Dear All My last two days in the wonderful little Kingdom of Swaziland were spent at the very special Hlane Royal National Park. I checked out of my very spacious self-catering chalet and said goodbye to its very helpful host, Lello, before taking two minibuses from the nearby Gables shopping centre to the Park. The first minibus took a ridiculous one-and-a-half hours to drive the mere 15 miles to Swaziland's largest city Manzini, stopping off everywhere and often waiting ages for passengers - it was really frustrating. Upon arrival at Manzini's very chaotic minibus station, the minibus driver very helpfully pointed out the next minibus I needed to take heading to the eastern Swazi town of Simunye, but with an empty stomach and another potentially long minibus ride ahead of me, I thought I'd stop off ... read more

Dear All On a Thursday morning in the middle of August, I moved on from the Malealea Lodge, and felt it was about time for it. The place was truly amazing, and although I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, I felt three nights was enough and was happy to wake up early and take the last morning minibus out of town at 8am - although even that was still a bit early for me though, lol! The bumpy ten-mile stretch of road out of town didn't seem half so bad in the daylight, and I was well-distracted by the awesome views, particularly as we passed through the 2003m "Gates of Paradise" mountain pass with stunning views all around. This is one of numerous mountain passes throughout the country, and although it has a great name, it ... read more

Dear All This South Africa blog entry comes from Bloemfontein! I'm deep in the heart of Afrikaaner South Africa now - the signs are all in Afrikaans, and I hear Afrikaans being spoken much more commonly now than English. It feels like I'm in a really authentic part of South Africa. While other places I'd been to thus far hadn't been completely buzzing with tourists, I was definitely off-the-beaten track now and was loving it. As I believe I have mentioned in my blogs before, I always like to experience travels off the tourist trail. This South African state called Free State, formerly the independent Afrikaaner country of the Orange Free State which along with the Transvaal to the north-east around Johannesburg formed the two independent Boer Republics of the 19th century, felt very much that. ... read more

Dear All Yay! As mentioned in my last, I was so glad to be driving on decent roads again in the South African state of KwaZulu-Natal, after my time in the Eastern Cape. On a Sunday morning, I checked out of my little cottage accommodation in the coastal town of Port Edward, and drove on to Durban. This would be the final point on my coastal journey for this summer. I had been hugging the stunning and extremely varied South African coastline for two weeks now, from Cape Town to Durban, and from there my journey would take me inland for the rest of my time on this trip. I had the feeling at this time that my travel adventures would take a different turn from there on, and I was looking forward to it very ... read more

Dear All I bade farewell to lovely Knysna this morning, to continue my Road Trip eastwards along South Africa's famous Garden Route. There were so many places I could have stopped off at, it became difficult to choose. For this part of my adventure, I narrowed it down to firstly a stop at the Storms River Bridge in the Tsitsikamma National Park, a 120m high concrete arch bridge looming over a seriously stunning and high river canyon formed by the Storms River flowing deep down below. I'm not one to suffer greatly from vertigo, but walking across it and peering over the side seriously induced some knee-knocking moments for me. With a bit more time I would have loved to have explored the nearby village of Storms River by the coast. I didn't realise it but ... read more