014_Across The Country (holiday blog)

Christmas was just on the door step when three of us left South Africa to spend the holidays at home. I stayed and used the free time to travel the country. The journey started with another stop in the Drakensberg where our team was working on another project. A few days of taking pictures, hiking, riding and spending Christmas Day at the pool later I left for Johannesburg (or: Joburg) and Kruger National Park.

Together with eight other people I started the trip to the largest national park of South Africa. With a size that is just a little smaller than Belgium Kruger National Park is home to a whole lot of mammals, reptiles, birds and other animals. We stayed at a campsite in Greater Kruger National Park. “Greater“ stands for the various extensions of the original Kruger National Park through opening up fences to neighbouring private game reserves. straight after our arrival we hopped on a safari truck and headed out into the reserve.

The next days simply flew by. Days in the reserve start early and end late. An average of five hours sleep had to be enough. But the lack of sleep was definitely compensated by lions sleeping right next to the truck, giraffes crossing the road, a warthog family visiting for breakfast and buffalos coming down to the river for a dip. But not just the animals created memories: a very long breakfast full of laughter, joking and “Hakuna Matata“ after the bush walk, an evening of serious future talking and then walking back to the campsite and bumping into a Nyala (an antelope), the nights in the safari tent listening to the sounds of the night, …

And out of a sudden the time was up and we had to say “goodbye“. We parted with heads full of memories and a bunch of phone numbers and invitations in the pocket.

Back in PE I met my brother and the next game reserve visit was just a day away. The pattern was the same: a late evening after a long afternoon filled with all kinds of antelopes, zebras, elephants, lions, …, good food, good talks, good time. After a late-night-drive we got dropped off at a campsite in the middle of the reserve. New Year’s Eve was as quiet as it could be: Cicadas, some lonely birds and apart from that nothing. Early morning, raising with the sun. Another drive through the reserve was scheduled, finding the animals that rather come out in the morning than in the afternoon.

After a day of resting the real road trip started. Destination: Cape Town. Route: Inland, partly at least. The first days we followed the Garden Route along the coast, spending the days on the beach or in the lush forests of Knysna. After Sedgefield we turned inland. Through Oudtshoorn (and the Cango Caves: lime stone caves used by humans for more than 2000 years) we reached the Klein Karoo (eng.: Little Karoo). It is part of the semi-desert Karoo which stretches up to Namibia and Botswana. During our time in the area we were really lucky with the weather. As we have planned a couple of hikes we were dependent on moderate temperatures. Lucky us, we did not have to suffer from temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, although it is quite common for the time of the year to have temperatures around 40.

After more than a week away from big, busy cities and ocean we were looking forward to Cape Town. Together with Uta and her brother, who did the classical Garden Route including the Most Southern Point of Africa and a Paragliding flight over Cape Town, we started our exploration. First Point on the list: Climbing Table Mountain. Again for Uta and me. Additional Point for my brother and me: Lion’s Head (a much nicer hike and an equally beautiful view over Cape Town, Table Mountain and The Twelve Apostles). Second Point: Cape Peninsula with stops at Muizenberg (reason: colourful beach houses; the boys were not amused), Simons Town (reason: penguins at Boulders Beach; the boys had to admit that it was worth the stop, especially because the penguins were breeding), Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. Apart from the bloody expensive conservation fee we had to pay at the entrance to the national park nobody complained about anything. The weather was perfect, the view was amazing, the lizards uncountable.

For the way back we took the scenic drive along the west coast of the peninsula. It not just stretches along the cliffs, sometimes it was build inside the cliff so that you had the impression of a tunnel. The sun already set when we reached Cape Town and our hostels. We celebrated the last evening with good food and a couple of drinks. We would all (including Alena) be back in PE and back in The Cottage on the next day, just taking different ways.