19 Feb 2009

Last day : we enjoyed slowly the resting time before driving to Jo'burg International Airport.
77 kgs luggage checked in withou problem :-)
Return flight to Brussel via short stop in Maputo (mozambique) to Lissabon and then connecting flight to Brussel, back to the cold european winter...
Almost 3 weeks , 3940km when we said at the beginning we don't want to drive too much...
Anyway each kilometer was worth, we enjoyed amazing places, saw wonderful animals and met absolutely lovely people without any consideration of the skin colour and origin.

Johannesburg-Hartbeesport-Pilanesberg Nat. Reserve-De Wildt Cheetah Center-Ukutula-Drakensberg mountains (Cathedral Peak)-Durban-St.Lucia-Hluluwe Infolozi Reserve-Cape Vidal-Itala Reserve- Piet Retief-Swaziland-Middelburg-Johannesburg...this was our trip.

If anyone needs some hints for a trip in ZA, we would be glad to help you !
Thanks for all the comments via the blog or email, I really appreciated ! :-)

18 Feb 2009

On the way from Middelburg to Harties, we made a stop in Botshabelo, a place full of history.
Everything began in 1865 when 2 young catholic missionaries bought a farm and called it Botshabelo (place of refuge). During the different wars in the country this place welcomed more and more refugees (up to 1315 people) including a fort, church and a school (which was used until 1979). Nowadays, Botshabelo is an open-air museum showing the life from the Ndebele tribe in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Colorful houses from 20th century

The entry to the houses was very low

Typical Ndebele hut from the 19th century, again very low entry, but why ?

Our very friendly guide (who studied and spent his whole life in Botshabelo) explained us the very simple : if a enemy want to come in your hut, the entry was so low that he must bend his knees and come in the hut with head first....and the people in the hut can hit him before he could do any crime...

Tyipical Ndebele women, the gold rings are hold when the women are married

In the evening , our last evening in ZA, we spent a lovely time with our friends Mike, Lynette & their daughter

17 feb 2009

We spent the night before in Piet Retief, a medium town not far from the Swaziland border.

Hard wake-up due to the long evening we spent at the hotel's bar with two south african fishermen and one 200% genuine Afrikaan. It was a great experience to listen to the stories of local people about history, sport and politics. Britta enjoyed a green Mamba, nice cocktail with a pint of beer and a peppermint alcool glas in it :-)

We spent the day travelling through Swaziland, unfortunately we were not well prepared (no detailed maps, no hints what to see for 1/2day trip) so we did not really enjoy the country, next time perhaps, staying longer and better prepared ! Nevertheless the best moment was the border check when a huge Swazi customs guy (he could have played in a Tarantion film with his

chameleon-like eyes and his outfit, a wool cardigan by 35C ouside) asking us if we were carrying guns in the car.

After passing Swaziland we drove back direction Jo'burg and stopped for the night in Middleburg.

We stayed in a B&B where the hosts were absolutely charming (Aero Lodge), they prepared the dinner and enjoyed it with us at our table, telling amazing and funny stories about South Africa, of course we enjoyed a local schnaps at the end of the meal to be prepared for a good night....

16 Feb 2009

Ithala Park, home of the dassies, funny animals :-)Did you know that the closest genetic cousin of this animal is...the elephant !!??

2 ostrichs walking on the road, male on the left, female on the right

Nice view of the Pongola River

Foggy afternoon...

this one has a very big one (on the nose)

Magpie shrike, the male is getting an unsual long tail , just to impress the females...

Baby rhino...

..and a baby giraffe, not older than one week, just see the umbilical cord under the belly...

And of course, give the way...

15 Feb 2009

Before leaving St-Lucia we decided to book a boat tour on the St-Lucia river to spot some hippos and crocos even closer...
You don't have to wait too long to see them, we saw about 7-8 different hippos families, located in their own 'territory'

Mum and son...

This one was trying to move his eyes like a chameleon...

We saw only 1 crocodile this time, but a nice and long one...

A nice fish-eagle showing us the way with its wing...

And again some laughing hippos...

2 kingfishers...

Then we took the way North to reach our next station : Ithala Game reserve

To save about 80km I decided to take a shortcut on the 'Road 66'...then I drove about 30km on a bumping road full of stones...nevertheless we could appreciate the landscape and the life conditions in the campaign...

A nice baby donkey :-)

14 Feb 2009

Valentine's day :-)

For this occasion we stayed in an absolutely lovely guesthouse in St Lucia (Serene Guest house)

For the price of a 2-3stars hotel in any european city you get here a 5stars room and service (eve if the guesthouse is rated with 4*). Minimalist furniture & design, 50 sqm room, gorgeous pool and a wonderful breakfast (thanks to our host Olga). If you go to St-Lucia you have to stay in this excellent place...

Detail from the pool...

We decided to spend the day on the beach and drove to Cape Vidal, a infinite sand beach located in the St Lucia Wetlands Park, perfect for sunbath, snorkling or kite-surf...

After being burnt by the sun (especially me) we took the 'Loop Road' to drive back to St Lucia
Spontaneous bath is not really recommended...

If you have good eyes you have seen something in the background of the previous picture...

For the evening we booked a tour with a local 'ranger' to see the turtles babies, going out from the eggs and walking to the ocean...
After many hours on the beach unfortunaely no turtle babies to see (the season ends normally end of January, if you are very lucky you can see some until end of Feb, but we didn't...)
Nevertheless, during the night drive on the beach we could see a Leopard ! Finally we saw the last of the Big5 in natural environment ! Absolutely great and quite rare on the beach...
We could also see some bushbabies (kind of lemurian) and a baby chameleon...

13 Feb 2009

3rd and last day in Hluluwe Park, breakfast under the sun in our "Safari Tent"

1st catch of the day : a dung beetle by "dung rolling school"

Like each day a Zebra picture :-) this one with a nice bart !

View from Hluluwe Park under the sun

Some blond warthogs :-)

a green snake, but fortunately no green Mamba :-)

Again a highlight for us, a chameleon crossing the path in front of us

A buffalo at the 'beauty farm' taking a relaxing mud bath

This baboon looks like he forgot something and tryed to remind where it is :-)

Typical trees in the south-african landscape

After these 3 days in Hluluwe, we saw 4 from the Big 5, leopard was still missing

But still 6 days to go in South Africa and the chance to see a leopard is still there !

Back to St-Lucia, driving carefully, you may encounter big animals crossing the road...

We spent the evening (and a part of the night) in a local pub, the Babooshka bistro in St-Lucia (recommended by our guesthouse) : excellent food, nice wine and after that live concert we enjoyed with the local people, excellent :-)

12 Feb 2009

2nd day in Hluluwe-Imfolozi Park. Just before leaving the camp, we spotted a laughing zebra

And after that we could understand why he was laughing...(respect)

On a water point the 'turtle island'


a Zebra with 2 heads and 5 feet ? Was the sun too strong on our heads ? :-)

A typical scene : a red-billed oxpecker cleaning a giraffe's head

For the lunch we made a stop in the 'Centenary Centre' in the park for lunch. Some bats were watching us, eating our Ostrich pita...

A zebra again, this time with nice warm colors in the background

A old male, very nice and gentle, walking on the road and eating

Again we were at the right place at the right time...Quite unusual picture...

After that the male was making his colleague jealous and threw his tongue :-)

One highlight after the other : in front of us a group of elephants crossed the road.

Adults, babies at impressive speed, 1 minute and they went away. 1 magic minute...

On our way back to the camp, some nice buffalos

we booked a 'night drive'at 6PM. we had to be at the camp's reception at 5:50PM, but then...
A old lonely male stayed in front of us. This one is one of the 'bad boys' of this reserve.

A couple of times each year these old male are really charging the cars.

We kept a sufficient distance to the elephant to avoid any problem...

But not all the people are so clever...and this is waht happens when you don't make the road free for one of this old male...2 seconds later and the car was demolished by the elephant...

The elphant stayed more than 30min on the road, fortunately some rangers who were in a 4x4 behind us informed their collagues that we were stucked and they waited for us...

Night drive gave us some nice surprises : a porcupine and plenty of bush rabbits !