles in a day at an average of only 15mph then you do need to pay close attention to the time!!
By the end of the first day we were getting pretty good at the animal spotting, although it really is amazing how SLOWLY you cover the distances when you stop every kilometer or so to watch some zebra or giraffe just grazing at the side of the road. We had also been warned that we would see loads of "Rock Rhino". It took us a while to figure out what this meant, but we eventually saw plenty of them, along with a whole load of "Log Lions", "Boulder Buffalo", and of course "Tree-Raffes". Yup, once you start looking closely, EVERYTHING looks like it could be an animal hiding in the grass!! Despite all these false alarms though we had still spotted some real buffalo and a solitary rhino, so we were back up to a genuine 60% of the Big Five by the time we arrived safely at camp.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Durban
Our extended journey along the coast meant that we were limited to a single full day in Durban so we really can't say we saw the city properly. On the afternoon we arrived we visited uShaka Marine World, no prizes for guessing what the attractions are there! My only complaint about uShaka was that the entrance area seemed to have been designed by the same people as the one at Universal Studios in LA, which basically means that you have to walk through what is really a shopping mall before you eventually find the gate to get into the park you came to see.There are a couple of walking tours offered by the tourist office in the city and we opted for the 'cultural' tour which took us around numerous old local buildings, including a visit to the largest mosque in the southern hemisphere. I wouldn't say that our guide was nervous, but she was very keen for us all to stick together and every time I got my camera out she would remind me to keep hold of it firmly. I can only assume that Durban is generally not that bad in broad daylight otherwise they wouldn't take tourists wandering around the streets accompanied by middle-aged women, would they?!
We didn't really encounter any problems, although we gave a wide berth to the 3 blokes having a heated discussion about the events that had led to the breaking of the bottle that one of them was still holding. Other than that the streets were fairly busy with people buying and selling a wide range of things from fresh fruit to the traditional doctors who offered a variety of unsavoury looking items to cure all ills. Then there were all the people hanging around near the local government office offering to take photos for passports etc. Our guide assured us that these people were only in the photography business, but I suspect that some of these people would probably also provide you with a full driving licence or passport for a few extra Rand.
My favourite local businesses though were the 'phone shops'. Throughout the country we have seen half size shipping containers branded with the name of a mobile phone company, inside these are public payphones which use the mobile network instead of landlines. On the streets of Durban however things are much simpler (and somewhat unlicensed I think judging by the reaction I got each time I tried to photograph one!). All you need is a mobile phone (well, SOMEONE's mobile phone anyway), a normal telephone handset, some sort of electronic metering device, a few bits of wire and a car battery. Then all you do is stand at the side of the street and sell your phone service to passing members of the public!
And finally there are the local taxis. As with the rest of the country these are actually small minibuses rather than cars, but Durban's fleet is somewhat distinctive. The word 'Bling' could definitely be used, and after one look at the outside of the vans the loud hip-hop soundtrack emanating from within is no surprise. In fact, if 50 Cent were ever to decide to branch out and start a taxi company then he could easily find vehicles here!
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Off To The Seaside
After seeing a bit of the real countryside our next stop was at the opposite extreme with a trip to the seaside town of Ramsgate just south of Durban. The towns along this stretch of coast really do seem like English seaside towns, complete with fish & chip shops, teashops and of course the local, er, crocodile farm.Friday, August 11, 2006
The Transkei
After coming to the end of the more touristy Garden Route we carried on up the coast and into..... nothing. All of the maps we have seem to suggest that, with the exception of the town of East London, there's virtually nothing at all between Port Elizabeth and the tourist towns south of Durban. Luckily Malan and Erin back in Cape Agulhas had filled us in on the parts that other maps can't reach. This was the real bit of Africa that we had wanted to see and grew to love, tiny little round houses with thatched roofs perched precariously on the hillsides miles away from anywhere. Clearly anyone with a car in these parts is a tourist and everyone waved to us as they were going about their daily business. This generally includes two 20 kilo bags of maize being carried around on ones head (women only) and a sack of oranges and onions in each hand. Training for this amazing skill starts young, we met a group of 9 or 10 year old girls on a weekend morning who were carting firewood around on their heads. So from an early age your neck muscles resemble a racing drivers and your legs need to be pretty strong too as you probably have to carry this lot for about 5 miles along dirt rods, grass tracks .... did we mention the hills? We were not sure that we would manage to keep a book on our heads over the same distance and terrain let alone over half an average womans bodyweight. Consequently we have rather alot of pictures of this as I was just amazed at the grace with which they managed to walk under all the weight.This was also the countryside where Nelson Mandela was born and grew up so we popped into Qunu this village in the middle of nowhere that had some kind of Mandela information centre. As we peered through the window into a room that looked like no one had been in there for several weeks, someone came trotting down the street to let us in. Into what was not really that clear, it was a lot of information boards lent randomly against the wall, reading them meant tipping some forward to reveal the one behind, much like you do when you look at posters in Athena. We didn't really establish why it was in this higgledy-piggeldy state but we got the information we wanted and had a look around the village. Mr Mandela still lives here although his house is rather noticeable from the main road as it is about 20 times bigger than anything else around. That is if the 6 foot fence doesn't give it away! In this part of the country there are no fences so we didn't win any prizes for spotting the house.
In the nearby town of Mthatha the main part of the Nelson Mandela Museum is located so we stopped there and found out more about his life before, during and after incarceration. By far the largest part of the museum is the section now titled 'Gifts to the Nation'. These are all the presents that have been given to Mr Mandela over the years since his release and which he has accepted on behalf of the nation and requested to be displayed for all people to see. Some of the gifts are really quite astonishing, what would anyone want with a 2 foot glass boat complete with a couple of hundred oarsmen an oars? No wonder he wanted somewhere to put all these things, I wouldn't want half of them on my mantlepiece either!!! Jokes aside, it was a really interesting museum and completed our portfolio of Mandela related activities on this trip.
One of the few 'towns' around that catered for tourists was Coffee Bay, a tiny little hamlet of 2 backpackers and a handful of houses situated on a little bay with the river running down to the sea. This also turned out to be another of those places where we really wished that we had been able to stay longer. The choice of where to stay was made even easier by the fact that only one of the two places had any beds left for the night, and after checking in we established that our room was on the other side of the river from the main hostel! There was also no 'safe' parking on the other side of the water, so unpacking our luggage involved driving back up the road and across the bridge to reach the room, before driving all the way back again to park the car. We were assured that the water level would drop enough for us to be able to cross back by foot at sunset. Of course this didn't happen, but at least by the next morning we were able to get back to the car without waiting for a lift! This might all sound a bit complicated but if you look at the photos of Coffee Bay you'll understand that these were minor inconveniences, and a small price to pay (and it really was a small price) for such a great location.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
The Garden Route
So we eventually made it to the Garden Route albeit a little behind schedule but still with enough time on our hands to enjoy it. This is the bit along the east coast that more people have heard of and yes, it's pretty, but the inland bits and the bits further up the coast are much more breathtaking.At this juncture our random approach to finding rooms finally failed us and we arrived in Storms River Village which is in the heart of the Garden Route and the main stop off point for many backpackers to find the only two hostels were full. This was rather surprising really as recent reports of terrible weather along this route had apparently cut off some towns and villages, and even the main highway was closed for a while so we had guessed, wrongly, that people might pass this stop by. After travelling around some of the worst roads that we have come across in our entire trip with lots of potholes still full of all the storm water and thus hiding quite how deep, large and generally vicious they were we decided that we had to head onwards. This was not before we had taken a careful turn to avoid one of the more vicious of these craters and found ourselves temporarily beached on a concrete kerb stone. It must be reiterated at this point that there was no clearly defined road, no road surface to speak of (unless brown is the new black), no pavement and therefore the need for kerb stones was totally superfluous, in fact this was probably the only one in the whole village.
So we inflicted damage on our hire car for the first time in the whole trip, which considering the amount of miles we have done can't really be that bad and we thanked our lucky stars that this incident didn't occur in any of the cars lent to us by friends on this trip! It was no great loss that we had to head on because it allowed us to catch up some miles that our 3 days of reckless drinking, eating and dancing had squandered! This part of the Garden Route is 'thrill' country and as we have described before, we'll leave the bungee jumping to other people! So really, we didn't miss much out by not stopping in the mud bath that was Storms River Village. In fact, it put us a little ahead of our new revised schedule and allowed time for a great hike along the Robberg Peninsula which was really spectacular and gave us yet more opportunities to see Southern Right whales and also some time to stop at a monkey park, hence the mix of photo's in this set. Rocky outcrops and peninsulas along the coast mean one thing, yup more lighthouses so I have had my fix for a while now and Mark can breath easily that I shalln't be traipsing down any more gravel roads for a while in search of the end of the land.
Further along the route you get into surfing territory and as we had been to the surfing area near Margaret River in Western Australia we thought we should also check out this place, not that we really have any idea of a good wave from a bad one although we saw just a clearly at midday the sheer absence of anything resembling a wave that some keen Aussie had trotted down to the beach at 6am for, hence there are no great surfing shots! This part of the Garden Route has to win the prize for the funniest protection racketeer of our South African experience to date. He was all smiles and "good mornings" as we parked our car and tried desperately to get us to have it washed ... hey it was a hire car that we had just crashed do you really think that we want all the mud washed off for the true damage extent to be shown to the world? Nevertheless, we gave him the usual fee and decided in the big scheme of things that he was onto a pretty good thing. (We probably haven't already mentioned this but it seems that parking is often 'free' in South Africa, but regardless of cost you are expected to tip the 'attendant' who looks after your car in your absence. Occasionally these people are fairly official looking but at other times it does seem like you are tipping some random individual who is possibly the only person around who might actually break into your car!).
Monday, August 07, 2006
Oudtshoorn
This is ostrich farming country. We only had an overnight stop so we didn't actually do that much, but we did do the key Ostrich activities, namely visiting a farm and, er, barbecuing one (not a whole one of course). The hostel we stayed at also provided free ostrich eggs for you to make scrambled eggs with, not too bad but I think we'll stick with chickens. None of this is of particularly great importance, but it does give us an excuse to publish the pictures of me riding an ostrich at the farm! People have said that they "...didn't know you could ride and ostrich..." and "...is it safe?.." and my answers remain the same, "...neither did I..." and "...probably not...". Nevertheless it was the funniest experience and fortunately I still have all my limbs intact. Luckily we did the eating bits before the farm visit, not sure it would have been quite the same the other way round as we met breeding pairs Adam and Eve and Bonny and Clyde, the latter having been together for 30 years!Saturday, August 05, 2006
The Bottom Of The World
After the whales in Hermanus our plan was to drive through some more countryside before making a quick stop at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa. We assumed that this would be quite a tourist attraction, and another opportunity to stick up a signpost showing distances to far flung places, but it seems like it's almost a secret that the South Africans are keeping to themselves at the moment. The backpacker 'Baz Bus' doesn't get within about 70km of the place and although there are quite a few guesthouses in the area we hadn't seen them advertised. Also, the two free backpacker guidebooks to the country don't (currently) list anywhere to stay in the town. In fact as far as we could tell the only accommodation was at a backpacker place we saw a poster for back in Cape Town. So of course we did the responsible thing and turned up in town without a booking, gambling that the place didn't turn out to be terrible..... We reasoned that it didn't matter much as we were only going to stay overnight, grab a few quick tourist photos in the morning, and then head off back up the road. How wrong we were!!
We soon discovered that the only reason the place isn't in the guidebooks is because it only opened this year, it will however be jumping straight into the 'Best Of' awards at the end of our trip. Back in Singapore we were lucky to find a great hostel based solely on someone else's blog recommendation, so hopefully we can now pass on the favour to others. So, if you're travelling along this bit of the coast go to Cape Agulhas, and when you go there make sure you stay at Cape Agulhas Backpackers, our photos are here. It didn't take our hosts Erin and Malan long to talk us into joining them for a Braai that evening. For the uninitiated (which included us) the Braai is the South African barbecue, and if you thought that the Aussies were the BBQ experts...... well, let's just say that you don't want to come to South Africa and start making statements like that! Down here it's got to be a REAL fire, and even charcoal is frowned upon by many, wood is the only way. In fact we met at least two people who seemed quite traumatised (disgusted even) by the knowledge that the Aussies and Brits barbecue on GAS, how could they?!?! We did try to explain that in the UK the timing of a BBQ is critical, and that using gas is often the only way to cook, eat and get back indoors before the rain starts, but it didn't help.
Anyhow, back to our first night in town. Having learned the rules we left the cooking to the experts (thanks Malan), and after one or two (OK, maybe more) drinks we were already agreeing to go along to a wine auction at the local bar/social club/nightclub. This was all great fun and somehow, after another few tasty beverages, we were already making plans to return to the club the following day for the big Saturday night out in town, not only that, but we had the opportunity to join a boat trip the next day. Whooosh.... there goes our plan for a quick overnight stay!
We were feeling a bit tired after our biggest night of drinking for quite some time so we almost didn't go on the boat trip, but fortunately we talked ourselves into it because it turned out to be one of the highlights of our entire trip. It certainly helped that the boat trip had been organised for one of the local winemakers, so of course he brought along some freshly bottled wine for us to sample. The plan was to go out into the bay and have a couple of drinks, a few snacks, and enjoy the fine weather. However, as it's whale season you can't sit around in a small boat for too long before you might attract the attention of one of the local marine residents. So whilst we enjoyed the fine local produce we were visited by a Southern Right whale of quite some size, I have no idea exactly how big it was but the important thing is that it was significantly larger than the boat in which we were all sitting. The sperm whale we saw in New Zealand was probably bigger but it was further away and we were on a much bigger boat, so this time we really did feel small! I'd carefully fitted the bigger zoom lens to the camera to try and get some decent photos but as it happened the whale was too close for that, which explains a couple of the unusually close shots, have a look here.
After all the whale excitement it was back to land for more local wine and yet another Braai, but we decided at this point that we'd better slip out for a couple of hours and actually do some sightseeing, so we headed off down to the lighthouse and the southernmost point marker. I've been discovering during this trip that Nikky is quite a lighthouse fan, which often involves heading off down gravel tracks for several kilometres in search of a vague point on the map. This lighthouse turned out to be very easy to find, but it also had a lighthouse MUSEUM!, so if you too are a lighthouse fan then this is the place to come. We discovered that there isn't (yet) a signpost at the southernmost point, but there are a pair of little signs which point out the Indian and Atlantic oceans. As we discovered at the Cape of Good Hope there seems to be no real agreement over where the two oceans meet, but Cape Agulhas definitely claims to be that point and they even have some thermal satellite images at the lighthouse to back up their argument!Having done the tourist bit for the day we headed back to what was now starting to feel like 'home' to enjoy more local hospitality. We somehow found the stamina to continue into the Saturday night out, which was once again a good decision as we got to see a proper Afrikaans 'disco' which was quite an experience to say the least. This being a small town the local bar is actually something of a 'multi-function' venue, so if you can imagine a combination of wedding reception and school disco, where the music is a mixture of pop, European techno/dance and what can only be described as line-dancing tunes then you've just about visualised the place! This might all sound a bit off putting but we really did have a good time, and that was before we got to study the local dance moves. Having a partner is essential, and you need to pull off what I guess could be described as 'modern ballroom', but at a tremendous pace (regardless of which of the aforementioned musical genres is playing), it's quite amazing to watch and I failed pretty badly when I attempted it!
This may help to explain why Sunday didn't really start until lunchtime, but we did still fit in a visit to the longest white sand beach in the southern hemisphere and more whale watching at De Hoop (see previous note). Finally on the Monday morning after a tour round a few more local attractions we decided we'd better get back on the road and continue our journey, we've given ourselves about 12 days to get to Durban and so far it's taken us 5 days to do about an eighth of the distance!!!
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Where Are These Whales Then?
South Africa is of course famous for numerous land mammals, but it is also one of the best places in the world (so they say) for watching another group of mammals from the land. Several species can be sighted from the coast but it is the Southern Right Whale which is most commonly seen, and for once we have arrived bang in the middle of whale season. The self appointed capital of the whale watching coastline is the town of Hermanus, which has a 'Whale Crier' who walks around telling the tourists where the recent sightings have been. It was a nice little town, we stayed in a great guesthouse, and were directed to an excellent fish & chip shop, BUT over the course of a week and about 5 or 6 different towns it was the only place where we DIDN'T see any whales!!But other than that we seemed to see whales everywhere. On the first evening that we arrived on the coast we stopped in a layby to get a bag from the back of the car and realised that there were several whales out in the bay. After that (and the complete lack of them in Hermanus) we just seemed to find them everywhere, find a small village or deserted layby pull up the car and there they were, sometimes only a few metres from the shore. Our best whale encounter was even closer than this, but that you'll have to wait until the next installment for that.
A few days after Hermanus we drove to a national park called De Hoop (which is pronounced more like De Whip), this was really in the middle of nowhere and was completely inaccessible without a car. We thought we'd seen the last of 50km drives down dirt roads back in Australia, but no, South Africa has plenty and to make it more fun it seems impossible to tell from the maps which roads are unsealed! It was well worth it though, as we stood on the sand dunes there were only about half a dozen other people around but there were at least 30 or 40 whales within 1/4 mile of the beach.
You'll be pleased to know that we actually got some reasonable whale pictures over the course of a few days. We've even got a few of the whales breaching. Not fully airborne unfortunately, but these whales grow to a length of 15 metres and a weight of 45 tons, so even halfway out of the water is an impressive feat!!
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Oh No, REALLY? A Wine Region? Again?!
Before we commence on this part of the story it must be said that despite the evidence to the contrary, this trip was NOT planned according to how many wine producing regions we could go to. But as we were on the doorstep of yet another great wine producing area it would be rude not to pay our respects! So we ended up in Stellenbosch and Franschhoek for a couple of days and came away with some great recommendations and yet more independent wine merchants that we must seek out when we get home. Over the course of our travels our tastes have moved from "...yup, I like that..." to "...nice, but not as good as in Oz..." You'll be pleased to know that we haven't got as far as saying "...oooh, a bit earthy..." but I tell you, we could 'fake it' with the best of them after all the dribble we have heard spouted over the last few months. One experience that was really nice was in Franschhoek where we were recommended by one estate to visit a couple of others. In one, the restaurant was open and they seemed to think that the other half of the business was open too but no-one seemed to have told them that the tasting room had knocked off early!
The second one was a real gem. After we had negotiated the tree felling operation and taken the long route through the front garden of the house we arrived unscathed at the tasting room. In fact it looked like it had just been well and truely locked up for the winter and had a layer of dust to boot but that was part of the charm as the lady tried to remember where the light switches were and dusted off the tasting glasses .... particularly large ones too, always a good start! And then onto the wines, they only made 4 and none of them were technically 'white' so Nikky was off to a bad start. During the tasting, the wine maker who we had seen busying himself in the corner of the cellar as we arrived popped in and it was a great experience to meet the man that created the masterpieces. He was supremely proud of the mere 1500 cases (of 6 that is) that they produce each year and pooh pooh's the recipe factories of Jacobs Creek and the like who are proud of the fact that they can get a bottle from vat to dock in 3 hrs.
If anything, the last year has made us appreciate in more detail than basic supply and demand, why some bottles command such a high price and some are 'cheap as chips'. Naturally, we procured a couple of bottles from this fine establishment to accompany the couple we had already purchased. Now we have reds and whites to accompany a steak, a curry, a chinese and a BBQ so we just need to find somewhere to prepare the accompanying food!
Of all the wine producing regions of the world that we have been to this has to rank among the prettiest in terms of the 'chocolate box' appeal. Both Stellenbosch and Franschhoek were like stepping back in time with limewashed houses and thatched roofs. Although unlike home, they all look like they have been recently re-thatched rather than in desperate need of re-thatching. Stellenbosch and Franschhoek were the only wine producing towns that we went to in the area, although there are several more, but there is scenery to see and we must press on ........
![[Valid RSS]](http://roundtheworld.mm.st/img/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}