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Swaziland, Plett and Cape Town

Plettenberg bay and Cape Town

So my wish came partly true in Plettenberg. We had half a day on a semi sunny beach, one wet day and one glorious day. We stayed in a very pretty B and B quite close to the beach, set its own lovely gardens. The owners were reasonably sane...a bit of extra information on life stories and family details but nothing too extreme. Plettenberg Bay is, as described in the guide books 'The St Tropez' of South Africa. It was full of very rich people. The beach was full of blonde, tanned young hunks who all spent their time playing rugby or flipping frisbies effortlessly into the air with various parts of their bodies, watched on my equally blonde, tanned young women who fiddled with their eye phones and spoke in high pitched voices ( in their accent high is pronounce haaa and rhymes with faaave (5) and they all have a naace taame ( nice time) )It was an experience...I settled back, topped up by tan and read a couple of books. Richard spent the day and a half I was on the beach inside watching football and cricket..

The wet day in Plettenberg gave Richard the opportunity to visit the snake park and me to mooch in town. The snake park was by all accounts ok but a bit too much like a zoo...he is still hoping to catch a glimpse of a snake in the wild. We also visited the local game reserve and realised that we are indeed safari junkies...no sooner has the gate shut behind us than we were merrily spotting everything in sight..zebra, Waterbuck.. I say is that at Bontebuck??...we are hooked. Don't get us started when we get back because we can go into the finer details of the difference between a Tsessbe and a Redhartebeast as well as the way to spot a male and female giraffe and the behaviour of elephants...we have become that dull.

Anyway we left Pletts bright and early on Monday morning and were in Cape Town by 2. Our B and B is at the foot of Table Mountain, has great views and is easily accessible from town. We have been non stop since we got here..Camps Bay, up the mountain, to the Waterfront, round the penisnsula, up Chapman's Peak, Penguins at Boulder beach....there is lots to do and it very, very beautiful...also quite unlike the rest of South Africa that we have experienced. I'm glad we have come here last because it would raised our expectations about what to expect elsewhere had we got here first...it is much more European in design and feel and it is well set up for tourists ( of which there are thousands). We are spoilt for choice for places to eat but it is also much more expensive that lots of the other places we have been to. I am enjoying myself and it feels like a short holiday after all the travelling.

We're off to Robben Island this afternoon and then I fly back to Joberg tomorrow at 1.30 and from there onto London via Frankfurt. I cannot believe this part of my travels in almost over. I need a few weeks to take it all. I'm really looking forwards to catching up with everyone and promise to not to be too boring....I have got loads of photos though.

Rhinos and antelopes and more rain

So...I still can't upload any photos but at least I have internet access at last.

Since my last entry we have visited Mkhaye park in Swaziland, which was absolutely fantastic. It is a sanctuary for endangered species and breeds rhinos and other rare antelopes. the accommodationn and food were amazing and we saw so many rhinos that we became quite blase by the end of ur trip. We also took advantage of a sunny day to visit Maguga Dam and the Phophanaye water falls, again well worth the visit, also leaving enough time in the day for Richard to watch an afternoon of football inthe comfort of the bed and breakfast, while I hung out with Sally.

We were really sad to say goodbye to Swaziland, it is probably our favourite place so far, in terms of the things to do and see but also just the friendly, laid back atmosphere.

We did a mega drive on Monday to get to Kimberly, home of South Africa's diamond rush. We visited the interestingly named Big Hole Museum ( Richardhad a field day with attempted innuendos). here we learned all about the history of Kimberly and diamond mining and it fitted in quite nicely with our other diamond experiences in Antwerp and Botswana, although the promised 'underground experience' promised by the museum leaflet was a bit of a let down.... there is a witticism here somewhere about down and underground and lifts not going down very far but my command of English is failing me today.

Anyway, despite the interesting diamond history of Kimberly we beat a hasty retreat on Tuesday morning and hot footed it to Mokola a national park which Rixhard had spotted earlier in a magazine and which promised us sightings of the very rare roan and sable antelopes. We got hideously lost on the way there and also had to get a puncture repared so an hour's journey ended up taking more like 3...however we were not disappointed. The park was lovely, again great accommodation and lovely food and our guide was also very knowledgeable, despite rocking up too quickly to a family of rhino and alsmost causing the bull to charge us. we did our own self drive in the park and Richard spotted a Roan, which was very exciting. We left early this morning, slightly disappointed that we hadn't seen a sable when, as we passed by the outer perimetre of the park we cam across a whole herd of them....15 in total. They are very beautiful and as I can't put up any photos at the moment I expect you all to google sable antelope so you know what I'm talking about.

We are now in Beaufort West on our way to Plettenberg Bay. There is internet here and loads of South African holiday makers all staying over on theor way to the Garden Route. It is very stormy and there is not much to do...but tomorrow we should be by the sea for a few days....I hope it stops raining.

Swaziland

We've been here for a few days now and it is fab. A really beautiful country full of mountains with lovely people and lots of places to eat ( keeping us happy). We started off in  a hideous backpackers, moved to a nicer back packers and are now finally settled in a b and b with lovely views and great breakfast. We have hired a car and are really getting to know down town Mbabane and the surrounding countryside.... actually while we were in the office waiting for the hire car Richard gave me the biggest laugh I have had all trip. He sat there in his  light green shorts with his purple socks pulled up to mid-calf coupled with blue shoes, his little brown hat perched on his head ( minus the wet tea towel) and a red and white striped, long sleeved button down shirt, with a collar, commenting on how much he liked the colour of the man behind the desk's tie.....as I muttered in agreement he said in a very serious voice......' I think I might be turning into Gok Wan' :)
Anyway the highlight of my time in Swaziland so far has been meeting up with Sally, my old uni friend. It has been great...we have reminisced, looked at some very disturbing old photos of us, taken during our year abroad and realised that despite the years we haven't seen each other we still have many things in common and still have the same slightly warped sense of humour.

I will post some photos soon.

Next stop Swaziland

We enjoyed our few days in Salt Rock. The B and B was indeed very lovely but become a bit Norman Bates as the days progressed. When we arrived we were met by Ernest and Nathan, who we just assumed were a couple, albeit a couple with a large age gap, however a mysterious mother was constantly mentioned but never seen. A story about a slipped dic ensued and how mother was unable to leave her room but needed constant looking after ....by the end of our stay we were worried about using the shower and kept looking out for shady figures at the upper windows and stray blonde wigs....now to mention it that small dog ....
Anyway there were a couple of disappointments during our few days, firstly the weather was awful and any hopes I had of topping up my tan on the beach were literally washed away by a day of torrential rain. Secondly, the snake park had closed down, despite websites and brochures telling us the opposite it was infact demolished in 2008....Richard took this very well, especially considering this was for him the main reason for visiting Durban...still we had a fantastic meal for his birthday - he had ostritch steak and we had fun looking round the Indian Quarter and eating a Bunny Chow!!

In Joberg now. Picking up the bus for Swaziland in the morning. Not sure how long we-ll stay but we have got loads if ideas for the next stage of our adventure.

Battlefields, turtles and beaches

Time has flown since I last had access to a computer...I've lost all sense of the days of the week, I know today is the 29th because it is Richard's birthday- more on this later.

So first stop after leaving the mountains was Dundee and a Battlefield tour with our esteemed guide Evan Jones. Well before I did this trip my knowledge of the Anglo-Zulu war was limited to the film Zulu... I can now say that I know rather a lot more...in fact so detailed was Evan's tour that I know rather more than I would ever have thought possible, after the 5th hour when he pulled out a makeshift map, started role playing and bringing out props I had to reach for my Biltong to keep up my strength. 3 hours later at Fugitive's Drift he was still going strong, ordering me to clamber over rocks to get the best photo opportunity  and suggesting further reading for us ( I would be amazed if there was anything else left for us to learn). We felt that we got our money's worth. Isaldwena is a sobering place which is much more like the landscape feature in that film, Rorke's drift is surprisingly small and compact but very interesting.

We moved on from Dundee after a couple of nights to the North East Coast. Richard and I had our first row on the way....captive in the car, there was no escape and as is so often the case it was a map related incident ( I have history here!!). Things resolved themselves with a bit of shouting, sulking and flouncing...I am an unpredictable bitch and Richard is a pedantic grandad....situation normal.

We found a nice backpackers in Kosi Bay, right on the border with Mozambique. We has a rather nice chalet, a couple of kilometres from a deserted beach with saltwater lagoons used by local fishermen and fabulous snorkelling. The backpackers was run by Ken a rather smooth guy from Joberg who managed to pay some attention to us when he could extracate himself from his 'friend' Candice who was visiting him. We went on a fab boat trip, accompanied by KenCan ( they had by now merged into one, with arms and legs entwined) where Richard the snorkell virgin was persuaded to give it a go and then was the last one to get back inthe boat. We also went to an isolated, deserted beach to wait for turtles to come ashore and lay eggs. We were very lucky here and within minutes of our guide arriving a loggerhead waddled up the beach metres from where we had been sitting and began to dig and then lay for us.....a truely fantastic experience...I was quiet for about 2 hours it was that good. KenCan lost interest after about 20 minutes and we were slightly distracted by the stroking and slurpy noises, luckily it didn't put the turtle off. KenCan left early the next morning, leaving us with the backpackers to ourselves and Richard, now a real snorkelling afficionado came down to the beach with me to look at the coral reef and the fish....he also came face to face with a Moray eel which gave him a bit of a fright but has not put him off.

We left Kosi yesterday and travelled down to Salt Rock, just outside Durban. We found a beautiful B and B overlooking the beach which by complete coincidence and rather bizarrely we discovered that KenCan stayed at the night before...small world. We are both happy here at the moment. It's Rich's birthday today and after this internet fest, ( his choice of activity on his birthday) we are going to find a nice place for luch in Ballito Bay....then off to the Snake Park.

Pretoria and the mountains

We left Gabs bright and early a week ago and travelled by the rather smart Intercape service to Pretoria. We mooched around a bit here, had a look at the Union Buildings which are impressive and enjoyed the fact that the whole grounds are now used by joggers-loads of people running up and down the steps and around the park.
From Pretoria we travelled to Harrismith where we were picked up by shuttle and taken the the ampitheatre back packers, just over the border into Kwazulu-Natal. We have had a fantastic time here, the accommodation was basic but clean, lots of nice home cooked food a bar (Richard particularly enjoyed the pernod :)) a pool and some lovely people. We did a rather long hike to Africa's highest water fall and had a dip in the pools at the top. This was great but after so many sedentary weeks I really felt the burn, luckily there were 5 doctors and 5 physios also on the trip so I felt safe. We had to descent the mountain on some little metal ladders attached to the rocks...I had a couple of fearful moments but Richard just skipped down, I was impressed. We also did a trip into Lesotho, high up in the mountains. This was great. The village we visited still exists in a semi traditional way-subsistence farming and a mainly tribal system and the backpackers uses money from the trips it runs to fund and rebuild the primary school.  We also had a morning absailing from some local rocks, which looks more dramatic in the photos than reality but was well worth doing.
I've really enjoyed our 6 days at the backpackers. We met lots of lovely people from all over the world-a retired (at 36!!) German policeman, a French Canadian ship engineer, who voluntarily looked at our pictures from the ship and was v impressed by our choice of travel, a nice young couple from Plymouth ( she had the extraordinary name of Kylie Rio !!) who will be in Singapore and South East Asia at the same time as me.... We thought we had put the memories of the safari well behind us until last night when Adrian, one of the main workers of the backpackers decided, unprompted to tell me all about his addiction issues, problems with his daughter and then other friends of his who had died. Richard unexpectedly went off for a cup of tea leaving me wondering if I had a label attached somewhere saying " Please disclose personal issues here" I finally escaped and sckulked in my room for the rest of the day ( actually Rich had locked me out of the room the night before after a Pernod fuelled evening, leaving me to sleep on the grass with a blanket so I was glad of the chance to reacquaint mysef with my bed.) So on the whole a v positive experience although I find the whole transient nature of backpacking a bit tricky, meeting people sharing a good time and then moving on can make you feel a bit lonely...it certainly reminds me of all my friends at home.

friends of his who had died  aughter, friends

Old friends, new friends and lots of animals

We are back in Gabs after 12 days of adventure. We've learned that expectations and reality do not always match up but in the end it doesn't matter because every experience is unique and in this case overwhelming and special.

So we arrived in Maun on October 31st and met up with Steve and his wife Maps. This was great, we all caught up from where we had left off, which was 2 years ago for me but 20 years ago for Rich. Steve is happily settled and Maps knew everyone in town so we had a real taste of Africa, with local food and some local night life.

After a a lovely night in a beautiful lodge, we set off with our guides and 2 support staff on safari. This is where the fun really started...some of it expected and some of it very unexpected and not always what we would have chosen. We visited 3 separate game reserves in the swamp area, Kwai, Savuti and Tchingapan. All were quite different and beautiful in their own way; Kwai had a variety of watery landscapes and some open areas, Savuti was less varied but we camped by the river which was lovely and Tchingapan was remote, very dry but lacking in other tourists, which was a treat.We were well looked after by the staff, who put up our tents, dug our loo and cooked delicious food on an open fire.Our guides were another story and by day 3 we had learned rather more about them than we had bargained for...professional boundaries were crossed quicker than we could say 'leopard at 3 o clock' and Rich and I found ourselves acting as both relationship counsellors and mental health practitioners as the situation unravelled- not helped by the quantities of gin, red wine and whisky consumed rapidly before our eyes.However as always this enhanced the overall experience, the non conventional approach to clients on safari meant that we saw far more than the average tourist and made the trip unique and more intimate ( perhaps sometimes too intimate. for comfort). A trip like this probably wouldn't be for everyone but it was probably the only trip Rich and I could have had.
So the wild life highlights were many and I have hundreds of photos and some rather nice footage of swimming elephants and mating lions. We saw loads of lions in all 3 locations, some we saw at night and then tracked them again in the morning, some were so close to our camp that we could hear them all night ( this was a positive experience!!). We saw  wild dogs, hyenas with a kill, jackals catching doves, millions of elephants and loads of different exotic birds and eagles galore.We fished in the river and ate the bream we caught-I really enjoyed this and might even fish again when I get home, we drove up a sheer rocky hill to watch the sunset,we saw some rock paintings and learned all about trees. It was GREAT.

We ended our trip in Victoria Falls Zimbabwe, which was surprisingly different from Botswana. The Falls were magical and well worth the $30 fee. People are very poor in Zim and so we got lots of hassle from people trying to sell us stuff, Rich found this harder to cope with than me and so I was charged to send them on their way with one of my big smiles. It worked well and we had a good time and some lovely local food at Mama Africa's- well worth a visit.

We're off again on Thursday. A night in Pretoria and then a week or so in the Drakensberg mountains-I need some exercise!!!

photos

Mochuda, Eid and down on the farm

We've been very busy since my last update, unfortunately I'm on a computer that won't let me upload photos  but the photographic evidence will be posted soon.

We visited the neighbouring town of Mochuda and learned all about the Bakatla tribe at the museum there. This was really interesting, lots of artefacts and photos to look at and a helpful guide, who was patient and helpful as Rich asked his usual number of questions. We went to the launch of a new diamond cut, the Swana at the posh shopping mall and have wangled a trip to see diamonds being cut, polished etc. Friday was Eid and Richard and I had to dress appropriately to visit the priest and his family ( not sure I should post this photo- we make very convincing muslims and I don't want to alarm anyone). We then had to spend the day feasting and meeting hundreds of Iqbal and Waheeda's relatives at various lunch and supper venues. I think I've got the family tree sorted now although confusingly Iqbal's youngest sister and his niece are very similar looking. The food was mazing but old greedy guts here was defeated and had to go home early with tummy ache!
Saturday morning we left bright and early for Iqbal's game far, about an hour and a half away. This was a fantastic experience and really got us in the mood for our safari proper next week. We spotted giraffes, impala, wilder beast, kourou, stern bok, gem bok and some exciting birds including a horn bill which is quite rare and a Kori bustard which was huge. The biggest highlight for me was getting on a horse after 35 years and cantering to my heart's content. I enjoyed it so much that I went back twice for more. I'm completely hooked and can't wait to get back into the saddle again. We're now back in Gabs and Richard and Iqbal are watching the Liverpool match, I'm hoping to catch a bit of Torres later too. Can't believe we have only been here a week, we have done so much already and we still have lots to look forwards to. We have a 4.30 start on Wednesday to get to Maun and then onto the Okavango Delta. I have no idea what internet access will be like but I'm hoping the first and last lodge will have some wi-fi. I will also try and upoad some photos.

Early days in Gabarone

The wi-fi seems stable at the moment so can just update on our movements since Sunday night. We have been very well looked after by Iqbal and Wahida, who have shown us around the game reserve in the city and taken us to the Livingstone Memorial just outside the city. Gabarone is very modern in places but is not like a European city with a dedicated town centre. There are lots of Western style shopping malls and Nandos is very big here.
Iqbal's  business is diagnostic testing and yesterday we went to his lab where we gave some of our blood to be tested. One of us found this a bit overwhelming and had to lie down on the floor, complaining of feeling faint. I'm not mentioning any names..but it wasn't me. We are celebrating Eid with the family on Friday which will involve a very early morning trip to the Mosque and then a huge family meal ( there is an extended family of over 100). We are spending the weekend at Iqbal's game farm, where we hope to see leopards  and cheetahs and then on Wednesday we travel to the north on safari-we're going firstly to the Okavang and then to Chobe...as well as a quick hop into Zimbabwe to see Victoria Falls.We will be back in Gabs on the 12th Nov. I can't believe I was ever on a ship, let alone in Antwerp for a week. Richard and I are still talking and now that we are staying at the house we have separate rooms at last bliss:)

Ship Shape

Days travelled-27
Ports visited -2
Miles travelled-5437
Equator crossed- October 9th but it was touch and go as the engine broke down and we just drifted     over.
Visits to Bridge- 80
Abandon Ship drills- 3 (only drills!!)
Wildlife sightings- dolphins, turtle, flying fish, shearwaters, seals
Imaginary bird sightings- 1
Polish words learned- 50.( including useful words like frog and net curtains)
Polish Grammar mastered- 0 (contrary to book purchased on Amazon Polish is not easy!)
Number of times teased about puchase of above book- 50
Number of Polish history facts learned- 50 (thanks to our helpful and knowledgable steward Mareck)
Time taken to learn that the answer to all Mareck's questions is Poland- 2 hours
Books read - 11 ( including David Copperfield which is very long)
Box sets consumed- 5 (also watched a few films, Richard LOVED Bad Ass)
Calories consumed- too many to mention. Polish food is filling and fattening
Parties attended -2, one on land and one Neptune Party on board. Richard leaves at 9.30 and Ali parties until 3.30.
Photos deleted after Neptune party - 5
Hangovers- 1 (see above)
Days spend wishing she was not on a ship- 1 (see above)
Attempts to blame hangover on seasickness- 10
People convinced by attempts - 0
Richard's obsessions- Man flu, iron deficiency,roughage intake, cement mixer (location of), horizon ( calculation of distance from ship) code word puzzles.
Arguments with Rich- 1/2 ( geography rather than obsession related)
Overall experience- 9/10
Likelihood of repeating the experience- 80%
Likelyhood of spelling likeli hood correctly- 0%

At its best the journey was relaxing, peaceful and full of laughs. It really is just you and the vast vast ocean. At its worst it could be boring, same old faces, same old routine and I underestimated how much I would miss my friends and family. But the worst moments were few and far between and in my case post Neptune Party related.It was a drag being stuck outside Walvis Bay for 4 days but it was better than being at work!

We are now in Botswana, after a brief stop over in Windhoek Namibia. We have experienced minibus travel Africa style which had its hairy moments, mainly due to some fellow passenger necking whisky and beer during the whole journey but the last 2 days have found us in the lapof luxury. Richard's friend Iqbal and his family have welcomed us with open arms and have planned an amazing trip for us while we are here. We feel very lucky.