Thirtyfootscrew’s Blog

Due to being delayed on the previous night we thought we’d hit the road as soon as possible so we got up and left without having breakfast. It was as we were getting ready to leave that we encountered the only language barrier in the whole trip. The maid wanted to clean our room whilst we were packing and I wanted to explain to her that we would be gone in about ten minutes, unfortunately the maid only spoke Afrikaans and Xhosa which caused a little difficulty. After lots of talking slowly in loud voices (from both myself and the maid) and realising that it was getting us nowhere the maid fetched one of the other maids who spoke English as well and translated for us. This unexpected language barrier was both interesting and surprising in a country where we had no other problem.

After a clear drive we arrived at Graaff-Reinet at around 11:30am where we drove around for a while to find a parking space and then had a little wander around town. The one thing I found striking about Graaff-Reinet is that it seemed a lot more African than most of the other places we had been to. It might have helped that it was a swelteringly hot day but there ware also a lot more black people in this town than many of the other towns we had been to, it really felt like a proper African town. After lunch at Gizmo’s Pizzeria we nipped into the supermarket to buy some water and I bought a souvenir newspaper, we then went back to the car. We hadn’t got a picture of the Dutch Reform Church which is the central feature of Graaff-Reinet so James dropped me off in a suitable location and drove round the block. I got my pictures then whilst waiting for James I just paced around and had the realisation that I was on my own in the middle of a strange country thousands of miles away from home, the feeling just came over me. It wasn’t at all a bad feeling and if anything made me realise how amazing the modern world is and how lucky I am to be able to make such a journey, it’s all too easy to take life for granted. Whilst I had been philosophising on my own by the roadside it turned out that James had parked up and been waving at me for ages, in the end he got fed up with me not noticing and drove round the block again and pulled up next to me and off we went.

We headed out of town in the direction of the Valley of Desolation as recommended to us by Ann in PE, on the way out I saw couple of Vervet Monkeys crossing the road. The road up to the Valley of Desolation was an extremely steep and windy road where only the slightest disturbance could knock you off the edge. Alarmingly it was very windy but James kept firm control of the car and luckily we did not meet any vehicles coming the opposite way. When we got to the top we parked and wandered up to the top and looked down into the valley, the view from up there is marvellous and we spent a while just walking from rock to rock looking around. At one point we came across a plateau which would have given a superb view across the Karoo, unfortunately there was a half-meter gap with an enormous drop which we were tempted to do but weren’t sure how easy it would be to get back. On the basis that this was one of those points in life where people end up dieing (I think they call it misadventure) we decided to stay on the rock we were on. After exhausting all safe options at the top of the valley we headed down a little to another viewing point which had a 360° map called the toposcope. The view was spectacular, James sketched the toposcope so that we had a record of the view (to help identify the photos).

On the way out of the Valley of Desolation we spotted a sign for the Karoo Nature Reserve and as it was barely out of our way we decided to pop in for a look. The park was open but unmanned, a letterbox contained the free park guide and a clipboard to sign and note entry/exit times. We drove around the park and saw quite a few animals, mostly herding together. After the visit we worked out that we definitely saw Ostriches, Buffalo, Springbok and a few other antelope-type species. After leaving the reserve we headed off for Kimberley.

The drive to Kimberley was a tough one, the map made it look as though there were nice solid roads along the whole of the route we had selected, the map was misleading. At one point the road just suddenly turned into dirt track and despite our optimism it remain a dirt track for many kilometres. We passed through the most dry and desolate land I have ever seen, there was only a small scattering of civilisation – a village here a town there – but nothing remotely interesting. We did however see Springbok along the way and unfortunately whilst on a dirt road we hit a bird.

We arrived in Kimberley around 20:15 and booked into the Diamond Protea Lodge, the hotel was recommended in the Rough Guide and also had secure parking facilities (always a bonus in South Africa). Whilst unpacking the car James noticed that we’d lost the front number plate, presumably when we hit the bird – we’d had no other significant impacts and the bird had hit right in the middle of the car. The hotel was fairly nice – it had air conditioning and satellite TV in the rooms and although our mini-bar was out of order the room service would fetch us whatever drinks we wanted. For the evening we decided to walk into town to find some food and a bar, shortly after leaving the hotel a group of lads were hassling us for money – they didn’t even seem like homeless people – just a bunch of lads on the make. The hassling and the fact that we wandered around for ages without finding a restaurant mad us feel uneasy and unsafe in Kimberley, we weren’t actually lost but we certainly felt out of place. The porter assured us that there was an area with restaurants and bars but by then it was too late. In the end we got a takeaway pizza, walked back to the hotel, fetched a stack of Castle Lager from the porter and watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’, ‘Human Traffic’ and a Jackie Chan movie.

written by thirtyfootscrew \\ tags: Africa, DIamonds, Graaf-Reinet, Karoo, Kimberley, South Africa, Travel

Had a bit of lie-in and got up at 9:30am, had breakfast and went for a drive to into Port Elizabeth town centre. We ended up at King’s Beach where we parked and had a wander across the sand, it was a lovely day and the beach was fantastic although the age-old problem of putting your shoes back on without taking half the beach with you caused some trouble! After wandering down the beach we went for lunch in a little café called Tiffany’s – if we’d have known about this beforehand we’d have gotten up earlier! After lunch we drove around for a while down the main streets of P.E. including Govan Mbeki Avenue, we then went back to Ann’s and packed ready to leave.

From P.E. we headed to Addo Elephant Park through Uitenhage where we got a little lost but found our way eventually. On the way into Addo we came across a turtle just wandering across the road, he was big old chap as well, about half a metre long. By the time we got to Addo there was only about an hour of game-area time left but the guys on the main desk took our money and sent us on through. We stopped briefly at a specially designed viewing area where we managed to see two elephants at a watering-hole (an adult and a baby); we then headed for the main game area.

Despite the fact that the guards on the main gate had taken our money the guard at the game-area wasn’t going to let us in as there was only an hour left. In the end I managed to persuade him to let us through and promised that we wouldn’t mess him around by staying in for too long. Even though we only had an hour left in total we managed to see quite a few animals including Elephants, Ostrich, Rhino and a few antelope/gazelle type animals, it was worth every minute.

After leaving Addo we headed for Graaff-Reinet, a little town recommended to us by Ann in P.E. where Lou and her sister Gail had gone to school. Unfortunately during the journey we got caught up in a storm, not like the usual British storms, much bigger – in the end the rain was making it far too difficult for James to drive. After stopping to refuel at a BP garage in Cookhouse we headed for Somerset East, a town a couple of hundred kilometres short of Graaff-Reinet. Driving into the town during a storm probably doesn’t help a first impression but Somerset East seemed quite a dark and foreboding sort of town but we found a little restaurant/bar/B&B called Jacques which looked quite inviting. I went into the bar to enquire about the rooms whilst James stayed in the car, the price he gave me for the room was good so I accepted and we moved our stuff upstairs.

After freshening up and settling down we went back down to the bar where we had a few drinks and talked to two Afrikaaners at the bar who were asking where we were from and what we were doing in Somerset East. The two guys were fairly plastered but even so James and I had problems trying to work out what they were saying and they couldn’t always make out our accents either. Though still common I got the feeling that English isn’t as well-used out here as it is on the coast, after all we were staying in a little town hardly used to tourism. The meal was quite nice but a little unimaginative from a vegetarian perspective (the veggie option was a plate of cooked veg) but they server Windhoek so we were quite content. After eating and a few more Windhoek we settled-up for the meal, drinks and the room, the total came to just £17 for the two of us – quite remarkable by UK standards!

written by thirtyfootscrew \\ tags: Addo, Africa, Elephant, Graaf-Reinet, Park, Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Travel