South Africa, a place we had visited before at the end of our Round the World Trip. We hadn't planned it a decade ago but had decided we didn't fancy finishing
our round the world trip chilling on a tourist beach in the Caribbean. When looking we'd found it cheaper to come and visit several countries in Southern Africa
than fly to one Caribbean country and then home. As such on our first visit we were on a budget using public transport, foot and short cab rides where necessary.
This time we were on a dedicated trip and free to see what we wanted with less a cost-conscious approach. This would allow us to visit the more commonly visited
sights such as Kruger & other private game reserves.
We'd rented our car with Bushlore and trusted they would provide a very reliable car fully equipped for anything we'd throw at it. The downside to this was a very
long handover to introduce us to every system on the car. This long handover and delay in getting paperwork, third party insurance for Mozambique and doing
vehicle checks meant we already knew on departure that we wouldn't be making our sunset game drive at Makalali. We had always known it'd be a stretch landing at 7:15am,
having to transfer to the vehicle collection, do vehicle checks, and drive about 6.5 hours to Makalali. But we still tried for it despite the late set off, so we
had minimal stops on route. Unfortunately we also had a problem with said reliable car, just a fuel filter warning but we knew in 48 hours we'd be Mozambique and
have limited chance of fixing or replacing the vehicle. Thankfully despite this warning staying on for the rest of trip we had no visible issues with the car.
The drive into Makalali required us to cross two park gates. One to get into the general area, and then a second to get into the Makalali private game reserve.
We saw elephants on the first drive section and the road was wider and more developed sand track. After the second gate and knowing that we were going to miss
our sunset game drive we took it slow and did a self-drive safari. The road was worse and we took it slower. This resulted in us spotting our first safari
animals, several zebras and two giraffes. This always brings some excitement from first time safari people like two of our group. Although we are seasoned
safari people at this stage it's still nice to see the animals and also kick off our safari legs of the trip.
By the time we arrived at the camp the sun was setting, the rooms were very nice, but the pool was closing soon. Our rooms did look out into the wilderness and
we did have an outside and inside shower to enjoy the nature. Since wildlife could just walk up to the lodge due to the lack of fencing a guard was needed to
walk you to your rooms and back each night and we had to call them to come for us. After our arrival we'd been on the road about 24 hours since leaving our house
in the UK and our flight. Desperate to freshen up we grabbed a shower before grabbing diner, wine and getting and early night ahead of our sunrise game drive the
next day.
Within ten minutes of departing on our morning game drive we had stumbled upon a lion and lioness, they had heard them last night and had been slightly easier to
find as they had split from the pride to mate. That didn't stop our watcher on the front of the car being startled as we drove up on them unexpectedly, queue a quick
reverse and the guy jumping in the main car and off the snack seat on the hood. We were informed that we were lucky to have seen them as they hadn't seen any lions in
a few days. We were even graced with the lions doing the naughty deed while we watched them. Similar to what we'd seen twelve years ago in Tanzania they wake up, yawn
a bit, get down to business and then go off to look for food. From here we left them to allow others to view them and not bother them too much. We headed off around the
park and found a large watering hole and river and were immediately graced with Hippos something we definitely hadn't expected to find here and not really on this whole
trip. There were also several crocodiles around. After seeing this we went on the hunt for the illusive water buffalo, one of the big five. We hunted, tracked and looked
for a while but eventually right at the very end we found them near a dried out river bed. It was very hard to get close to them but eventually we found them by driving
up the back of our hotel. In the end they had come to us. Probably looking to drink out of the swimming pool.
It had been a fantastic game drive, we'd seen way more than we could have hoped for and it'd made up in part for us missing the evening game drive. Our morning game drive
here had gone way past our expectations on length, additionally we had to be transferred back to our car and we then had about 20 minutes drive time we hadn't factored into
google. This meant we knew already again that we'd unlikely make our sunset game drive that we had booked in Kruger as we departed Makalali.
We could have taken a direct route through Kruger to our accommodation that night and may have made the game drive, but we knew this route was a
barren wasteland without anything to see except termites and sand. Instead we decided to spend a bit more time taking the most popular route
through Kruger, the Timbavati Road (S39). Even knowing we'd likely miss our sunset game drive.
It was merely five minutes into Kruger before we spotted our first pair of elephants from the side of the main road. We'd see many more during
our days drive through Kruger. Unfortunately the drive here had been about 2.5 hours from Makalali and this meant we were approaching the middle
of the day, not such a great time for seeing the big cats. We did however have a very nice drive through the park and see many deer, zebras, warthogs,
enjoy Impala & Buffalo jerky and once we reached camp we were able to enjoy a bottle of wine which the profits went to funding Rhino conservation.
Who knew drinking could be such a good thing. :)
Once we got to our camp that night (Letaba), we had in fact missed our evening game drive by about 30 minutes. Still we used the extra time to better plan the
next few days, set our paperwork in order to get across the border to Mozambique tomorrow and enjoy local beer while sitting out. We had managed to move
our booking from a sunset game drive to a morning game drive, but with such a long day that day we decided it wasn't worth the 2am start for our sole
driver. Our accommodation tonight we also much more basic with it being a park owned rest area. We had rooms, a small bathroom, a bed and fridges locked
away to stop the monkeys stealing our food. It was basic but pleasant. Although I wouldn't have wanted to run the ancient A/C.
The next morning we followed the Letaba river from the camp to the border road towards Giriyondo and Mozambique. This was a fantastic last morning game drive
with us seeing giraffes, elephants, crocodiles, hippos, warthogs and numerous over animals. The road to the border was quite bad, what would turn into a theme
for one of our longest cross border drive days. The border systems leaving South Africa were very slow and the crossing took a long time. Thankfully there
were clean toilets to use while we waited and processed the car out of Kruger, South Africa and into Mozambique and Limpopo National Park.
We didn't have a lot of time in Durban having arrived about 4pm in the evening having had a long drive in from Eswatini (Swaziland).
On the route in we stopped at some nice beaches and beach side properties as we drove the costal roads. Unfortunately for us the
continued bad weather had followed us and the views were not as good as could have been. The next day we would also leave on route
for Lesotho early in the morning for yet another long, perhaps our longest drive day at maybe 10 hours.
We had planned on arrival to taxi / walk down to the beach in Durban, however even though we were staying on the outskirts of Durban
it was a very busy city. We didn't really want to drive our car as it was very large and not the easiest to park. We'd barely managed
to park it in our hotel car park due to the high ground clearance and roof mounted tyre. A mere 2 centimetre was all that stood between
our car and the pipework on the roof of the underground car park. Additionally while we were checking in we had problems with both of
our rooms, one had no electricity and one had no working air con and the room was extremely hot. Then there was a sudden downpour of
monsoon rain so we decided best to give it a miss.
We did take a slightly dodgy and dark walk across a major road to a nearby restaurant district and ended up having some of our best
food of the trip. It still amazes us how highly affordable extremely good food is in South Africa, driven in part by low wages compared
to Western Europe etc.
After we had popped into Lesotho we made a brief overnight stay in Howick. This was a strange place totally at odds to where we'd stayed
and seen for the rest of our trip. It was majority white, cold, misty and out the way. We'd stayed here due to its convenient proximity
to both the Sani Pass and the road that'd take us back to Johannesburg the next day. Diner was a strange affair with the average age being
about 70 years old, but the food was served in good time and tasted good as well. In fact this whole trip had surprised us as none of the
food had been that bad, especially considering it is Africa. By contrast our food in the Caribbean earlier in the year had cost four times
as much, been three times worse quality and took five times as long to serve.
The morning we left on route to Johannesburg we attempted to see the Howick Falls however the car park looked very dodgy and there was an
event of some sort going on. Had the car not been full of all our belongings at this stage we might have popped to the falls, but instead
we decided not to risk it and went to our second site of the day. The Mandela capture site, memorial and museum. This is a large site to
visit and we didn't have too much time, but it was good to learn some more about the apartheid history and see the nice memorial to Mandela.
From here we had about six hours of straight driving to reach Johannesburg.
We had been to Johannesburg before and in our honest opinion it's not an overly exciting city. A quick glance at the top things to
do on TripAdvisor or similar will tell you this. But it is the largest airport hub in Southern Africa with connections across the
world and around Africa. It also provides direct flight routes for us in the UK and conveniently has good quality cars for rent for
exploring the rest of southern Africa.
Last time we were here we had a little bit more time and managed to visit Soweto, key figure & apartheid sites surrounding Johannesburg
and the apartheid museum. This time we had less time and were in need of some rest from our long travel days so we went back to visit
the apartheid museum with the two in tow who hadn't been here a decade before and spent the rest of the time around the Rose Bank
Mall. The mall may not sound much but it's a nice place in Johannesburg to sit out and enjoy some very good food and drinks away from
the hussle and bustle.
From here we crossed the land border from Kruger into the Limpopo National Park and Mozambique.
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