Dingo Beach to Knysna, South Africa

Today we set off for our next adventure - 3 months of travelling, mostly in Africa. Our good friends, Brenda and Darryl from Dingo Beach have joined us for a couple of months, so we're sure we'll have many adventures ahead.

Col & Eileen arrived in two cars and organised our transportation to Proserpine Airport. In Brisbane we headed for the Emirates counters, organised our seating and headed to our the departure gate in readiness for our 14 hour flight to Dubai.

While on the flight my breakfast was delayed and then forgotten about. When the hostess realised I had no breakfast, she was so apologetic for the oversight. Within minutes my breakfast was delivered. I was not concerned - things happen! After breakfast was over the hostess returned with a gift for me - a bottle of NZ Sauvignon Blanc, a box of Belgian chocolates and two large bags of mixed nuts! I must always remember it pays to be patient and understanding!
We arrived in Dubai - picked up our hire car and headed to our hotel which we booked online before we left home. We stayed at the Grand Flora Hotel and paid $100 for B&B in a 4 star hotel - it was excellent. Dubai lacks one major item in my opinion - a good street map. We certainly managed to get around and were able to see all the major sites, but a decent map would have been a bonus. Dubai is quite a place - lots of concrete and lots of roadways. We visited Bur Al Arab, the Palms and checked out the beaches of Jumeriah. We visited the old Spice souq and the old Gold souq, where Brenda and I both scored some beautiful jewellery.

In the evening, we visited a roof top bar and ordered some beer - at $6.50 each we decided to give the rooftop a miss, head back to our Hotel and partake of my lovely Emirates' gift. We had a great sleep that night, but very sadly I awoke to the news that my Uncle Bob had passed away in Greenville, upstate New York. Pat and I visited Auntie Bertha and Uncle Bob just last July in 2009, so I am so happy we had the opportunity to spend quality time with them both while we were there. Uncle Bob was an amazing man - at 81 years of age he embraced the latest technology and recently set up Broadband and Skype on his home computer.

In the afternoon of day two in Dubai, we set out for the desert in a Toyota Landcruiser. We had a great day - driving around the sand hills of the desert - dune bashing! It was a crazy drive and at the same time, very exciting - there were 100's of Toyotas dune bashing - all very organised of course. Following our driving extravaganza we arrived at a Bedoin camp and experienced a fantastic evening of belly dancing, twirling Dervishes, Arabian music and dancing. Our buffet dinner was out of this world - the spices and flavourings were truly amazing. Brenda and Darrell set off on a camel ride for a new experience - the look on Brenda's face told the story - they had a ball.

The eruption of the volcano in Iceland has sent airlines and airports into chaos in the northern parts of Europe. To date, approximately 16,000 flights thave been cancelled with travellers being stranded in all parts of the world. Fortunately, Dubai flights south were unaffected so we headed off to Johannesburg the capital of South Africa. We organised an 18 day overland trip in South Africa from Johannesberg to Cape Town with a travel specialist company called Drifters - this is a new way of travel for us, so we're interested to see how it will all work out. They provide the transport and a guide so then off we will go.

There is much to be said about Africa - but where do we begin to understand it? The following quotes give us food for thought.

Apartheid is exactly where it belongs - in a museum.

To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. (Nelson Mandela)

Johannesburg is a huge city with a population of 10 million. We checked into the Drifters Inn and had a great night's sleep - changing international time zones plays a bit of havoc with the body so it takes a few days to settle back into a good pattern. We decided to book onto an organised tour of Johannesburg and Soweto, in order to gain a better insight into the political situations in Africa, the abolishment of Apartheid and the lifestyles of its peoples. Our tour of 6 hours certainly opened our eyes and explained many things to us, we previously we unaware of. We visited a street in Soweto where both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu had lived - both of these amazing visionaries were also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

We lashed out at dinner and thoroughly enjoyed our meals of South African Kudu, crocodile, ostrich and fish. After dinner we headed out onto the back patio, where we commenced our briefing for our next day's early morning start on Drifters 18 Day Tour of South Africa. We met our fellow passengers: from Canada - Bruno and Michel from Montreal and Marie-Lynn from Ottawa; from New Zealand - Amy from Christchurch and our crew from Dingo Beach - ourselves, Brenda and Darrell.

After a delicious brekky of bacon and scrambled eggs we boarded our purpose built truck, met our character of a guide, Krusty and headed out to explore parts of South Africa. The truck is extremely comfortable with bucket seats, loads of leg room and floor to ceiling windows for great viewing. Highlights on today's trip included Dullstroom, Robbers' Pass and the historic town of Pilgrim's Rest. We also visited Bourke's Luck Potholes and the Blyde River Canyon, where we saw some spectacular scenery.

We wound our way down the escarpment to the Lowveld camp of Bushveld where we pulled up stumps for two nights. We were all guided to our bush cabins by our native tracker, Vusi - who coincidentally was born on 6th September 1976, the same day as our daughter Kelli. Our tent style cabins come complete with an ensuite so we have no need to venture outside during the night - Vusi told us not leave our tents during the night as lions and leopards roam freely. The evening sky lit up, the thunder clapped and the rain came down - we were to experience a Bushveld thunderstorm.

After a great night's sleep our day commenced with traditional buttermilk rusks and coffee. We then headed out for a game walk with Krusty and Vusi - where we also learned a lot about native plants and bush medicine. Vusi also identified various animal droppings and footprints including elephant, lion, antelope, white rhinocerous and giraffe. In the late afternoon we will be going out in open vehicles to look for animals - I think there is a refreshing element of safety being in a vehicle as opposed to being on foot. Today we learnt a valuable lesson – every piece of shit tells a story! We even had a competition to see who could spit a piece of Impala dung (dried) the furtherest! We called this our SOS competition - spit or swallow! Vusi spit the furtherest and then Pat came second - that must be the bushy in him!

While at Bushveld Camp we set off on our first open-vehicle game drive in the afternoon, had sundowner drinks alongside a waterhole and then continued on our evening game drive. We had an amazing night drive and saw many animals in their natural wild state - I especially love the giraffes. At one stage we came across a herd of elephants – all was okay until we drove close to some baby elephants – that’s when the Mums and Dads started getting a bit edgy and were indicating for us to get going! One young buck walked up behind our “open” vehicle and began flapping his ears at us! Krusty and Vusi decided it was time for us to head on out – we felt they made a great decision! Our guides have never seen so many elephants in one place, so it was a great night for all!

As we were driving out of our Bushveld Camp we looked out the right hand side of our truck and we were all lucky enough to see a Lioness. The day was spent travelling through the rural Bushbuck ridge area to the sleepy settlement of Hazyview and then on to the Drifters Hazyview Inn, which is built from logs and is perched up high on stilts in the subtropical forest on the banks of the Sabie River. When we arrived, we were greeted by the resident Ostrich and Warthogs which roam freely around the property! After dinner and a few drinks we all sat around the table and spent a fabulous night playing cards. I can't remember when we laughed so much - Bruno taught us all to play "Whatever" and "Salad".

A short distance away from Hazyview is the world famous Kruger National Park, which will be our home for this night. We spent the entire day viewing animals from the high vantage point of our purpose built truck. What an amazing experience to be able to drive through this wonderful park and see the wild animals of Africa roaming around. We saw many animals including, zebras, giraffes, rhinocerous, hippopotamus, wildebeest, buffalo, elephants, monkeys, baboons, steenbok, klipspringer, impala, mongoose and many birds of the African bush. As we were driving out of the park we were lucky enough to see a Lion and Lioness sitting in the grasses close by to the road.

It certainly is a small world - unbelievably while we were in Kruger Park we ran into Vic and Leanne Barnett, and Col & Elizabeth MacBean, friends from our Middlemount days.
After our big day out viewing the animals, Pat volunteered to cook, so we all enjoyed our Spagetti Bolognaise for dinner - I know Krusty enjoyed the night off from cooking!

We travelled south from Kruger Park through Swaziland through spectacular scenery and saw many traditional homesteads built in the round shape - many are built from mud and straw. We entered an area once ruled by the famed Shaka Zulu - this area is a centre for many Game Reserves. Our first stop was the local supermarket where we stocked up for our next few days. While I was walking around the supermarket I noticed some older women smiling broadly - I stopped to say "hello" and the next minute I was dancing in the aisles with one of the Zulu women - what a hoot! After shopping, we headed onto our "rustic" campsite in a sand forest where we stayed for the next two nights.

Our cabins were small A frames which just fitted two single beds and we shared the camp amenities with the rest of our group. In the morning we set off on a game walk through some amazing vegetation and scrub. At one stage we were walking beside a little stream when Krusty jumped back and told us all to get back - he came upon a large cream and brown coloured South African Python which was in the strike position in the water beside our walking track. What a big snake! It moved slowly in the water away from us and headed toward the opposite side of the stream - they estimate it was about 3 to 4 metres in length.

In the afternoon, we headed off in our "open" game vehicle for Hluhluwe (pronounced Sha-slew-ee) National Park which ended up being a spectacular trip - we also came across a group of 7 giraffes, one of which walked right up alongside our vehicle and walked down the road in front of us. The giraffe is a very elegant animal - they look spectacular in the bush picking their leaves from the treetops. We also saw a herd of buffalos, several rhinos and even a rhino with a baby - possibly only a couple of days old.

When we stay in the camping areas we all take turns and share in the washing up and cleaning up after meals. Our group of eight (plus Krusty) gets along very well - we are blessed to have such a well balanced group of people travelling together - our ages are from 26 to 61 and our average age group is 51.

We left our Zululand campsite in the morning and visited a nearby rural Zulu school. Just beside the school, we visited the local witchdoctor and her apprentice who had a meeting with us - various questions were asked of her and she seemed to take the answers out of a pile of shells, bones and coin - Krusty told us not to believe anything she said! The Principal then took us in to meet some students and explained that this school exists and operates due to the generosity of support by Drifters and tourists. There are 900 students and 30 teachers in the school and they certainly offer many subjects. We were then taken in to meet a large group of grade 12 students who began to sing for us. Well it took our breath away - they sang so beautifully and then they started to sway and began dancing as well. To say this display was spectacular would be an understatment - it was truly amazing. The boys and the girls gave it their all and we were treated to a fantastic display of singing and dancing by these young African students.

As we headed toward the magnificent coastline of eastern Africa we could see the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing onto the shoreline of deserted beaches. About 20 klms north of Durban we wound our way down the hills to the Drifters Dolphin Coast Inn, which is amazingly located right on the beach. All the rooms come complete with white sheets on the beds and spectacular ocean views, so it was wonderful to hear the waves crashing and look out to sea after our amazing inland Safari.

Our evening meal was a traditional fish braai, which is a delicious local smoked fish called Snook. This evening was the first opportunity we had had in a while to check emails, although the internet was painfully slow, after which we had an early night.

We spent three hours in Durban the following morning before once again heading west, this time towards the Drakensberg Ranges. When we reached the foothills we all transferred into a 4WD vehicle for a 6 klm trip up to the Drifters Drakensberg Inn where we will spend the next two nights in cosy log cabins.

Our log cabins are great - each cabin has two bedrooms complete with a log fireplace and a shared bathroom. Brenda, Darrell, Pat and I were allocated Cabin #1 so we headed off to unpack. The weather had become very cold and the rain clouds were low - before long it was raining, so we bundled ourselves up and headed up to the main building for dinner. We had a beautiful dinner cooked by the inn keepers and enjoyed a few drinks before braving the outside cold and heading off to our cabins for a good night's sleep.

The following morning we awoke in our log cabin to the sun shining on the mountainside surrounding our mountain retreat. Straight after breakfast we set off on a mountain walk to see some rock paintings done by the African San people, the earlier inhabitants of this region of Africa. We stopped along the way to rest and enjoyed the crisp mountain air and the magnificent scenery. Later, back at the campsite, I took the opportunity to write up my blog. Ponies were available for anyone wishing to go riding, so in the afternoon Pat, Darrell, Amy and Marie-Lynn set off for an afternoon ride.

Once again, Bruno brought out the playing cards and taught us how to play two more card games "952" and "The Clock". Bruno has an amazing memory and I can't believe how he can play and recall the rules for all the different card games he can play - he's a marvellous teacher and we have great times playing cards with him.

We once again boarded our 4WD vehicle for the 6 klm trip back down the mountain where we loaded our gear back into our tour vehicle which Krusty affectionately calls "Sophie" and set off on a 350 klm trip. We crossed the Oliviershoek Pass and stopped to see the clear turquoise waters of Sterkfontein Dam. During our day's travel we stop along the way and pick up drinks and snacks, South Africa is very well set up for the traveller. The amenities are always very clean and well maintained - yesterday one of the rest areas even had about 20 vases of white roses in the washrooms. Our trip took us through the Golden Gate National Park which is well known for its towering sandstone cliffs and unique wildlife.

Clarens is a small village well known for its art work. We explored the streets and shops and enjoyed a lovely lunch in an outdoor restaurant. Pat and Darrell sussed out a Brewery and spent some time enjoying the samples of beer. Last night at dinner we found out that Brad Pitt was in town but none of us were lucky enough to see him. In the afternoon we travelled on past the township of Ladybrand to Oldenburg property where we had a farm stay for the evening. Our group managed to fill the whole homestead and we enjoyed a lovely lamb stew for dinner in front of the fireplace.

We set off from Oldenburg and headed into the dry Karoo interior. Our journey took us through dry flat lands, much like what I had expected to see in Africa. I must admit I have been blown away by the spectacular scenery we have seen so far - it truly has been amazing. Before arriving at our destination we visited a little township Nieu Bethesda which was established in the late 1800's and checked out the one man band brewery. The samples of the three different types of beer went down very well with the locally made cheeses, breads, olives and kudu salami - a nice little snack before dinner.

After driving along rough dirt roads we finally arrived at Drifters Karoo Inn out in the middle of nowhere! Peter and Christine welcomed us with the most amazing dinner of Springbok in Red Wine, vegetable medley and maize followed by a baked milk pudding and custard - yummo! Peter has worked for Drifters for eight years and Christine came from Switzerland just eight months ago to join him - they originally met a couple of years ago when Peter was a guide on a tour in Kenya and Christine was a passenger.

After a hearty breakfast we set off on a walk to explore the plants and animals of the Karoo. We saw ostriches, tortoise, zebras, springboks, elands, oryx, wilderbeest, boltebok and other smaller animals. Relaxation is the name of the game in the afternoon following the walk so it was great to kick back for a few hours. In the evening Brenda volunteered to cook dinner, so we all enjoyed a beautiful chicken pie, mashed potato, mashed pumpkin and peas. After a few drinks in the bar, we joined in for some card games of "Whatever". By 10:30pm our eyes were getting pretty tired so we set off for our cabin for our last night in the Karoo.

The following morning after an early start we headed out for the coast once again to follow the famous Garden Route of South Africa. The historical town of Graaf-Reinet was our first port of call where we explored the town's famous buildings. Unfortunately there was a power outage, so we were a little restricted in what we were able to see. Our journey took us through the mighty Outeniqua Mountains and through the Outeniqua Pass, the barrier between the dry interior and the lush coastal area. We travelled to the town of Knysna (pronounced Nei-sna) and headed off into the forest to our accommodation at the Drifters Knysna Inn, where we will spend the next three nights in a cosy log cabin hidden deep in the heart of the forest.

Our first day in Knysna began with a visit to the world's highest Bungy Jump - a height of 216 metres. Amy from NZ has previously done 2 bungy jumps and was anxious to notch up a third jump. She was cool, calm and collected as she was strapped up in her safety harness and headed off to the highest bridge in Africa which spans the Groot River. We as spectators had butterflies in our stomachs as she jumped off this perfectly good bridge! She came back very exhilarated and would have even gone for a second jump! We then headed up the coast where we walked along the seashore and crossed over three suspension bridges - visited a Wildlife Rehabilitation centre which specialises in the treatment of wild cats eg leopard, cheetahs etc and then on our way home visited the Elephant Sanctuary. Once back home at our log cabins, Bruno and Michel organised a sumptuous dinner - entree of Mediterannean salad with feta and French stick with goat's cheese, followed by a main of pork fillets with Mediterranean style vegetables. All in all, yet another great day in Africa.