Our Trip to South Africa (Part 4)

Our drive to Port Elizabeth the next morning was for 2 hours and it was the last part of our scenic garden route drive. We soaked-in every bit of it, the green pastures, the golden fields, the rainbows, the animals, the sunsets, the many different textured and shaped mountains. We were staying at the Ibhayi Town Lodge at Port Elizabeth for just one day, before we took the flight out to Jo'burg for the latter part of the trip.

  

  

  

We reached PE at around lunch time, and were desperate by now for a good Indian meal (after having great food everywhere for 12 days, we still yearned for comfort Indian food). We hunted for one nearby, and landed for some nice butter chicken, naan and dal at Royal Delhi Restaurant. Seemed to be a local favorite, we saw Indians and others on a weekday afternoon here. Service was good, but the food on hindsight, I admit was quite rich and oily (buttery, to be precise).

Our night at PE, did not go too well, since the 6.5 year old started a bad fever and cough. With a home delivered burger from Mc Donald's and some quick medication, we spent a disturbed night. The next morning, we returned our car at the PE airport, and flew to Johannesburg. With the help of a friend, we quickly got him some medical attention. Stress out of the way, we sat down for an amazing vegetarian lunch at Dulce Cafe, within the Fourways Life Hospital. The Avo & Halloumi salad and wrap were to die for.

A 2 hour drive from here on a rather boring route (psst.... compared to the lovely ones so far) took us to Suncity, we were staying at the Hotel Cabanas just for one night. We just had to see Sun City, so we stopped here, but we thought it was a destination that was highly over-rated. Its association is more with a few movies, and the fact that it is the first man-made resort etc. The service was very very sad; after being on the garden route and meeting extremely friendly, pleasant and helpful people, this was really a let-down. A Pakistani man at The Raj, was the only guy who was happy to see our family coming in for some biryani and raitha. Suncity was just good for one thing, a break in our 4 hour drive to the latter part of our trip - The Safaris.....

Safaris:

All Safaris and animal encounters are alike. Except for the weather, the time of the day, the location, the scenery, the animals, the birds and of course, the biggest part, it has to be a lucky one....

• We stayed at places called game lodges which were situated right in the middle of the national park. 
• Our rooms were tents with four poster beds, open bathroom and toilet (the bed being the barrier, but no doors), no TV, no Internet, no phone, no fridge. (Blissful)
• The stay included three meals a day as part of the buffet at the restaurant. We were not allowed to go to the room or the restaurant after 6 without someone from the lodge. This was just to ensure the free roaming animals weren't alarmed by our presence.
• The schedule for each day was the same. Early morning wake up call with coffee, then go on the safari, stop for another coffee or hot chocolate and snacks in the bush. Come back for breakfast, rest for a while, lunch, rest for a while, tea, then safari again, stop for some wine or coffee and snacks in the bush, come back in time for dinner.
• A ranger who was assigned to us would take us on the safaris and show us the animals and birds, and ensure our safety. Each safari lasted 3 to 4 hours depending on how much we wanted to or got to see. There were hot water bottles and blankets to help us keep warm during the early morning and late evening open drives.
• The rangers were extremely efficient, knew what we wanted to see, where to stop, were patient for photo ops, gave us loads of information on all the animals and birds, spotted the most elusive animals in the bush, were extremely pleasant and supportive of the needs of the kids in the jeep.

Madikwe

The drive from Suncity to Madikwe was 3 hours, most part of this was off-road (thankfully we had a 4x4 Nissan) and we kept seeing impalas, warthogs, cows, donkeys, guinea fowls, forest chickens, mongoose.... But our drive was great and we finally reached the beautiful Thakadu River Camp after lunch time.  (Thakadu is the name for an Aardvark in the Tswana language of Botswana, so their logo is a black aardvark). Madikwe is on the edge of the Kalahari, and is covered from all sides by mountains. This part of the bush is so full of green in the mountains that surrounds it, yet the ground is brown. The air is really chilly and there are quite a few water bodies. Apart from the common ones like the rhino, elephant, lion, impala, wildebeests, giraffes, we saw the African wild dog which is supposedly a rare sight.

  

  

  

  

Pilanesberg

This national park occupies an extinct and eroded alkaline crater, and is right behind Suncity. It is surrounded by an industrial area, suburbs and seems like a zoo because it is reclaimed agricultural land. But in effect, about 40 years ago, 6000 animals were released into this park, and they have grown since then, and a large number of animals and birds are roaming freely in the wilderness. 

We checked into Black Rhino Game Lodge in the afternoon, and found that this was a fancier game lodge. It had stand-alone cottage like tents, with fridge, TV,  and an unusual open air shower area. 

  

  

The highlight of our stay here, was the hot-air balloon ride with Airtrackers, that lasted 60 minutes and floated over the park slowly. One should never assume, that the grey elephant, white rhino, black and white zebra, brown lion, deep brown giraffes are of different colors. It is only when they come together in a park with tall brown vegetation, that one realizes that all these colors camouflage and blend in so well. From that distance up in the air, we could hardly spot them. (See if you can in the pictures below) Expert binocular view is what actually helped us. We also saw the eroded crater in the distance. We were taken to the stylish Bakubung Bush Lodge, for our breakfast at the hot air balloon table. The buffet was huge and the food was amazing.

  

 

  

  

Our longest drive so far was the one from Pilanesberg, up further north. So we broke the journey at this quaint and lovely small town called Dullstroom. As we were close to the place, we noticed the terrain changing and looking like some on the garden route, it was full of green mountains, many water bodies, bridges, winding roads, hilly drives, and we witnessed a beautiful sunset. We stayed at the Dunkeld Country Estate, which is a great weekend place for fishing, horse riding, golf. Our room overlooked a green pasture where we saw zebras and bonteboks grazing.

   

  

  

  

We had a late dinner at their restaurant and after a good night's sleep, left early morning. On our way out, we saw the town slowly and lazily waking up on the Monday morning. A chirpy place served us some scrumptious breakfast. Waffle & Co. and their waffles, omelettes, shakes and juices were out of the world. Our next part of the journey, a 4 hour drive up and down and winding around the mountains, was to the spot we want to call the 'icing on the cake'...... our more than perfect end to the 3 week holiday.........

Our Trip to South Africa (Part 3)

Our first stop was to see elephants at the Knysna Elephant Park. It was a bit more expensive than we had expected. And yes, we did go through that moment of uncertainty, 'Do we want to do this ‘captive animal’ visit'? But, these were not captive elephants. They were roaming around freely in the open green fields behind the building that housed their reception and the shed. The park leaves the shed open, with a lot of warm hay on the floor so that the elephants can walk in whenever they want, and sleep there. They even have an option of renting a room on the first floor, for the night, and you can sit out and have a cup of tea and watch the elephants resting in the shed.

From the shed, they took us into the park which was essentially the side of a beautiful green hill, in a safari van. We went to a spot where visitors were feeding some fresh fruits and vegetables to a small herd of elephants. It was lovely to see them getting excited seeing the colorful snack buckets knowing they are going to be fed. We were asked to stick to one ranger who would help us stay with one elephant and take pictures. These were rescued animals and we saw that the park really took good care of them.

From here, we drove down to Plettenberg for our 3 day stay atBeacon Island Resort on the beach. We rested the whole day and stepped out for dinner and drove up the hill. Since it was the weekend, The Table Restaurant & Bar place was packed and service slow, but the food was outstanding. Their chocolate banana spring roll was really good.

The next morning we left to do some horse riding with Hog Hollow Horse Trails around the hills that stretched out till the sea. It was a breathtaking view, layers of green in different shades, and cattle, ducks, steenboks grazing. The morning was spent well.

We then drove to Monkeyland, a place where rescued monkeys are allowed to roam freely within a large area. They are not fenced in, but monkeys stay within the area since there is constant supply of food. There were many that were rescued from pet owners and kept in cages so that they can learn to survive in the presence of other monkeys. Over time, they get familiar with the others and are allowed to slowly step out and mingle. The kids loved to see and learn about the different monkeys, and enjoyed the walk on the small suspension bridge.

We wanted an easy afternoon, so we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed the view of the ocean from the window, and also caught a rainbow in the distance. It was beautiful. 

The next morning after another round of sea-sickness medication and some biscuits in our tummies, we went out on our speed boat ride with Ocean Blue to see some humpback whales. It was an amazing ride, and we saw about 4 whales, unfortunately we did not get to see them breaching, but they came up to breathe a few times. We did not get to click any pictures of these, thanks to their quick intake of breath, and the bobbing boat..... but I think the memory is quite strongly etched. (Click on Ocean Blue link for some good pictures of the whales). We ended the ride by sighting hordes of seals, which the kids were very happy about. 

We headed straight for brunch at Nepo's and spent a lazy 1.5 hours chatting over some amazing omelettes and bread.

 We drove out for an hour and reached the most 'dramatic' coastline at the Garden Route's Tsitsikama National Park. We checked into Storms River Mouth Restcamp, and our camping lodge facing the ocean, was right at the spot where the waves broke on a rock, and they went up to almost 6 metres. It was spectacular, just sitting there and watching them come so close and suddenly go up that high. We did a 2 hour hike on the mountainside and over the Suspension bridge that is built over the mouth of the river (the spot that joins the sea), and got back in time to have a light dinner and go to bed. 

It was really cold, but a glass of some lovely South African wine, a warm bed, and the most calming sound of the ocean, helped us drift off to sleep. Something we badly needed after a long but lovely day.....

Our Trip to South Africa (Part 2)

Gaansbaai

The much awaited trip from Hermanus was to the White Shark Projects (Cage Dive) in Gaansbaai. The morning went smoothly with the kids having an extremely light breakfast, followed by some sea-sickness tablets. The drive took us about an hour from the guest house, and we reached there in time for our trip out to sea. The crew carried a load of fish as bait for the sharks. They then set up the cage on one side of the boat, and let the divers in. The bait was thrown into the water closer to the cage, to attract the sharks that would swim close to the divers.

It was an extremely cold morning, and we were not keen to dive or go into the cage. But just the feeling of a close encounter with the great whites was extremely exciting. (See if you can spot the great white in the second picture). The entire trip took us a good 3 hours, and we were brought back to the office where we were served a nice warm Minestrone soup to help thaw ourselves.

From Gaansbaai, we left to Betty's Bay that has far more penguins than Boulder's Beach. We walked on the boardwalk to the edge of the water and saw 1000's of penguins and cormorants. It was raining and was really cold, but the kids were very happy to see penguins in such large numbers. 

We were quite hungry by now, and stopped at On the edge, which is at the parking lot of Betty's Bay. We had a nice warm slice of carrot cake with vanilla ice-cream. Probably the best carrot cake we have had in a long time. We then drove back to the guest house in Hermanus and ordered some dinner from Debonair's Pizza.

The next morning was our longest drive so far, on the garden route and we were heading to the small and open town of Oudtshoorn. This being a cantonment town, there isn't much of a buzz even in the central part of town. We checked-in to the nice Hlangana Lodge and rested for a while and stepped out for some dinner. The town looked extremely quiet, with hardly any street lights. This was the first time in South Africa that we really felt a little scared to be out on our own in the evening. So we stopped at to The Black Swan, that had a lot of cars parked outside, and the place was crowded with live music etc. The food here was good, but the service was a bit slow.

After a night of restful sleep, we set off to see the Cango Caves. It was a cloudy day and the 9:30AM drive up the mountain was right through the clouds; every sharp turn that we were driving towards was covered by the fog and it was spectacular. 

The Cango Caves gave us a great view of the Stalagmites and the Stalactites, and our walk into the caves was part of a one hour tour. There is also a 3-hour tour that would have taken us to the deeper parts of the cave where the entrances are much narrower, but we were not keen to do this. I don't know if the kids would have been ready, but we were quite sure that our unfit bodies would neither be able to make it through those entrances, nor handle the low oxygen levels inside.

On the way back from the caves, we stopped at the Cango Wildlife Ranch. We have been trying to avoid going to zoos and places where animals are kept captive. But this was different; the big cats here are rescued and taken good care of. They are not fit to be left back in the wild, since they are not fully recovered enough to be able to defend themselves or hunt on their own. It is a well maintained place, but it was an expensive ticket for what we got to see. 

From here, we went to the Highgate Ostrich Farm which has a guided tour for 60 minutes by the hour. The guide showed us how eggs are hatched in their nursery, history about the ostrich feather that was once a fashion statement, and took us on a guided tour around the farm. We fed the birds, got to sit on one, also got to stand on two eggs and finally saw a 100ft race by the birds.

From here, we left to Wilderness, a lovely place on the coast. We reached there late afternoon, checked into the most beautiful Dune Guest Lodge, the hostess who has a small baby maintains this villa which looks out to the beach. The view from our room was lovely, since the wall facing the beach was made of glass. We just sat there and enjoyed the view, hoping to catch something interesting in the distance. This is one place we wish we had spent a little more time in. We headed out to dinner to Royal Siam Thai Restaurant, that served us some great food. Since it was the weekend, it was very crowded, so the service was quite slow.

We left early the next morning to catch the Saturday Morning Wild Oats Market. It was so good to be out there and see all the stalls with home made stuff and good food. We spent some time there and drove up the hill to see The Big Tree, the view from the top was really nice. The town of Wilderness and the river winding through it, stretching out from the base of the mountain to the sea.

The small but lively town of Knysna was our next stop but we could not stay there since the hotels were fully booked thanks to the Knysna Oyster Festival that lasts 7 days, and is great fun for sports lovers. But we passed through this little town looking forward to our next few exciting stops. The children couldn't wait....