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Published: October 28th 2023
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. Driving on the roads there was just wonderful - they were long and straight, free of curves and pot-holes, and just get you from A to B much more efficiently. The landscape was also so different up there - expansive, barren and dry, with large-scale farms and plantations dominating the countryside. It felt unique and beautiful, and I very much enjoyed being there.
Mining Machinery
The Big Hole, KimberleyLeaving lovely Clarens on a Friday morning, I pretty much headed straight for Bloemfontein for the three-hour journey with only one stop along the way. This was to post some postcards at the beautifully-named town of Bethlehem, after previously unsuccessful attempts due to loadshedding and system failures at post offices in Winterton and Bergville the day before. I was particularly excited to be visiting Bloemfontein mainly due to the hotel I had booked there - the delightful Hobbit Boutique Hotel, built atop the very place of JRR Tolkien's birth. The original building of his birth had previously been torn down, but this hotel was still a veritable delight of Tolkien paraphernalia, and I highly recommend a stay there for any Tolkien fan such as myself. There was a plaque in reception commemorating the place of his birth, and the building was filled abundantly with beautiful paintings from both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. For my first night there I stayed in the Elrond "Honeymoon" Suite, which had paintings of Gondor, the barrels out of bondage escapade, and the trolls turning to stone in the forest. There are around 15 rooms in the hotel, each dedicated to a
Tolkien character. I initially requested to be put up in the Samwise room, as he is my favourite character - for being pretty much the only one close to the ring who was never enticed by it, a stalwart friend, and pretty much the saviour of the story. He is truly the hero of the story to me, more than Frodo, as he just kept them both going without ever giving up the faith. Good old Samwise! However, when booking, the manager just kept insisting I took the Elrond suite, despite my not being on a honeymoon or anything, and I went along trusting her judgement. I was very pleased with the room - it was huge, stylish and had a lovely bathtub which I enjoyed that evening. I felt it was just a little noisy and central however, being in the main building of the hotel and susceptible to all sorts of creaks from the aging floorboards and wooden stairs outside, and requested a room change for my second night - more on that below.
After checking in and having a bit of a settle down with a cup of tea, I had a few hours to explore
Bloemfontein before sundown would require, to quote a fellow travel blogger (Hi John! 😁), that I return to a place behind an electric fence again - this is South Africa after all, although Bloemfontein is considered to be one of the safer, more relaxed cities. I started with the lovely Oliewenhuis Art Museum, set in the house and grounds of a traditional 1941 Afrikaaner homestead, and then headed to Naval Hill for commanding views over the city of Bloemfontein below. The city is additionally remarkable for being one of South Africa's three capitals - surely a record for any country! While Pretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa, and Cape Town is its legislative capital and seat of Parliament, Bloemfontein is its judicial capital. I like how the country chose to equalise its power throughout the country between the Afrikaaner- and English-speaking regions, I guess borne out of the many conflicts between the two competing powers. After surveying the city from on high, not particularly beautiful but very interesting, I headed for an enjoyable three-mile walk around the gorgeous tree-lined streets of Westdene where my hotel was located, to the nearby CBD and back, taking in the ultra-modern Loch
Dutch Reformed Church
Bethlehem, Free State, South Africa Logan Waterfront shopping centre along the way. While there was a still a bit of an edge to the CBD, it felt nowhere near as intimidating as the CBDs of Cape Town or Durban which I had previously experienced. Bloemfontein felt more relaxed, and was a nice place to hang around. I also particularly noticed the number of working class white Afrikaaner people in the city, something which as mentioned before really intrigued me - one does not expect to encounter white working class people in South Africa. If anyone's interested in some of the struggles faced by white working class South Africans, I would highly recommend a BBC documentary on the matter presented by Reggie Yates called "South Africa's White Slums" - a heart-wrenching and challenging watch indeed.
There really wasn't much else to do in the city, so the next day I was planning a full day excursion to nearby Kimberley and back, which I was looking forward to very much. Kimberley is famous for being the centre of South Africa's lucrative and very controversial diamond industry, centred around Kimberley ever since 1866 when a small boy called Erasmus Jacobs found a shiny pebble on the banks
of the nearby Orange River which he initially added to his marble collection. Recognising what the stone was, his father sold it as a 21.25 carat diamond, word spread, and the Kimberley diamond rush kicked off. The late 19th century was very much Kimberley's heyday, and as the diamond prospectors turned from individual ramshackle pioneers to large, organised and very rich companies, the world's largest hand-dug hole was slowly created as miners dug deeper and deeper. Today, Kimberley's very famous Big Hole is a massive 463 metres wide and 240 metres deep, and is an iconic sight in this part of the country. The small city of Kimberley is just over the border from Free State, in the South African state of the Northern Cape. The drive there and back from Bloemfontein took around two hours each way, and was the straightest road I'd encountered thus far in South Africa. It was nice and easy to drive along, and very fast, although overtaking was a bit hairy due to its single-lane nature and the speed.
Once in town, I headed straight to the Big Hole, and signed myself up for the next "guided tour". If anyone is thinking of
going, I would highly recommend avoiding taking this, and just walking around independently. The "guide" was just rubbish, I couldn't understand what he was saying, and he made lots of annoying stops in silly places for people to take photos of very mundane things, like information boards and random steel structures. I also ended up with a very loud and crass group of nouveau-riche South Africans. I understand this makes me sound rather snobby, but I have come to notice these types of people dotted around during my time here, and have noted their loudness and complete oblivion to anyone around but themselves, taking constant photos and selfies wherever they go, often with tinny music coming out from a mobile device somewhere. Thankfully I didn't encounter too many of them, and in this situation I just left the tour and happily enjoyed guiding myself around.
The visit starts with a brilliant video introducing the visitor to the initial gold rush of the 1870s and the subsequent amalgamation and consolidation of all the diamond prospecting industries into the one De Beers company by the famous British explorer and colonial official Cecil Rhodes, hugely instrumental in the exploration and creation of
the modern-day anglophone countries of Southern Africa. It is also told through the eyes of both a British journalist and an African mine worker, giving fascinating personal insights into what life must have been like during the rush. Then you walk out onto a viewing platform to see the vast open hole right in front of you, filled at the bottom with beautifully turquoise-coloured water. It was a sight I could have gazed over for hours, and the comparative tininess of the tall buildings of Kimberley in the background brought it home just how big and deep the hole was, all created by hand!
Later you could walk through a reconstructed mine shaft with very authentic, and very scary, sound effects including the blasting process, and finally leave through a large museum-type room filled with fascinating information on diamonds and Kimberley, as well as some actual diamonds themselves in thick glass casing protected by armed guards. Alongside this area is a wonderful recreated late-19th century diamond-prospecting town, using actual buildings and furniture from the era. I loved exploring this part in particular, and could have walked around for hours imagining I was in the Wicked Wild West! There was
also another group of bikers converging there for a meal in the restaurant. Thankfully these ones were much more pleasant than the lot I had encountered back in Mthatha the previous Saturday, and the restaurant was playing a wonderful mix of classic 80s rock songs for them which I really enjoyed while wandering around. Perhaps Saturdays are biker convergence days in South Africa.
My drive back to Bloemfontein was literally very straightforward again, after stopping off at the interesting Honoured Dead Memorial just outside Kimberley, remembering those who died defending the city in the very bloody and brutal Anglo-Boer War from 1899 to 1902. As mentioned, upon returning to the Hobbit Boutique Hotel, I moved rooms to the really beautiful Tauriel Suite which was on the upper floor of a completely detached building, free from the creaky wooden floors of the main block - it was a real treat staying there, and I'm also a big fan of the actress Evangeline Lilly who plays this elf specially-created for Peter Jackson's Hobbit film trilogy. The next day would be my last driving day on this awesome South African road trip, as I head to Johannesburg and drop off the car
there. It will mark the exact mid-point on my summer travels, and I had the feeling that my adventures would again change greatly. I was looking forward very much to the new experiences.
So my final road trip day, following a lovely cooked breakfast at the fantastic Hobbit Boutique Hotel, involved a five-hour drive along a very good, mostly two-lane motorway with a distinct central reservation. It felt a very safe drive, with no need to concentrate for overtaking, and no worries about traffic coming in the opposite direction. As I drew into the massive urban conglomeration of Johannesburg, stretching throughout the state of Gauteng with a metropolitan population of 16 million people, the motorway passed through some seriously squalid-looking squatter camps and the air hung heavy with smoke from all sorts of fires going on there. It gave the approach to Johannesburg, not the safest of cities in the world by any means, a kind of foreboding and menacing atmosphere. I didn't think Johannesburg would be the most attractive cities in the world to visit, but I was excited to be there and was very much looking forward to exploring.
But alas these city explorations would have
to wait, as I planned to use the guesthouse which I had booked for my four stays in total there near the airport, as a base from which to explore a few places around on three little mini-trips - to Lesotho, Swaziland, and the Kruger National Park. I first drove to this guesthouse in the upmarket area of Edleen in the fairly affluent suburb of Kempton Park, which seemed nice and peaceful enough. After checking in through its huge security gate surrounded by the ever-present high walls and electric fencing, I dropped off my things and took my little Suzuki Celerio on its last little drive to the airport, through the rather dodgy-feeling CBD of Kempton Park which I would have chosen to avoid had I known how dodgy it felt. And yay!! Despite the thorn bush incident back in Addo, and most likely due to the fantastic assistance of my salt-of-the-earth type accommodation host back in Durban, I had no extra charges - yay indeed! I had clocked up a whopping 4000km on the milometer!
I enjoyed a nice Steers burger and chips at the airport for lunch, along with the awesome Steers seasoning salt which I just
have to buy more of now I'm back home. Johannesburg's OR Tambo Airport would become an important travel hub for me for the next couple of weeks, and I became used to logging on to the Steers' restaurant's WiFi to order an Uber, before hightailing it to the pick-up point in the nearby multi-storey car park. I had to become used to waiting ages to be accepted on my app, sometimes over ten minutes, as it seemed not many taxi drivers wanted the hassle of entering the complicated airport terminal road system just to drive me a few miles down the road - but I always got one in the end, thank goodness! I thus returned to my accommodation without my wheels, which although I would miss, made me feel a little excited at using public transport again, which I very much enjoy!
I had thoroughly enjoyed this amazing two-week road trip from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and actually felt really very proud of myself as it's the biggest drive I have ever done. But alas, all good things must come to an end. While the first half of my South African adventures was closing, the second half was
opening. I felt excited, and was looking forward to flying to Lesotho the next day. This was in fact pretty much going back the way I had just come, this time through the air, as Lesotho is not at all far from both Bloemfontein and the Drakensberg Mountains. I had planned this, though, as I didn't want the extra hassle of crossing borders with a rental car, and was looking forward to sitting back, relaxing, and allowing someone else to do the driving and take me places now!
So Lesotho, here I come! And of course, I will be writing up about my time there in my next blog.
Until then, thanks for reading, and all the best for now!
Alex
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
You are deep in the heart of it now. Visiting those areas tourists never see. You are in your happy place. I'm glad you enjoyed Bloemfontein. It is disappointing that the Elrond suite was noisy. I'm glad the Tauriel Suite was more to your liking. I'm sad you didn't get the Samwise room. Were you able to get a look at it? Africa has a dark history with the diamonds. The Blue Hole looks pretty cool. I'm sorry the guide was not any good. We've been lucky over time with good guides but when you get a bad one they are usually really bad. You continue gaining insight to the history of this area. I enjoyed the photos of the Hobbit Boutique Hotel. Looking forward to your next chapter. MJ