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#1 South Africa - Pilanesberg NP #2 Botswana - Mokolodi to Maun #4 Botswana, Zambia #6
NAMBIAN DESERT #7
Luderitz #11 Drakensburg
Mtns, Battlefields, Kruger NP |
Road Report #9 The Garden Route to
Addo Elephant Park July-06 The town of Strand is directly below us, its turquoise shoreline laced in frothy surf. Beyond Strand we can see the flatlands that segue into Cape Town city center, towered over by Table Mountain. We wind through a forest of what look to be mountain pine.
Most of these evergreens seem to be cultivated, growing row on row on
row. Many of the agricultural fields have also been
Hermanus Once we left the N2 to drive south towards the town of Hermanus we were on a much smaller rural road. We were amused to come on a sign warning us to give a thought to the tortoises that cross here. We were on high alert but never saw one. The vegetation is lush and semi-tropical.
There is also an outdoor craft market with all the usual stock so we checked that out again but did not buy anything. By now we are specific about what we are interested in.
Oudtshoorn Ostriches For the first time on this trip morning dawned cool and
wet. We were off to Oudtshoorn, famous for its ostrich farms and beyond
that, George, on the coast. The road we took was called R62 and is renowned
for its scenic beauty. To begin with we But once we were actually traveling on the renowned R62 we were underwhelmed. There are some pretty little towns but I think the day was too grey. It rained off and on. The green-clad mountains were all very grey. Being winter the flowers are just now budding. In another month the meadows are probably awash in colour. So I won’t write the tourism hype off as a lie, but in winter it is not worth the drive. We did not stop at any of the ostrich farms today because we did that on a previous trip. What they offer is a chance to get up close and personal with ostriches; to see where they incubate the eggs and raise the ostriches as egg layers or for their meat and the leather products that are made from their skin. It’s actually a bit gruesome to me. One moment you are exchanging flirtatious smiles with a cute ostrich, the next you are admiring an $800 handbag made from its sister’s skin. Perhaps I am a vegetarian at heart. In any event, I did NOT have an ostrich burger for lunch. What happens is that the farmhands catch the ostrich and guide it into a kind of box. Steve got on by climbing up the sides of the rails. He was instructed to hang onto the wings for support. Then they open the gate on the box and the ostrich takes off like a bat out of hell. The farmhands run like crazy after the ostrich, hoping to break the fall of the tourist on its back. Steve hung on for quite a while, but like them all, took his lumps in the sand. Then the farmhands, more experienced riders for sure, lined up the ostriches and had a race with each riding one. The ostriches did not seem to be any the worse for wear but I won’t say they were having a great time either. I just don’t know. South Coast - Knysna Leaving George this morning our first pull off was just
a wee way down the highway at
Being Sunday there was a cycling road race with several hundred participants underway on the N2 highway. It ran from Knysna to Wilderness return, either 50 km or 100 km. Just before the end of the course there was an enormous hill. It is amazing to me that anyone could cycle up that hill at all, never mind someone who’s already pumped over 100 km. It was cool to see people helping each other. A strong rider would be riding one-handed with his or her hand on another’s back, giving them that extra little push up the hill. Knysna is a waterfront resort town. The cycle race was part
of the Oyster Festival We carried on up the Garden Route. I expect that in the spring or summer when the flowers are in bloom it is probably very garden like but today the skies were leaden and heavy and it did not live up to its reputation for lush scenic beauty. By late afternoon we had arrived at the municipal campground called the Jeffrey Bay Caravan Park. It is really nice, set right on the ocean. The beach is pristine and beautiful, the surf is huge and crashing. Steve collected a bunch of shells. My job tonight was to do the laundry. The wash and line dry method worked fine in the dry interior but here on the coast it is too cold and humid. Thank goodness we came on a washer and dryer set up. Not cheap. Washing was $20 R x 2 machines and drying was $15 R x 4 = total of $100 R = $14. But all our clothes and linens are clean once again! Addo Elephant Park We arrived at Addo Elephant Park yesterday. Everything
we had read indicated that the entrance was at “Kirkwood.”
Unfortunately this gate is is actually the back door to But the gate keeper was able to give us a map of the park
and provide directions to the main camp, some 37 km away! Unfortunately
while talking with her I left our South Africa map in her office. A sentimental
tragedy for us. We could always buy a new map but this one was the original
on which we`d spent two years plotting every inch of this trip, then added
notes and deviations as we`ve turned dreams into reality. But once we
got to the main camp and discovered our loss the office was able to call
the Kirkwood Gate and they sent the map over in the morning when staff
made the trip between At Addo we were only able to get a campsite for the one night. That was fine as the second night we went to a private campground about 10 km outside the gates called “Homestead B&B”. The property is absolutely beautiful – like a lovely jungle garden. The main house is an old homestead with quite a bit of history attached to it, being one of the oldest citrus farms in the Sundays River Valley. The original homestead dates back to the early 1900s. The property has been developed as a B&B with a full range of accommodation from campsites to backpackers to self-catering to B&B in comfy rooms. Back at Addo Elephant National Park the campsites are very
tight. I don’t understand The facilities are the SAN usual: tent sites and caravan
sites all with electricity. There is an ablution block and water. The
interpretive centre has lots of interesting displays, an office for booking
game drives with a guide, a shop with souvenirs and a restaurant which
was very busy. There are also a range of chalets – some were really
nice, with front decks overlooking the very busy waterhole. I would love
to book one of those if I were ever there again because this waterhole
is VERY busy. We immediately set off on a game drive that night and again the next day. There are more than 500 elephants so they are very easy to spot. We ran into them, almost literally because they march up and down the roadways in big family groups of ten to thirty. We also saw large numbers of them at several of the waterholes. That is an elephant's tail to the right. As well, the park is home to zebra, kudu, eland and warthogs,
red hartebeest, duiker, black-backed jackal, ostrich, blue crane, Egyptian
goose, Bokmakierie, meerkats, yellow mongoose, bush pigs, buffalo, vervet
monkeys, black headed heron. Besides elephants, the Addo Elephant is fa Our favourite sighting was a female ostrich who we watched settle herself into a dirt hole she’d dug in the ground. There was some grunting and groaning and wiggling about. She stood up and two big eggs popped out of her with a clink-clunk. We were so surprised. After she’d laid the eggs she spent the next several hours digging the hole for the eggs deeper – not very effectively with her beak, but she persisted and the hole did get deeper. Tomorrow we are heading east, up what is known as the Wild
Coast towards Durban. I am not sure what the “wild” refers
to but we’ll find out. Carolyn Usher
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