The First Week in South Africa

With the excesses of Christmas firmly in the rear view mirror it was time to focus on another year of travel.

Our first stop was Heathrow – Terminal 5, for a British Airways flight to Johannesburg. We had a month in South Africa to look forward too. The 12 hour flight from London to Johannesburg wasn’t too bad but we arrived off the overnight flight having had only a couple of hours sleep each.

First stop once through immigration, was to pick up a SIM card which was easy enough as just outside the airside exit there were three telecoms shop all with different offerings. We opted for Vodacom and were online in a few minutes.

With that sorted we headed over to car rentals to pick up our wheels for the next few weeks. We’d opted for the cheapest car available from a company called Woodford. This turned out to be a Toyota Starlet and Woodford as it happens is the South African name for Alamo/National. Our car was pretty new and very clean (not for long) and we were soon on our way.

We’d decided to immediately head South away from Johannesburg and we drove for just over an hour to a small town called Parys, just over 100km from the city.

By this time fatigue was catching up with us so we had 40 winks before going for a wander around town and to find some food.

Our introduction to South African night life was at a bar called “Jimmy Jaggers” which seemed to be the most lively place in town. We had a fantastic burger each and a much less interesting beer – Castle Light – which we won’t be having again.

We were seriously flagging though so we headed back to the hotel – Le Grand Chateau (a misnomer if ever there was one but decent enough), for some much needed sleep.

The next morning we carried on heading south to our first proper destination of the trip. This was our introduction to South African roads or should I say to South African potholes. We followed google maps on the most direct path which seemed to be a main road but it was full of deep potholes and what should have been a 3 hour journey turned into 4.5 hours. We learnt our lesson though and will be sticking to the single digit highways where possible from now on rather than blindly trusting Google Maps.

A little jaded by the drive and probably not yet recovered from the flight, we eventually arrived at Clarens. This very cute little town can’t help but lift your spirits with its large grassy square in the middle surrounded by restaurants, bars and shops. The receptionist at our hotel the night before had recommended the Clarens Brewery so we made this our first pit stop, where we very much enjoyed trying their flight of gins and flight of beers.

After pre-dinner drinks we went next door to a Portuguese restaurant which was great. We both ordered fish after overloading on red meat in the Balkans for 7 months. I ordered the Kingklip which I had on a previous trip to South Africa 20 years before and it was just as delicious as I’d remembered.

In the morning we were up early to head down the road to Golden Gates Highland National Park but when we got to the car we heard some noises coming from the engine. Somehow on our drive the previous day we had managed to pick up a hitchhiker. A small bird that had gone through the grill at the front of the car and was now sitting in the space in front of the radiator.

We spent about 30 minutes gently trying to coax him back out of the grill using 2 spoons from our accommodation but the more tried the more he hid at the back. We didn’t know what else to do so set off for our day at the National Park.

This park has some animals but it is really known for its scenery, so we headed off on some scenic drives through the park. We did see some Wildebeest but they were a long way from the road and we couldn’t get a clear look at them. The wildlife highlight of the day was seeing a baboon who galloped away when we drove past.

The park itself is spectacular though and we did a couple of short walks from the visitor centre to a narrow canyon called Echo Ravine and to some cliffs with Mushroom like overhangs. Also near the visitor centre is a waterfall with a natural pool underneath which was a perfect place to cool off on what had turned into a pretty hot day.

The only disappointment of the day was our visit to a Vulture hide where there were no vultures to be seen.

On our return to Clarens we went to fill up with petrol and with the help of the attendant (no self service filling stations in South Africa) we managed to get our hitchhiking bird out of the grill. I moved him into the shade to recover but I think sadly his chances of survival after his ordeal were probably low.

The next day we continued making our way South with two days driving and a stop in Bloemfontein to overnight at a guesthouse with a pool. The pool was very welcome as this part of South Africa is very hot in the summer and we saw temperatures as high as 36c.

We stopped off on the way to see the Gariep Dam which is on the High Veld creating a bit of an oasis in a very hot area.

Our destination was the town of Cradock which was a dusty small town with what seemed like few merits. However it is right next door to Mountain Zebra National Park which we wanted to visit.

The gates opened at 7am so it was an early start for us as we wanted to spend a full day at the park.

The roads in the park are all gravel – apart from a short stretch of tarmac around the visitor centre. You have to go to the visitor centre at some stage during your visit as this is where you pay and receive an exit permit to enable you to get out of the park.

Mountain Zebra National Park is a fairly mountainous park of 284 km²  with a number of loop roads most of which are in pretty good condition although a little rough for our rather dainty hire car.

The park was set up to protect the endangered Cape Mountain Zebra which have been brought back from the brink of extinction. We were worried that we wouldn’t see any zebra but we shouldn’t have been because there were a lot of them and we had some fairly close encounters.

The park does have a few lions and cheetahs but we were not lucky enough to see them. However there are loads of deer including kudu, eland, springbok, steenbok, gemsbok, blesbok and we saw all of these.

After game viewing all morning we were ready for a break and we drove to the rest area which is a few km’s from the visitor centre. Apart from a couple of viewpoints this is the only place in the park that you are allowed to get out of your car. This is a safe fenced area with a lovely swimming pool.

We were the only ones there and we proceeded to get some sandwiches out of the car to have lunch on a picnic table in the shade. At which point a monkey ran in grabbed the sandwiches and ran off with me chasing the little bugger to no effect. Ah well another lesson learned and one skipped lunch definitely won’t kill me.

We spent a couple of hours swimming and relaxing before heading back out for a late afternoon game drive.

While we were deep in the park the blue skies quickly darkened and fat drops of rain started falling. It wasn’t long until the rain was torrential and the roads all turned to rivers. We later learnt that this was the first rain in six months. Fearing that we would get stuck we started heading for the exit and after a fairly hairy drive we made it. Our little Toyota Starlet did us proud!

The next day we headed back into the park for another long game drive and it was amazing. Most of the water from the previous nights torrential rain was gone, the sun was back out and the roads were much easier to drive on.

We had a lovely morning in the park spotting some new animals and some familiar animals before heading off around lunchtime to get back on the road heading South towards Port Elizabeth and the start of the Garden Route.