Cape Town to Kruger NP

The Great White Toyota hunting tour - arriving in Cape Town and getting to the Kruger Park
Well, we’re now more than 2 weeks into this African journey and have spent 2 days in Cape Town getting our truck (Toyota 4x4) sussed, signed over to us, packed and on the road, 6 days travelling to the north end of the Kruger Park (averaging 700 k/day) and 8 days in the park coming south peering at every bush and clump of grass and avoiding elephant dung so as to not crush the beetles (averaging 20 k/hr) and dropped Jennifer at the J’burg airport to report back to school a week late. No time so far to sit and write nor time to find internet cafes (not that there are any in the KNP- well I didn’t look). It’s all go being on holiday!!
The truck is great - and this is a great way to travel: very comfortable and every day things seem to pack into smaller and smaller cubby holes - maybe it’s just shaken down on the corrugated gravel roads and eaten and drunk!! Packing and repacking, and the putting up and down of the roof tents every day has it entertainment and hassles - especially in the dark after 6pm or before 6am - and we’ve only had 3 x 2 nights in the same place - and a few in cabins! It’s quite a feeling buying up all we think we need for weeks and virtually carrying that, your tents, gas, fuel, cooker and lantern, your gin, wine, whisky and water, your bedding and all manner of emergency gear on your back and heading off - not withstanding complete tool and breakdown kits, cell phones, computers, cameras and binoculars x3!!!! This is no easy task.
We would perhaps not be thinking the truck was so great if we hadn’t spent a day on a 4x4 driving course (highly recommended by Kathy and Andrew- thank you - turns out the same Trevor) on the second day here in a big boys’ playground north of CT. Said Trevor took us through the truck’s paces in sand, mud, water, huge potholes, hill and steep dale - and actually demonstrated and had Hugh practice getting the truck to ‘walk’ through any obstacle sedately and with care (!!) He now demonstrates good care and restraint! And what’s more I actually enjoyed and also demonstrated some skill (briefly) in those sand dunes.
Hugh is in charge of the truck, gas and tents and keys (for all the padlocks etc): me, packing the food/gear in and navigating and Jennifer, seems to be dishes, holding and folding under Hugh’s instruction and photography - well all her camera gear. Actually we have pondered on the mass of electronic equipment, cords and chargers we now seem to travel with - in the 1970s we certainly didn’t check in every few days and post cards often arrived home after we did! Lord knows where our parents thought we were half the time.
We loved the feel of Cape Town: huge space and mountains in background, but couldn’t help but be a bit startled by the massive contrast between the hundreds of million dollar high-rise apartments in the peninsula bays and the shanty /squatter type expanses on the flats as one entered or left the city. We only got terribly lost once and entered a car-parking building only to have to back out as we were too high - we find people are very patient.
The trip overland north from Cape Town was fabulous - what wonderful landscapes and space. We set off first to the wine region around Stellenbosch and headed off across the little karoo: sheep, cattle and grain farms with big chunky mountains in the background. That was a lovely drive and we made it to a very small National Park at Swellendam where the endangered bontebok is being conserved. That was our first effort of erecting the two roof top tents and sleeping in them - very comfortable really but the whole truck does shake somewhat every time someone turns over!
The garden route around the south coast was disappointing because it was grey and damp and the next stop was the Addo Elephant National Park. We made an early decision to try to stay in National Parks in South Africa as they just seemed safer and also had good facilities - plus we had bought our “wild cards’ which give us entry to as many NPs as we want in a year. Another early decision was to arrive in the daylight to set up camp and avoid any road hazards such as black Africans in dark clothes and animals but we didn’t manage to keep this one past the first night!! Our last hour of travel for several nights was done in the dark but with great care and a little trepidation and mutterings about not doing this again!
From Addo we headed a bit inland and happened upon a very helpful lady in the Craddock Victoria Manor Hotel where we arrived on a Sunday for a cup of tea (we had forgotten to get a thermos and everything else was shut) and even though she had a poncy christening do going on and a tour party due for lunch she served (well got her African staff to serve) a tea tray and invited us to look through her 1846 establishment. She also pointed out a wonderful route on the inland side of Lesotho called the highland scenic route through to a small place called Clarens (which she highly recommended). Six hours travel she said - well it took us a bit longer but it was marvellous open vistas one after another through what is mostly huge grain and sheep farms, some quite cultivated with irrigation and always amazing mountains in the backdrop, to Clarens situated in huge chunky mountains which we didn’t see until the next morning - this being one of those nights of travelling in the dark - just a few more kms.........
This night was to be freezing but we had found a cheap place recommended in the ‘Rough Guide’ - Clarens Inn - hoping to get a room at the inn. We did and it was most entertaining(and cheap): a kind of 70s hippie place with bits of rooms built as add-ons all over the place - and most painted gaudy colours. We three slept in the honeymoon suite (J on a sofa) as he said he didn’t have anything else suitable- well he poked his head in another room and shook it. He couldn’t find the heater but brought a small pile of sticks and twigs for a fire which took all Hugh’s boy scout skills to get and keep alight - briefly. Jennifer took to the bath to get warm - the bath being up on an elevated section of the room behind huge curtains! It was fine but we had to bring in our own pots and pans, theirs being so crappy. It was certainly warmer than the rooftop tents there being a healthy frost on the ground next morning. Clarens next morning turned out to be an artsy crafty (white) holiday place - a cross between Ohakune, Wanaka, Coromandel and Martinborough - now that’s a challenge! The Inn felt a bit like Pokaka for those of you who know - full of hand-me-downs.
We spent another day in the mountains with only a small drive in between, this time in the Royal Natal National Park which is a very dramatic part of the Drakensburg range. What a wonderful part of S Africa. This night we were camping and as we sat huddled in all our warm clothes (beanies, scarves and gloves) we contemplated that there was no way that we’d be sitting outside in July in Wellington let alone Auckland - well not even in Wellington in summer at this hour! (note that our day has shifted rather from bed at about 9 and up at 6)
From here on north for another 3 days we just kept moving increasingly through more african looking settlements and countryside. Seems quite different as one passes north from the central Free State, into Mpumalanga and into northern Limpopo - first everything is very ship-shape with orderly large newish-looking townships (settlements for black Africans) right beyond the outskirts of the actual town with its ‘white’ housing (guess alot of this is from the apartheid days) through to more expansive settlements of small houses and rondavels for black Africans going on for miles - and the whole town seemingly black as we went further north. Really interesting as some of this housing looked better and better with more developed veg gardens etc although there were always poor areas as well. Some towns had very lively roadside markets as well as supermarket shopping kind of malls like ours where there was hardly a white face. We were clearly travellers so it was quite fun and fine to shop. All the way there were always people walking, biking, sitting, hitching on the road side - and some of these areas were quite industrial: coal mines, power stations and I don’t know what else but there were certainly masses of massive truck on the roads for part of it. In between there were gigantic orange and avocado orchards way up in the north.
Actually the trip up was very long but a wonderful way to get a picture of South Africa - what a fascinating, colourful and beautiful place (no politics when one is travelling hey!!) And big.

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