Blogs from South Africa, Africa - page 21

When you come to Africa and go on safari, everyone is supposed to want to see the Big Five, this is the elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino. Not always easy apparently, but we did it today! Another early start, and very cold, and again we set out to look for the rhino! Headed to the north east of the park where rumour had it there were rhino to be found. Up till this point, the game drives appeared to be randomly driving the tracks that criss cross the park, accidentally coming upon animals, or going where others had sighted something. Today we saw the tracking skills of our ranger/driver and our tracker. They first saw rhino tracks headed to an area we were not allowed to enter. (Thornybush is a private game reserve, one of ... read more

Apparently "Cape Town is crying, because we are leaving"! This just means that it was raining and cold as we headed to Cape Town Airport for our flight to Eastgate Airport near Hoedspruit, the closest to Thornybush Game Reserve, our home for the next three nights. (It does have it's own airstrip, but only for tiny planes.) We appeared to land in the middle of nowhere in the African bush, and 36° was a little warmer than Cape Town. Three mini buses ferried our group (of 26) to the Thornybush Game Lodge, with a giraffe and elephants spotted on the way. Wow, and we hadn't even been on a game drive yet. We were met in the outdoor reception area with cold towels, and cold drinks. Very nice! Then lunch, and a briefing of what to ... read more

Day 2 of our "tour" started with Table Mountain and another drive through the city. (We decided to go up Table Mountain on Tuesday, even though it was included in our tour, because the weather was good, and the cableway closes if it is too windy or the cloud is too low. Happy to do it twice.) This drive took us through some different places in the city so quite interesting. Then up the mountain to the lower cable station. (So much for hiking mountains to see proteas at the gardens, they grow wild over the slopes of Table Mountain and when you are sitting on the other side of the bus, you can see them! The mountain is covered in fynbos - a word they invented to describe the vegetation on the mountains of the ... read more

Our plan for today was to head for the Hop On Hop Off bus (red route) which goes to Table Mountain, and go to the top of the mountain in the gondola - however, there were even more clouds covering it than yesterday! Change of plans - swap the red route for the blue route (and the purple route). So after a lovely breakfast at the hotel, walked back to the Hop On Hop Off bus office (that we had found yesterday) and set off on the blue route. This goes through the centre of Cape Town, including Long St (the main street?) and then heads around behind Table Mountain. We got off at the Kirstenbosch gardens, a botanical garden on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. Wandered around through various parts of the garden (it's ... read more

Zuid-Afrika===Botswana===Zimbabwe (een dagje)===Botswana===Zuid-Afri Vrijdag 13-09-2019 1e Vakantiedag Vandaag is het dan zover. We gaan op reis. We staan op tijd op, ontbijtje, de laatste spullen in de backpack, laatste dingetjes opruimen en dan staat onze wegbrenger Willem al voor de deur. Gisteren hebben we al via internet ingecheckt, eenmaal op Schiphol kunnen we de bagage afgeven en dan op naar alle “security checks”. Controle handbagage, paspoort controle…..het gaat allemaal snel en dan mogen we ons een beetje zien te vermaken. Eerst wat euro’s omzetten naar Afrikaanse randen en wat US dollars, dan wat wandelen langs de winkeltjes en op tijd richting gate F3. Het vliegtuig “de Iguaçu” staat al te wachten en er wordt snel begonnen met instappen. We vertrekken aardig op tijd en hebben een vlucht van 10.10 ... read more