Going back to the collection of my hire car in Durban, I was keen to be on my way and escape the city.
I had for a few days been hanging out with Mithun, a drummer from a band in London. He was a man with a mixed heritage, a grandfather from India, father from Kenya, mother from Ireland, and growing up in England, and had a complexion that would pass as local from many regions of the world, particularly equipped as he is with a beard. Unlike myself, who is noticeable almost everywhere I go, sometimes from 3 blocks away.
One night, between us, his plan, my actions, we helped some 18 yr olds break into their car after locking the keys in it.
Mithun had come to Durban for a Visa to India, and was as bored of the place as I was by the time he got his passport back. So we set off for the Dragon Mountains (Drakensberg), also known as the Barrier of Spears to the Zulu. On top of which is Lesotho, the Country in the Clouds.
After being delayed on the motorway because a truck had dropped half a load of beer bottles on the side of the road, we escaped the traffic on the midlands meander scenic route. Having my own transport and not having to rely on local buses was immediately a joy. We found this backpackers in the middle of nowhere ...
On arrival were told by the caretaker that the pump wasn't working, and they had no water. We decided that it was too nice a location to be upset by trivial matters and settled in, and then promptly set off to the stream to review the problem and after a short time and a quick call to the owner to confirm our plan, had the pump back on the job of filling the header tank.
So far in the space of a week I'd learned two new skills helping out people in a bind, reminding me of an old quote about how most people miss opportunities, because all they see is a pair of overalls and a job to be done. I like to challenge myself with new things, and learn all I can from things I've never done before.
After a couple of days exploring the mountains in the rain, and discovering a really nice cafe, we drove north so I could deposit Mithun on the bus route to Jo'burg so he could catch his flight to India the next day. That night I stayed at a backpackers that just happened to be hosting a 'folky' style music festival for the weekend. There was open fires, dead animals on a rotating stick, and live music, what more could you want. Oh and there were the teenagers hiding from their folks in the guys dorm room making out and smoking dope.
The following morning the place was still slumbering as I slipped out and set off for the day. It was an interesting drive down the west side of Lesotho. I discovered a new sport, I named it pothole dancing. One particular stretch of road looked like it was the training area for the air force, with bomb craters masquerading as mere potholes. I think 3000 potholes in about 100km of road would be a generous description to the quality of the road. I found most people took a terrible line through the mess, and I only hit potholes when I was behind other vehicles. However as you can imagine, overtaking opportunities were few and far between, and took a bit of nerve to execute.
At one point of the day I was confused and somewhat angry when the fuelling attendant put 47 litres into a 45 litre tank that wasn't empty. After arguing that I was being ripped off I ended up with no choice but to pay up. I then drove 215km before the fuel gauge started to move off full, somehow he really had put that much fuel in my car, I was somewhat amazed, and a little embarrassed at my outburst. Later investigation (reading the instruction manual), I discovered what they'd done. And that by fueling slowly and manipulating the airlock, you could fill the extra part of the tank, designed to allow for expansion of the fuel. Many of the places took the phrase, "fill it up" quite literally and put as much as possible into your car, as this increased the volume they could sell. I learned to specify if I wanted them to stop when it clicks, if I was not driving much further that day, or put as much as you can in if I was going at least another 100km pretty much straight away, as this would therefore reduce the number of times I had to stop for fuel.
Over the course of this day I drove more than 800km, and gave 7 hitchhikers a lift. I finished the day arriving at my friends place in Zithulele (mentioned in my previous post).
A week later I was on my way back to Durban to collect my friend Claire from the airport. She was changing jobs, and in the few weeks she had off in between had decided to come and join me for some adventures in Africa. She was arriving on Christmas day, and her wish, a hippopotamus for Christmas. So against my nature I planned a little in advance and booked somewhere to stay for a couple of days, and the first stop was St Lucia which is in the middle of an enormous estuary / wetland and National Park. We went down to the river for a sunset cruise to go find the portly horse of the river, and after watching some weaver birds at work set off for the river mouth where we found a number of hippos and a bunch of crocs.
Along the way I'm sure the sun did indeed set, but with the black clouds and lightning all around, I couldn't tell you for sure when it happened. Heading up river to find more hippos the skipper took a vote as to weather we stop or keep going, on account of the weather, we pushed on. About 5 minutes later a fast approaching curtain of water blocked the view of everything ahead. There was no vote this time, we turned around and headed back. Huddled together trying to get out of the horizontal rain almost everyone was on one side of the boat, this is not a good way to find balance. As we were all to to our underpants anyway, I stood out on the windward side as ballast, and as much of a wind break as I could manage.
The next day we were driving through the national park and had the best rhino encounter I've had with wild rhino. I did once hand feed a 'tame' 18 month old baby rhino in Zim. They eventually came so close I had to move the car to give them a bit of space.
The next day we went to the joint Hluhluwe - Imfolozi NP. I had been recommended this by a number of people and had high expectations. It really was a good day, and we saw a lot, including by the end of the day 7 rhino, but due to the degree of expectation, I was a little disappointed. I've always tried to avoid having expectations for events for this reason, I much prefer to be amazed at how cool a place is, then to feel it wasn't as good as I'd thought it would be. Claire found one moment, an elephant in traffic, walking along the road with a car in front and a few more behind to be immensely amusing.
In the area we also went to a cat sanctuary, where they have cheetahs, servals, caracals, and african wild cats which look very much like a domestic tortoiseshell cat, except a little bigger, and not so likely to want a scratch behind the ear. The guide explained that the caracals food often comes to it, on the wing. I thought to myself, sure, jumping up and grabbing a flying bird is a neat trick, but you're not going to survive that way day by day. At feeding time I then watched a caracal go from crouch to 3m in the air in a tawny flash and realised I was wrong, very wrong.
Caracal
Cheetah
Serval
A few days later and I was back in the Drakensberg Mtns, but to the north this time, where we stayed at the most inaccurately named Cultural Centre. The only thing cultural was that the huts were the shape of a traditional rondavel. Despite the sign on the road in, it was not an informative centre either, and almost all questions were answered with a slow drawn out "yeeeessssssssss". This became a running joke between Claire and I for the remainder of her visit, all responses in the affirmative were answered thus, the joke did not get old.
One day in the Drakensbergs, I went hiking for a few hours, but due to a dodgy ankle not being able to cope on rough terrain, Claire went horse riding. The scenery of the area is incredible, and an avid hiker would do well to stay a few days and explore a number of the trails. It was just outside the entrance to the Royal Natal Park that we found the Cannibals sign, pictured in my post on tribal style capital punishment.
The following day on our way out of the mountains we did a canopy tour. This is essentially a collection of ziplines through the tree tops and back and forwards across the gorge. There are a number of these in Sth Africa and one in Swaziland. The place we went to claimed the longest line (179m), and the highest point above the ground (65m). Most of the platforms were on the canyon walls, but a couple were fixed to tree trunks. The second last platform was 35m up a large tree trunk, and for a few minutes Claire embraced the idea of being a greenie.
The plan for the last few days of Claire's trip was to go diving - of the sky and scuba varieties.
We spent New Years Eve having a few quiet drinks in a lovely country lodge during a thunderstorm with the owner and her slightly odd brother. The next day the conditions hadn't cleared suitably to go sky diving, so we headed for the coast. The storm had been fairly ferocious, and the sea was brown for close to a kilometre out from the beach, it would take days to clear.
The scuba diving was scrubbed from the list, but we did manage the opportunity of throwing ourselves out the door of a perfectly good airplane the next day. It was a lot of fun, but didn't have the fear factor I experienced the first time I jumped.
With a day spare, since no scuba, we went exploring the only direction we hadn't covered up to this point, south. A drive down the coast and then into the hills to find the Oribi Gorge. The best view we had wasn't of the Oribi gorge, but of the same river further downstream from the vantage point of a cafe set at the top of a cliff. We drove through the gorge, but as always when you are in the middle of something, it is often hard to get a clear appreciation of how impressive a place truly is.
With Claire's involvement of my adventures over I was back south to the wild coast. The next couple of weeks has been covered in my post titled Hiking in Sth Africa, check it out if you haven't read it already.
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