The tour was to end in a town I’d never heard of, for those not taking the 1½-hour airport transfer for the group flight, and I didn’t feel the need to stay in Namibia any longer. My search for a flight out showed that the vast majority (including the group flight back to the UK) went via Johannesburg – and while I was pondering my next step, I received a marketing email from a tour company for a trip starting in Joburg on the evening of that group flight, a trip taking in Eswatini and Lesotho where I had never been as well as a few new destinations in South Africa. & it was a cheap trip, as much of the three weeks were to be spent camping … and I was already carrying the required sleeping bag as I’d needed it for Angola! Everything seemed to be pointing me towards signing up for this trip, which I did.
So I went straight from a pretty intensive two weeks around Namibia into a full-on three weeks, arriving at the hotel in Joburg five minutes after the introductory meeting had started! The group was a mixture of young Germans and German Swiss, and older Australians – I was the only Brit there, although one Australian-resident couple had British origins. I didn’t feel that there was an obvious niche for me – and it was clear from the first evening that beer was to be an important component of the trip for everyone except me. It didn’t help that the trip started with a visit to Kruger National Park, where it was hard for me to show quite the same level of enthusiasm as the rest of the group for all of the animals, as I’d seen so many at such close quarters just a few days before in Etosha (and had already been to Kruger, albeit 16 years ago). Which isn’t to say I wasn’t enjoying it (who tires of seeing zebras, giraffes and elephants – not to mention Southern Ground Hornbills?!), just that my excitement at each new sighting clearly didn’t match that of the rest of the group.
But after Kruger we crossed into Eswatini, a new country for me – and with some opportunity to see a little of the culture, as well as to take a walking safari in Hlane Royal National Park in which we were able to get surprisingly close to a white rhino! & thankfully this was one of the places where we had proper accommodation, as the camping required us to put up our own tents, take turns helping with the washing up, etc. I also had the bonus of getting my own room even though I had not paid the single supplement, as there were an odd number of us not paying the supplement and I had been the last to book, I’m guessing after the company administration had already paired up the other single sharers! (or perhaps, as someone suggested to me, they thought that none of the other sharers, who were all young, would want to share with an older lady?!)
From there we returned to South Africa, where we had a long drive to St Lucia Estuary, known for its birds but also for the warthogs and occasional hippos walking around the streets of the town! Here my lack of desire for daily beers (as well as my budget-consciousness helped by a store of snacks I’d collected in Namibia, where we’d been given more food than I could eat) cost me, as the majority of the group went out together for dinner and beers, and were lucky enough to see a hippo walk along the street outside of their restaurant. Apart from that it wasn’t a hugely exciting place to visit.
Then came a day trip to Cape Vidal, which lies within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage Site and is “home to a rich array of marine life and visited seasonally by humpback whales during their migrations”. Needless to say, we did not see any whales, nor was it possible to enjoy time lying on this beautiful beach – the reason the above picture isn’t very sharp, and that there is no-one there, is that there was a ferocious wind blowing, meaning that anyone on that beach very quickly got covered in sand!
After another night camping, we moved on to Durban. Well, that’s what the itinerary said (“Durban - teeming with golden, sandy beaches and glitzy nightlife”), but in reality we went to the town of uMhlanga, which was some 17km north-east of Durban … several of us were quite unhappy about that, as the chance to visit Durban had been amongst our reasons for booking the trip. But we tried to make the most of the situation, walking down to the seafront to look at the pier and the lighthouse (and the others drowned their disappointment with a few more beers…).
& onwards … via the very scenic Drakensberg Mountains (where we did some hiking) into Lesotho. Here we had a choice of activities, and I chose to hike to the Pitseng Canyon, followed by some Bushman rock art sites. It was hard-going! As someone who spends most of her life in towns and cities, I can walk for many, many miles – probably for the whole day – on fairly flat, paved paths. But I am not used to scrambling up (and down!) slopes covered with loose stones, nor to balancing on slippery rocks whilst trying to cross fast-moving streams. Thankfully I only fell once (as did the majority of our group!) and did not do any damage beyond a couple of bruises. & it was worth it, for the beautiful canyon and the fairly impressive rock art.
In Lesotho I not only got my own room, but for some reason a room way better than all the rest – something I tried to keep to myself! It was very large, with a comfy seating area, bookshelves with some books on, a dining table, a kitchen, and a bath as well as a shower in my bathroom. So I treated myself to some time lying in the bath. The brown bath … for which the explanation was on the wall, in a poem entitled Green and Brown:
We’re proud to say our Lodge is green.
We really do our best
To keep things simple, clean and fresh
While Nature does the rest.
And now we’re going further still.
Our water is unmarred.
The chemicals we used to use
Just made it much too hard.
So now they’re gone. The water’s soft.
At times it’s slightly brown,
But that’s not wrong – it’s Nature’s way,
So please just smile, don’t frown!
Next (back in South Africa) was Cintsa, part of the Wild Coast, with a great walk down a hill from the lodge, around the side of the estuary and then along a beach with a great mix of sand and beautiful eroded rocks.
From there to Addo Elephant Park, where we saw very few elephants in the park but were very happy with the other wildlife: our first hartebeest, and a few meerkats that popped up – is there anybody who doesn’t find meerkats ridiculously cute? I was also very happy indeed that when we made another of our very frequent toilet stops I noticed a few people pointing their binoculars and zoom lenses at the side of a building, and it turned out they were looking at a Spotted Eagle Owl – wow!
Then on along the Garden Route to Tsitsikama National Park, where we camped for a couple of nights in a beautiful spot right next to the ocean. We had a day and a half there, enough time to follow some of the hiking trails. I went first to Storms River suspension bridge, enjoying the baboons and hyraxes along the route as well as the views (although our cook was not so happy with the baboons when he rather foolishly left the kitchen for a moment to fetch something, and came back to find a few baboons gathering up parts of what was supposed to be our dinner!). Really, rock hyraxes are nearly as cute as meerkats:
Then the next day did a longer trek partly along the foot of the steep and thickly vegetated hillside and partly over and around a mess of rocks on the beach. It wasn't easy (at one point I did ask myself if I really wanted to continue or whether I should just turn back), but the waterfall at the end definitely made it worthwhile.
Then (this was a long trip…), via the pretty spectacular Cango Caves to Oudtshoorn, where we expected to see meerkats. Only they didn’t show that day (as they didn't when I went there in 2010) … just as well we saw a few at Addo Elephant Park. & from there to a winery for a ‘wine tasting’. I put that in inverted commas as we were given a short talk, told what the five wines in front of us were (which grapes), and left to drink up! To my surprise, some of my group (the beer drinkers) don’t like wine, meaning that there was more than enough for the rest of us…
& from there to the end of the tour in Cape Town (where I did join some of the others for a very good evening of food, wine and live music), via Boulder’s Beach for its colony of penguins. I went there on my previous trip in 2010, at which time they were referred to by the guide as Jackass Penguins (due to the donkey-like braying sound they make), but now they are known as African Penguins. Very cute, and the colony is located in a beautiful place – I’m surprised to see that I didn’t post any photos of them, nor even mention that part of the trip, when I wrote up my 2010 visit.
Comments
Post a Comment