Location: Hermanus, south coast of South Africa
Following on from the previous introduction to Africa, we then went to some of the battlefields, to Lesotho, hiked in the Drakensberg mountains.
We have not managed, yet, to see either cheetahs or leopards in the wild, but we did manage to get inside a cheetah enclosure at a centre for rehabilitating cats. They also had African wild cats, caracals and servals, but the highlight was definitely seeing cheetahs from a couple of meters. They were kept occupied by a few large pieces of chicken, so they didn't show too much interest in us. Very beautiful creatures.
Stop throwing those bloody spears at me
There are a huge number of battlefields in the region to the east of the Drakensberg mountains and Lesotho, in northern KwaZulu Natal. Zulus v Boers. Brits v Zulus and Brits v Boers. Of course, the one that most people remember is the battle at Rorke's Drift, immortalised by Michael Caine and the 12 VCs that were awarded. A handful of stoic Brits fought off more than 4,000 Zulus. This occured one day after another bunch of Brits took a serious beating at Isandlwana one of the worst defeats in British military history.
The battlefield here is still a place that is quite emotionally charged. There are small piles of whitewashed stones that are where bodies of British soldiers fell. (There are not any equivalent markers for the zulu warriors.) There are those that say that the 12 VCs awarded to the soldiers of Rorke's Drift was the result of a clever bit of media manipulation to try to overshadow the terrible defeat with a tale of glorious victory. There is a film based on this Zulu victory, but it is not as well know, in fact I cannot now remember the name of it.
The Drakensberg
Some of the most amazing scenery we have hiked in can be found in the Drakensberg mountains, and that is saying something having been to the Andes and NZ. One walk in particular was stunning: up to the top of The Amphitheatre. The views from the plateau are for miles and miles, and you can stand right on the edge where the rock just falls away for about 1,000m, almost straight down. It was partly cloudy when we arrived, which was disappointing, but with a little patience we were rewarded with some of the most spectacular views we have yet to witness. For anyone going to the Drakensberg this is a must-do.
We tried to walk up to a gorge on another day, but high water levels put us off. After crossing the river once (boots off, up to above the knee in icy cold water) and the rpospect of doing this repeatedly further upstream, we decided to give it a miss. From what we heard we didn't miss much anyway.
Lesotho
We had wanted to go into Lesotho, but were wary of doing this ourselves due to very under-developed infrastructure. We had planned to go over via Sabi pass, but people we met said they really struggled without a 4x4. We didn't want to go to the western side, since that is a little more developed, with the capital and some greater chance of running into car-jackers, who can be found readily in Maseru.
As it turned out we saw a very remote and unreachable corner of Lesotho when we took a 1-day trip from the place we were staying. The border post on the Lesotho side comprised 2 caravans, and they were being "renovated" so there was nobody on duty and we just passed straight in. This is a crossing that gets about 5 vehicles per day, so it is not busy.
Lesotho, also a kingdom like Swaziland, is the highest country in the world (apparently judged by the height of the lowest point), and the mountains here are simply stunning. Small villages nestle in the foothills, collections of simple, round mud and thatch huts. We visited on a Saturday, so the school (supported by the company that runs the trip) was shut, but many of the children (those who don't live a 2 hour walk away) were happily following us around.
It is of course very difficult to get any kind of appreciation of a place, even one as small as Lesotho, in one day. But the small part we saw was fascinating. It was barely touched by the 20th century. No electricity, (though we did spot a satellite dish powered by a solar panel and car battery), and a very spartan existence. It would have been interesting to be able to visit for a few days, but having seen the state of the roads I am glad that we didn't try with our car!
In May 2004 Phillippa and I resigned from our jobs to set off on a year long grand tour. This will be updated sporadically and will serve as a permanent record of what should be an extremely memorable year. Of course, it also keeps us in touch with those of you back in the UK, and enables you to follow our progress.
Search This Blog
Monday, March 28, 2005
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Safari Adventure
Location: Graff-Reinet, The Karoo, Eastern Cape, South Africa
In which we go to Soweto, the Kruger National Park, Swaziland, Sodwana Bay and the St Lucia wetlands.
The first week in Africa was spent near to Jo'burg, with some of Phillippa's family, including her parents who were at the end of their winter break in South Africa. As ever, it was nice to see friendly faces, though slightly surreal at times since it seemed to conflict with our previous lone and transient existence, just meeting people here and there.
Soweto
South Western Township, on the edge of Jo'burg, known by most people as the scene of some fairly disturbing and violent news footage during the 1980s, (and before if you are old enough to remember it). Nowadays, since 1994, many of the townships have had the corrugated iron shanty towns replaced by government built housing, but Soweto is still a large sprawling area, a city in its own right as it is home to more than 3 million people. As with any city there ae the posh parts and the less well to do areas. Some districts of Soweto are as wealthy, or more so, than some of the white suburbs of Jo'burg, filled with the current generation of lawyers and doctors. There is no avoiding the history of the struggle, Soweto is littered with sites of importance during the apartheid years. One of these is the Hector Pieterson museum, near to the point where the first schoolboy was shot during the school strikes of 1976. As with the Sharpeville massacre before it, this was to ignite a series of events that can almost be directly traced through to the first elections of 1994. Soweto is a fascinating place, if only because of its normality, well worth a day of anyone's time if in Jo'burg.
On Safari in the Kruger
After Jo'burg we drove up to the Kruger National Park (KNP), with a detour to go and see Blyde River Canyon. In all we spent 5 nights in the park, and it was fantastic. We have seen some wonderful wildlife on this trip, but the KNP was up there near to the best places (though, perhaps, slightly behind). It is one of the more accessible parks in Southern Africa, you can drive yourself around the network of tarred and unpaved roads, and the prices are not as outrageous as others. In all, it covers an area about the size of Wales, and is larger than nearby Swaziland. Once all the fences come down with the area in Mozambique it will be even larger.
One of the highlights was a morning walk, near to Satara. This area, due to the underlying geology and hence vegetation, has the highest concentration and diversity of game in the park, including the highest density of lions. And here was where we first saw these amazing big cats. There was a dead wildebeest beside the road and a lioness lying beside it, only a few metres away. Once this cat disappeared 2 more lionesses appeared from the grass and wandered around the vehicle for a couple of minutes. At one point one lay down on the verge of the road, right beside us. It really was (another) David Attenborough moment. We did see lions on a couple of other occasions, but never as close as this, where they were almost within touching distance.
It is difficult to go very far without seeing something, although on some of our trips we saw very little. But generally there are animals everywhere: elephants crossing the road just in front of us; groups of Burchill's zebra grazing beside the road; herds of buffalo; families of giraffe nibbling at the upper branches of trees; hippos chilling out in water holes; spotted hyenas wandering around at dawn. There are antelopes everywhere, we saw, over 6 days, thousands of impala and some of those harder to spot, like kudu, steenbok and klipspringer.
But it is not just the larger life that is interesting. We saw huge numbers of birds, leopard tortoises,the odd mongoose etc. The list is too long to enumerate.
We also had a flat tyre, near to Satara, the area with the highest lion population in the park. So that needed changing, we couldn't limp back to camp on it. Of course, there was no problem, but it makes for another interesting tale.
The Kingdom of Swaziland
After the Kruger NP we went south into Swaziland for about 5 days. We spent a couple of days walking in the Malalotja Nature Reserve, in the West, which was fantastic, glorious unspoilt mountain scenery, no signs of human life anywhere once we got a few minutes from the car. Large herds of blesbok were often around our little hut, and we had a few night time visitors scrabbling through our room looking for food too. But it was not about the wildlife but the views. Here, and elsewhere in Swaziland, there is some of the most beautiful countryside we have seen. The other high point in the Kingdom was the Mkhaya Game Reserve, where, they say, you are most likely to see a black rhino in the wild. It was here that we had our best views of white rhino (having only caught a glimpse from a distance in the Kruger) and the elusive, and endangered, black rhino.
Swaziland has managed to retain its original African essence, in a way that has been impossible in South Africa. Their culture is still very strong, and efforts are being made to keep it that way, and not let it be diluted by outside influences. We had a great time in our short stay, and managed to pick up some quite nice souvenirs. Now we just have to work out how to get all the stuff home.
St Lucia Wetlands Marine Reserve World Heritage Site
On the east coast of South Africa, south of the border with Mozambique is the St Lucia wetlands and Sodwana Bay. We went diving in Sodwana Bay, apparently Africa's most southerly coral reef, and it was great. Huge schools of tropical fish, colourful coral, a massive variety of life in a small area. The fact that the water was about 25C, compared to 13C for our last dive in NZ, helped enormously too. On our first dive we saw a few dolphins swimming around the boat so just leapt in, there and then, and dpent about 10 minutes snorkelling with them. This was a great free bonus, especially since dolphion swimming trips are normally about £50!
That doesn't take us quite up to date, but I will try to fill in the last couple of weeks soon. (Internet access here is still diabolical.)
In which we go to Soweto, the Kruger National Park, Swaziland, Sodwana Bay and the St Lucia wetlands.
The first week in Africa was spent near to Jo'burg, with some of Phillippa's family, including her parents who were at the end of their winter break in South Africa. As ever, it was nice to see friendly faces, though slightly surreal at times since it seemed to conflict with our previous lone and transient existence, just meeting people here and there.
Soweto
South Western Township, on the edge of Jo'burg, known by most people as the scene of some fairly disturbing and violent news footage during the 1980s, (and before if you are old enough to remember it). Nowadays, since 1994, many of the townships have had the corrugated iron shanty towns replaced by government built housing, but Soweto is still a large sprawling area, a city in its own right as it is home to more than 3 million people. As with any city there ae the posh parts and the less well to do areas. Some districts of Soweto are as wealthy, or more so, than some of the white suburbs of Jo'burg, filled with the current generation of lawyers and doctors. There is no avoiding the history of the struggle, Soweto is littered with sites of importance during the apartheid years. One of these is the Hector Pieterson museum, near to the point where the first schoolboy was shot during the school strikes of 1976. As with the Sharpeville massacre before it, this was to ignite a series of events that can almost be directly traced through to the first elections of 1994. Soweto is a fascinating place, if only because of its normality, well worth a day of anyone's time if in Jo'burg.
On Safari in the Kruger
After Jo'burg we drove up to the Kruger National Park (KNP), with a detour to go and see Blyde River Canyon. In all we spent 5 nights in the park, and it was fantastic. We have seen some wonderful wildlife on this trip, but the KNP was up there near to the best places (though, perhaps, slightly behind). It is one of the more accessible parks in Southern Africa, you can drive yourself around the network of tarred and unpaved roads, and the prices are not as outrageous as others. In all, it covers an area about the size of Wales, and is larger than nearby Swaziland. Once all the fences come down with the area in Mozambique it will be even larger.
One of the highlights was a morning walk, near to Satara. This area, due to the underlying geology and hence vegetation, has the highest concentration and diversity of game in the park, including the highest density of lions. And here was where we first saw these amazing big cats. There was a dead wildebeest beside the road and a lioness lying beside it, only a few metres away. Once this cat disappeared 2 more lionesses appeared from the grass and wandered around the vehicle for a couple of minutes. At one point one lay down on the verge of the road, right beside us. It really was (another) David Attenborough moment. We did see lions on a couple of other occasions, but never as close as this, where they were almost within touching distance.
It is difficult to go very far without seeing something, although on some of our trips we saw very little. But generally there are animals everywhere: elephants crossing the road just in front of us; groups of Burchill's zebra grazing beside the road; herds of buffalo; families of giraffe nibbling at the upper branches of trees; hippos chilling out in water holes; spotted hyenas wandering around at dawn. There are antelopes everywhere, we saw, over 6 days, thousands of impala and some of those harder to spot, like kudu, steenbok and klipspringer.
But it is not just the larger life that is interesting. We saw huge numbers of birds, leopard tortoises,the odd mongoose etc. The list is too long to enumerate.
We also had a flat tyre, near to Satara, the area with the highest lion population in the park. So that needed changing, we couldn't limp back to camp on it. Of course, there was no problem, but it makes for another interesting tale.
The Kingdom of Swaziland
After the Kruger NP we went south into Swaziland for about 5 days. We spent a couple of days walking in the Malalotja Nature Reserve, in the West, which was fantastic, glorious unspoilt mountain scenery, no signs of human life anywhere once we got a few minutes from the car. Large herds of blesbok were often around our little hut, and we had a few night time visitors scrabbling through our room looking for food too. But it was not about the wildlife but the views. Here, and elsewhere in Swaziland, there is some of the most beautiful countryside we have seen. The other high point in the Kingdom was the Mkhaya Game Reserve, where, they say, you are most likely to see a black rhino in the wild. It was here that we had our best views of white rhino (having only caught a glimpse from a distance in the Kruger) and the elusive, and endangered, black rhino.
Swaziland has managed to retain its original African essence, in a way that has been impossible in South Africa. Their culture is still very strong, and efforts are being made to keep it that way, and not let it be diluted by outside influences. We had a great time in our short stay, and managed to pick up some quite nice souvenirs. Now we just have to work out how to get all the stuff home.
St Lucia Wetlands Marine Reserve World Heritage Site
On the east coast of South Africa, south of the border with Mozambique is the St Lucia wetlands and Sodwana Bay. We went diving in Sodwana Bay, apparently Africa's most southerly coral reef, and it was great. Huge schools of tropical fish, colourful coral, a massive variety of life in a small area. The fact that the water was about 25C, compared to 13C for our last dive in NZ, helped enormously too. On our first dive we saw a few dolphins swimming around the boat so just leapt in, there and then, and dpent about 10 minutes snorkelling with them. This was a great free bonus, especially since dolphion swimming trips are normally about £50!
That doesn't take us quite up to date, but I will try to fill in the last couple of weeks soon. (Internet access here is still diabolical.)
Monday, March 14, 2005
Australia
Location: St Lucia Wetlands, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
In which we go to the outback and then back out to Sydney, and on another trip to Antarctica.
It has been a fair while since an update here, mainly due to it being next to impossible to find any internet cafes that a) exist, b) function at all, or c) are not so painfully slow that it takes more than 20 minutes just to seee if anyone has written to us, let alone read any emails. It appears that this part of Afirca is years behind South America, where finding reliable and fast connections was never a problem. Here, it is 10-20 times slower and 10 times more expensive!
Red Centre
After leaving NZ we went to Ayers Rock Resort, (which saves flying to Alice Springs then travelling the 300+km to the rock). I was expecting to be slightly disappointed by Uluru (Ayers Rock), after all it is just a large rock in the middle of the desert. The region is red, it is smack in the middle of the continent, it is dusty and it is hot. It also has some of the most persistent flies I have ever seen.
It was, however, well worth the trip. We did the obligatory sunrise and sunset viewings, and walked around the base of the rock. We didn't climb up the rock, since the Aborigines prefer you not to, because it is a sacred place for them. So why don't they just close the rock to climbers? Well, perhaps money plays a part. But we also heard another interesting reason. The title to the land was given back to the people in the 1980s, and is now leased back to the government for the National Park. But the government gave the land back to the wrong tribe, group A. The land holds no particular significance for group A, but it does have spiritual value for group B. But group B are not represented at all on the board that controls the Park, group A has a majority, the rest representng the government. So group B has no voice. Groups A & B have also had a long running acrimoniou feud over the millenia, hence A has no interest in helping B! Hence you can still climb Ayes Rock, despite it being desperately offensive to some of the local people to do so.
The other wondeful site worth a visit to is about 40km from Uluru, The Olgas. A series of exposed lumps of rck, up to c. 500m high, with canyons between them. Another good place for walking, and it was here that we saw a wallaby with a joey.
The flight to and from Sydney was also interesting, but only for a short while as the scenery is a tad repetetive!
Sydney
It was good to be back in Sydney, it feels almost quite familiar now. The last time I was here was for a wedding, and that couple have since emigrated out here, so we were able to stay with them and catch up over a few drinks. (There is a mix of Aussie and Scottish in this marriage, so it was quite a few drinks.) So thank you to the Stobos for looking after us.
We didn't feel any pressure to do much of the touristy stuff in Sydney, having covered much of that before. We did head up the coast for a couple of days, stopping at Hunter Valley to sample a few wines, then visiting various beautiful beaches up towards Forster.
From Sydney we flew to Jo'burg, on what has to be one of the most stunning scheduled commercial air routes. You set off over Tasmania towards the Antarctic circle, then at 65 degrees south follow this latitude, which is very near to the edge of the continent, around towards Africa. We could clearly see ice flows, big ice bergs etc. The pilot would interrupt the movies to anounce particularly impressive ice berg sightings, and, in an almost comical cartoon fashion, people would ruch from one side of the plane to the other! A great sightseeing flight, a real unexpected bonus. But, of course, not a patch on being down there with the penguins!
So far in Africa we have seen some wonderful things but they will have to wait for another day!
In which we go to the outback and then back out to Sydney, and on another trip to Antarctica.
It has been a fair while since an update here, mainly due to it being next to impossible to find any internet cafes that a) exist, b) function at all, or c) are not so painfully slow that it takes more than 20 minutes just to seee if anyone has written to us, let alone read any emails. It appears that this part of Afirca is years behind South America, where finding reliable and fast connections was never a problem. Here, it is 10-20 times slower and 10 times more expensive!
Red Centre
After leaving NZ we went to Ayers Rock Resort, (which saves flying to Alice Springs then travelling the 300+km to the rock). I was expecting to be slightly disappointed by Uluru (Ayers Rock), after all it is just a large rock in the middle of the desert. The region is red, it is smack in the middle of the continent, it is dusty and it is hot. It also has some of the most persistent flies I have ever seen.
It was, however, well worth the trip. We did the obligatory sunrise and sunset viewings, and walked around the base of the rock. We didn't climb up the rock, since the Aborigines prefer you not to, because it is a sacred place for them. So why don't they just close the rock to climbers? Well, perhaps money plays a part. But we also heard another interesting reason. The title to the land was given back to the people in the 1980s, and is now leased back to the government for the National Park. But the government gave the land back to the wrong tribe, group A. The land holds no particular significance for group A, but it does have spiritual value for group B. But group B are not represented at all on the board that controls the Park, group A has a majority, the rest representng the government. So group B has no voice. Groups A & B have also had a long running acrimoniou feud over the millenia, hence A has no interest in helping B! Hence you can still climb Ayes Rock, despite it being desperately offensive to some of the local people to do so.
The other wondeful site worth a visit to is about 40km from Uluru, The Olgas. A series of exposed lumps of rck, up to c. 500m high, with canyons between them. Another good place for walking, and it was here that we saw a wallaby with a joey.
The flight to and from Sydney was also interesting, but only for a short while as the scenery is a tad repetetive!
Sydney
It was good to be back in Sydney, it feels almost quite familiar now. The last time I was here was for a wedding, and that couple have since emigrated out here, so we were able to stay with them and catch up over a few drinks. (There is a mix of Aussie and Scottish in this marriage, so it was quite a few drinks.) So thank you to the Stobos for looking after us.
We didn't feel any pressure to do much of the touristy stuff in Sydney, having covered much of that before. We did head up the coast for a couple of days, stopping at Hunter Valley to sample a few wines, then visiting various beautiful beaches up towards Forster.
From Sydney we flew to Jo'burg, on what has to be one of the most stunning scheduled commercial air routes. You set off over Tasmania towards the Antarctic circle, then at 65 degrees south follow this latitude, which is very near to the edge of the continent, around towards Africa. We could clearly see ice flows, big ice bergs etc. The pilot would interrupt the movies to anounce particularly impressive ice berg sightings, and, in an almost comical cartoon fashion, people would ruch from one side of the plane to the other! A great sightseeing flight, a real unexpected bonus. But, of course, not a patch on being down there with the penguins!
So far in Africa we have seen some wonderful things but they will have to wait for another day!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)