Drakensberg Mountains

Before we drove up to Jo'burg/Pretoria, we spent a few days camping in the Drakensberg Mountains. We had a stunning campsite at Hlalanathi:

Our second site (we moved for the better view)

Our first site -- the view was actually pretty good!

Not only did we have extraordinary camping, but there was a pretty good golf course at Hlalanathi, too. Richard played with the Drakensberg Mountains in the background. The only battle was with relentless wind that just ripped through the mountain valleys.

Our drinking buddy after golf:

The next day, stopping for a beer again, and ....

One of our days at Hlalanathi we had a huge thunderstorm. It was dramatic and the most intense rain we've seen yet.

Johannesburg and Pretoria

 

We are packing up tonight and, in the morning, heading to the Punda Maria rest camp in Kruger Park. We'll be in the park for about 3 weeks moving from rest camp to rest camp, working our way from north to south -- game drives, sundowners, and delicious braais are in our future. We should have a lot of animal pics/videos soon.

The last few days we've had a chance to relax and get things done in the Jo'burg/Pretoria area--the horn on the rig now works and it's had its 10K service 😊. 

Yesterday, after we dropped off the rig for service, we took an Uber to Johannesburg's Maboneng district, walked around, had a beer, and had a great Ethiopian lunch (injera and veggie/meat wat). The district itself seemed intriguing from the online descriptions, so we were especially interested in seeing it, but the restaurants were unfortunately much emptier than we thought they would be and other things (Arts on Main, etc) didn't appear open. It seems COVID has taken its toll; however, we were there early in the day, so things might be busier in the later afternoon and evening, or on the weekends. The neighborhood is largely defined by the Ethiopian immigrants who have settled there (hence our delicious meal). 

Today we took a trip to the Cradle of Humankind Sterkfontein Caves. The earliest human remains in South Africa have been found here, and scientists are still excavating. Mrs. Ples was found here -- the oldest complete skull of an Australopithecus Africans yet found in SA. (many SA discoveries rival the East African discoveries of skeletons like Lucy). It is amazing to be on the site where pre-homo sapiens wandered. Unfortunately, some of these early humans wandered through high grasses as high as they were and into sinkholes that they didn't see, trapping them in cave systems many meters below ground. It seems that this might have been Mrs. Ples's fate. We toured the caves 60 meters underground. A deep, oxygen-deprived river runs through and the passage ways run for many kilometers in different directions. Most of the tour was of areas that were like high-vaulted rooms (see pictures below). However, going from one part of the cave vault to another required a bit of agility, as some very squat passages were only 2-3 feet high. I'm somewhat claustrophobic and don't have the best flexibility anymore. I was an unapologetic hand-knee crawler through a few of these.

Ready to go underground

The vaults were huge

More of the cave vault

Exploration partner 💛

This is the underground river/lake. It's so still you don't know it's water unless you threw a rock.

And I couldn't resist, given my snake fascination:

I actually have an app on my phone that tells me what snakes are native to an area based on my GPS. I always check. If you're curious, the one's that have come up are cobras (spitting and non spitting), puff adders, other adders, boomslangs, pythons, black mambas and others. I still don't understand how you actually get the antivenom in time. Black mamba? I think you've got like 20 minutes. It sounds like the most troublesome snakes will be puff adders and, at this point, Mozambique Spitting Cobras (we've escaped, I think, the Cape Cobra area). Well, absolutely fascinating, really. 

Hogsback

There is not a more perfect place for a fire and a glass of Amarula in the evening than Back ‘o the Moon cottage in Hogsback. We had such lovely conversations with our hosts— all about life, languages, and humanity. I could have stayed there forever.

And I forgot to mention— the entire village of Hogsback is themed on The Hobbit. As rumor has it, Tolkien was inspired by the area with its huge trees and steep drops down into the valleys below. You go up, up, up to get there and on a rainy day you’re in the clouds. It’s a favorite place for hikers, artists and nature lovers. 

This was our cottage nestled away in a beautiful garden:

Our Midlands Meander

The last few days we’ve been doing the Midlands Meander at the foot of the Drakensberg mountains. We’ve driven several of the routes. The entire area is a beautiful place full of thatched cottages, trellises, flower gardens, and village-style specialty shops—cheese, wine, chocolate. Surprisingly, it’s not far from Durban, but it feels a million miles away from the city.

The Midlands is also the area where Nelson Mandela was captured in 1962. We visited the Mandela Capture Site Museum on our first day here. The multimedia exhibit space was immersive and moving, as was the long walk to freedom pathway outside. As you walk down the path there are milestones from Mandela’s life, finally you arrive to see an elusive image of Mandela just come into focus from the cut metal posts. 

A map of Midlands Meandering 

The Mandela sculpture at the end of the walk 

A visit to the Wine Cellar (Next we went to Marrakech Cheese. Both were incredible and the people so nice!)

We always seem to have such wonderful dog companions each place we stay. This is Milo:

At Qambathi Mountain Lodge, Kamberg Valley

Bunny Chow!

 Bunny Chow! Or just “bunny,” if you’re a local Durbanite. I refer you to Wikipedia for the full run down on bunny chow which, rest assured my vegetarian friends, does not involve bunnies at all, though mutton and other meats might be part of the dish. We both enjoyed our bunnies immensely as we dined at Capsicum in North Durban. Richard had a butter chicken curry bunny and I had vegetable kebab bunny. You can note the fluffy tails in our pics. Cheers!

Camping 101

We're almost experts! (Well, not really, but we get better and better.) We've camped at several national parks: Bontebok, Addo, Mountain Zebra; and at some private campgrounds: Oaks Rest Vineyard, Cefani campground near Cintsa, White Clay Resort in Coffee Bay, and Port o'Call in Southbroom. 

Our Oaks Rest campsite was in the middle of a vineyard with rolling hills and a picturesque dam. We got a couple of bottles of the Oaks Rest wine and enjoyed two peaceful nights. We had our own bathroom and it was pristine-- bathrooms are now one of the first things I look at 😊. We've been lucky with just about everywhere we've stayed.) The owners at Oaks Rest were so kind! They even delivered mosquito repellent to our campsite when we were desperate (water, warmth, bugs... mosquitos! Even the smoke from the braai didn't help completely). We had one really windy day and one calm day. The view of the hills and vineyards at Oaks Rest was stunning and the moon at night was sublime.

Cefani campground was on the beach (almost). You just needed to walk a small path through the trees next to the lagoon and you ended up on warm sand and a stunning beach. The first day we were there the wind was so crazy on the beach I tied my hat down and hoped for the best. If you detect a theme here, you're right. Windy and rainy weather has followed us everywhere (we even had hail in Mountain Zebra), but  luckily we always get a good day that follows. The second day we had a chance to enjoy a walk on the beach without being wind blown. The third day was the beginning of the weekend school holidays (the noise begins!) and by then we were ready to leave. 

The Cefani braai master!

Rondavels in the background for those not wanting to camp, and the lagoon washing in from the ocean just beyond. We had trees around us that were a perfect wind break the first night.

We left the Cefani campsite and headed to Coffee Bay. It was a long drive from the main highway -- 70 kilometers on dirt and gravel road once we were off the N2. The entire region is Xhosa with traditional rondavels spread throughout the hills. There is a lot of poverty and unemployment -- over 60%. The small town of Coffee Bay itself caters largely to surfers. The buildings of the town are clustered together with a few hostels, at least one restaurant/bar offering free spliff (doubtful, but that's what they advertised), a couple of campgrounds, a few small resorts on the periphery, and some smaller restaurants/takeaways, along with the usual small shops and gas station. You can drive end to end in about 5 minutes. We came to Coffee Bay without a pre-arranged place to stay. The hostels in town looked younger and likely loud in the evenings, but who knows. We had a beer in the garden bar of one of the hostels we checked out. The outside bar/garden was nice, we almost got a room there but we decided after our beers to see what other options there were before committing. We drove around and looked at the campground and the resort in town. Neither seemed a good fit (with our rig's rooftop tent, the campground was literally not a fit with huge trees and low branches). We ended up opting for a small resort outside of town called White Clay with its four camping sites on the cliffs. We were the only ones camping, so it felt a bit strange all alone, though it was incredibly beautiful. We stayed a night and then headed further up the coast. We did the 70 kilometers back to the N2 and planned our next stay much further up the coast so that we could get a main coastal road and avoid driving back and forth to the N2 each time we camped by the ocean. 

Coffee Bay -- on the cliffs at White Clay Resort

  

I have learned a lot about monkeys! First, always have a monkey hatchet to wield, or you will be robbed of all food in ten minutes. Richard is our monkey hatchet person. Second, monkeys have no interest in listening to anything I have to say. It doesn't matter if I raise my arms, yell, or wield the cast iron pan. They only runaway when Richard shows up with the monkey hatchet. The lesson in watching monkeys work their way through the campground is never leave your food unsecured for a minute. Our very experienced fellow campers lost all of their fruit and snacks the first ten minutes they were in the campground. The first morning when we got up, we were surrounded by monkeys on the fence and in the trees, all scoping us out. You can see from the guy below, they have a lot of success! Bad monkeys.

  

Another lesson is always have a cooking plan ready to go when the weather is crap and your braai isn't going to happen . I am now the gas-burner cook and the purchaser of canned baked beans for use in a pinch. Turns out that ostrich steak and canned baked beans go great together, who would have thought.

Tsitsikamma National Park

 We took a detour as we made our way to St. Francis Links from Knysna. --Tsitsikamma National Park is stunning!

Rock hyrax -- closest living
relative is the elephant!

More rock hyraxes