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Published: June 29th 2010
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I left Ermelo the next morning and drove down to Dundee a town in the middle of the Battlefields region. It took much longer than I expected due to road work all along the N11 -apparently its been going on for years and was supposed to be completed before the World Cup commenced.
I am staying at the Royal City Inn a beautiful rambling old inn built in the late 1800's and my hostess whose daughter lives in Stirling in Adelaide has moved me to a much better room. I visited an interesting museum just outside town before returning to the hotel for a great meal.
The morning of the 28th I set out for Isandlwana where the Zulu Impi's deceived a British force leading most of the troops on a wild goose chase, before wiping out about 1500 men left behind in camp, some tried to run for Nata, only 8 made it (Zulu Dawn).
The survivors who made it to Rorke’s Drift (Ford) arrived just in time to be attacked again. One hundred and eighty men (the other 120 stationed there ran for the hills) managed to hold off 4000 Zulu warriors some of which had
Koisan - Rock Art
Talana Museum - Dundee guns (Zulu with Michael Caine). Isandlwana has white painted cairns scattered across the countryside each indicating the location where a British soldier took his last breath. At Rorkes Drift, I had a very entertaining and colourful Zulu guide explain everything that went on in the area during those years. At Rorke’s Drift I met an English guy who ended up staying at my hotel so we had a dinner and a few ales later that night.
The next morning I drove to Spien Kop where the Boers had a crushing victory over the British, I got confused due to the road works near Ladysmith and took much longer to get there than expected. Spien Kop is on top of a mountain and is an eerie sort of place but the views are impressive particularly of the large nearby dam. I walked around for about an hour looking at the graves and reading about the battle that took place here.
After navigating my way down the side of the mountain and bouncing along the crappy road, I received a scare when 8 or 9 Kudu jumped the fence and nearly wiped me out. I got lost again, its
hard to check maps and drive on crappy roads at the same time, but I eventually got back on to the highway and headed deeper into Zululand, navigating a couple of black townships before taking the turn off to Ncome River aka Blood River in Afrikaans.
At this location a force of 700 Afrikaner defeated a Zulu army of twelve thousand. To commemorate this battle a full scale ring of bronze wagons adorns the battlefield. Late in the day I travelled on some even worse roads damaging a front tyre which the hotel staff ended up changing for me.
The next morning I drove on to Pretoria spending my last couple of nights there relaxing, reading and hanging out in the bar until my ride took me to the airport. The flight home would have been great if the old man with sharp elbows had sat somewhere else.
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