The Happy Cruisers Go to South Africa: June 2014

Life goes on without Susan - even the laundry gets done!!

Marius spent almost three weeks alone in the Kruger Park driving where ever he wanted and taking as much time as needed to capture some pretty amazing photos. He learned first hand that having a first mate (extra pair of hands) is a good thing when it comes to making fire, cooking food, doing the dishes, setting up the tent, doing laundry, spotting animals, etc. etc.

One evening Marius had a close encounter with a Honey Badger at Satara Campsite. He put up the tent and cooked his dinner, put the scraps in a garbage bag and then went for a shower. Upon returning the garbage bag was missing. After hearing a couple of crunches and warning snorts he found the garbage bag under the Cruiser along with a very grumpy Honey Badger. It was devouring the contents of the bag while Marius stood by to watch from a good distance as Honey Badgers can be quite ferocious. Even lions give them their space!!

The Honey Badger finished the raid on Marius’ campsite and then left in a huff leaving a huge mess to clean up. Ha Ha. Unfortunately, since Marius could not get close to the Cruiser in order to get the camera to photograph the situation, the encounter will live on only in memory. The photo is not ours but one I downloaded for those who have never seen one!

Some of Marius' Great Photos:

Dagga Boy

Water Buck Females

A Kruger Cheetah

Lilac Breasted European Roller in flight

White Fronted Bee Eaters

Ostrich Girls

Bateleur

African Fish Eagle

Brown Spotted Hyena

Crocodiles and brave Egyptian Geese

Blue Wildebeest

Baobab Tree

A Nyala near Punda Maria in Kruger National Park

Marius returned to Riaan and Lynnette’s from the Kruger Park to prepare the Cruiser for the next leg of our journey. Liam and he had a great time together!

Our nephew - LIAM

Marius' friend Collin, from Tsitsikamma, had just returned from a forestry project in Mozambique. He and his partner Carol were keen to travel with us. We were thrilled to have them join us!! Not only are they two of the coolest people on earth, there are less worries about breakdowns and getting stuck when there is more than one vehicle. Plus it is always nice to have someone to discuss alternate routes and to sit at the campfire with discussing the day’s events. So plans were made for Collin and Carol to travel with us. They met up in Palapaye, Botswana on May 10 and after spending the night at Elephant Sands campsite, complete with wild elephants roaming through the camp, they drove on to Kasane to pick me up at the airport.

Collin at Elephant Sands - Botswana Campsite

Photos by: Carol W.

This was only the beginning of our adventures with Olifants!!

We returned to Marienburg on March 11 and had a week to re-organize. The knowledge we gained on the Namibia trip about our gear helped us streamline our equipment and change out the things that we thought were neat but not particularly useful or functional.

ADDO ELEPHANT NATIONAL PARK

On St. Paddy’s Day Clem and Janet Lam arrived from Hawaii to spend two weeks with us. We picked them up at the airport in Port Elizabeth and headed straight to the Addo Elephant National Park. Addo is about 72km northwest of Port Elizabeth and was organized in 1931 when a concerned farmer was worried that all of the elephant in the area were being exterminated to accommodate the local farms. At first, there were only 16 elephants left in the park’s enclosed area, today there are approximately 500 elephants in the park’s 180,000 hectares.

Within the first two hours of being in the park we saw zebra, red hartebeest, elephant and kudu. You would have to be very unlucky not to see elephant. We saw many – up close and personal.

Zebras like to rest their chins on each other's backs

The first elephant we saw in Addo

Raising her trunk in greeting!

Red Hartebeest

Yet another beautiful Zebra

Kudu Female

Optical Illusion

The second day we visited the Hapoor Dam at lunchtime and there were hundreds of elephants convening from every direction for their lunchtime gathering at the waterhole. I could have watched them for hours. They have such amazing personalities and so many human-like qualities.

Putting their size in perspective

Applying sun screen Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Not quite sure how to do this!!

Ahhh! That's how...

Now he's got it!!

Casually waiting her turn in line.

All in the Family

We were also VERY lucky on Day Two when we experienced an early morning siting of two lion brothers. These lions were brought to Addo from the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. You can see their black manes and their typically large size in the photo. One of the brothers had hurt his back right leg and was walking slowly with a heavy limp. We sure hope he recovers.

Kalahari Lion Brothers at Ado

Day Three we saw buffalo, wart hogs, ostrich, went back to Hapoor, for a second lunchtime visit with the elephants, and took a more extensive drive through the park. That evening back at the main camp Clem, JP and I went for nature walk and rescued a stranded dung beetle which had lost its round ball of elephant dung. We put it back on track but within a few minutes it rolled it’s dung ball into a hopeless situation – a deep hole from which it could not escape. We decided to let nature take its course because our help had only made matters worse. Yet another reminder that human intervention, even when you feel compelled to assist, is not always the best option.

Checking the view from the highest point at Addo

We had a lovely dinner at the new Cattle Baron Restaurant at Addo. It was the grand opening of the new concession and the food was delicious. We highly recommend it hope they prosper and do well in their newest location.

We said a fond farewell to the inhabitants at Addo and headed to Tsitsikamma via way of Jeffrey’s Bay – the famous surf spot.

JEFFREY'S BAY

The waves were beautiful that day and made Clem wish for youth when nothing would have stopped him from getting in the water!!

Sundowners

We spent a couple of days at Marienburg with Willie and Katie. Enjoyed sundowners on the 14^th green of the golf course with a gorgeous view of the farm, walked and relaxed while Clem painted and entertained us with his wonderful music making.

On the way to Cape Town

Outeniqua Pass

We set out for Cape Town on a Saturday morning with a picnic in Outeniqua Pass above George. Our first night’s accommodation was at the Reitfontein Ostrich Palace between Oudtshoorn (the ostrich capital of the world) and Calitzdorp (the Port wine capital of the world). My travel plan included staying at historic guest houses and out of the way places where Clem and JP could experience the culture and people of South Africa. The Ostrich Palace is situated on a former ostrich farm which has been in the family of Kobus Potgieter for a few generations. Established in 1897, it is the oldest working ostrich farm in the Cape Colony. Kobus and his wife Elmare have made a beautiful B&B out of the farm with lovely gardens and an amazing swimming pool. We stayed in the original farmhouse which they had beautifully refurbished. The evening meal of course included delicious ostrich fillets prepared by Kobus and Elmare. The food and the wine were fantastic! www.rop.co.za

Original Farmhouse at Reitfontein Ostrich Palace

Drinks on the veranda

A flower pot built for two.

Late Bloomers

Red Mountain in the Morning

In Calitzdorp we visited the BoPlaas Winery and stocked up for the journey. We also stopped in Barrydale to tour the Barrydale Hand Weavers shop where local women are taught to weave cloth from cotton for tea and dish towels, beach towels, rugs, place mats, and other useful household items. www.barrydaleweavers.co.za

We stayed in Paarl the second night of our journey at the De Leeuwenhof Estate another historic site where the owners Daan and Yvonne van Leeuwen Boomkamp were our hosts. Daan was very forthcoming with his experiences involving the renovation and we thoroughly enjoyed hearing about how he accomplished such a massive undertaking. It is a working farm with fruit trees and vinyards. Their signature wines are delicious! www.leeuwenhof.co.za

Daan sharing some funny stories.

De Leeuwenhof Estate

One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to a place called the Spice Route where entrepreneurs set up a variety of small businesses from glass blowing to chocolate manufacturing with a microbrewery in between. Needless to say, with JP and my love of dark chocolate, we made a bee-line to DV Artisan Chocolate where Peter De Villiers gave up corporate life and started making his own, most divine dark chocolates I have ever tasted.

Tasting chocolate from around the world put a smile on our faces!

We participated in a chocolate tasting where we learned a lot about where cacao trees grow throughout the world, the different types and flavors of beans and how they are prepared. We also learned that the best dark chocolates have only authentic ingredients – nothing artificial only cocao butter, beans and raw sugar. However, the most important bit of knowledge obtained, is that you should NOT chew dark chocolate but let it melt slowly between the tongue and the roof of the mouth to fully experience the flavors which range from an ash taste to a more fruity or nutty taste. www.dvchocolate.com

Cape Town

By the time we arrived in Cape Town the weather prediction for rain was fully upon us. We visited the Victoria and Albert Waterfront and had mussels at the Den Anker Belgian restaurant after JP and I had spent a couple of hours in the African Trading Port - with a very eclectic assortment of goods from refrigerator magnets to the most bizarre artifacts and collectables. Unfortunately, due to rain, we were unable to visit the top of Table Mountain by cable car (this was my third attempt) and our boat cruise to Robben Island was also cancelled.

So we hopped on the “Hop On Hop Off” city bus tour and took a guided, narrated tour around the Cape. We had hoped to visit the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden but the rain was falling in buckets so we stayed on the bus and that afternoon, as the skies cleared, visited the Castle of Good Hope now in the heart of downtown Cape Town.

The Castle is an imposing fortress commissioned in 1665 by the Dutch East India Company. The ramparts together with the exterior walls, warehouses, residences, church hall, slave quarters and shops on the inside were completed in 1679. Approximately 1691 a traverse wall was built across the inner courtyard and formed a base for several more buildings and a balcony from which edicts, declarations and government announcements were made. From 1674 until the middle of the 19^th century, the Castle was the administrative and military seat of successive governments and the official residence of the Governor. Thereafter it served as the British military headquarters until it was handed over to the South African government by the imperials in 1917. It is reasonably well maintained and a very important part of South African history. What struck me is that the Castle was originally built right on the beach in the 1660’s. Cape Town has been built on land fill and now the coast line is more than a quarter mile away!

We stayed at the Three Boutique Hotel, another very historic building in the Oranjezicht section of Cape Town. In the 1770’s it was one of the ten most conspicuous large manors of Cape Town. It was owned and occupied by the Commandant of the Castle (above), General Robert J. Gordon, who discovered and mapped a good part of South Africa. He discovered and also named South Africa’s great river, the Orange (after the Prince of Orange), Plettenberg Bay (after Governor Von Plettenberg). Gordon’s Bay was named after him. Check out the hotel and more on the history at www.thethree.co.za

With Alun and Julie who manage the Three Boutique

We had a lovely authentic Cape Malay meal at the BoKaap Kombuis Malay Restaurant in an area of the city referred to as the BoKaap, the original Malay Quarter on Signal Hill, where on Upper Wale Street the houses are painted lovely, bright colors and the streets are cobblestone. www.bokaapkombuis.co.za

Back to Marienburg via Cape Agulhas

We made our return trip to Marienburg along the rugged coastline.

Marius and I liked Cape Agulhas so much that we decided to take Clem and JP to Struisbaai where we stayed at the Anglers Rest – a gorgeous home on a cliff overlooking the ocean where artist and fisherman Neil Bezuidenhout and his lovely wife Jacqueline were our hosts. www.anglersrest.co.za

Anglers Rest

Clem, JP and I at the Southern Most Tip of Africa

We had a picnic along the way near Knysna and returned to the farm as “happy as a hotel in springtime when the flowers bloom again”.

There is a song written by South African songwriter, David Kramer, called Matchbox Full Of Diamonds which became our travel theme song. The lyrics above refer to the hotels in Namaqualand that fill with guests who come to see the endless fields of flowers bloom in the spring.

Lazy Days in Tsitsikamma

The Otter Trail

The last few days with Clem and JP were spent hiking the first section of the Otter Trail to the Waterfall and included a day trip to Nature’s Valley so Marius could fish, Clem could paint and JP and I could hike and hunt for amazing rocks.

The Pool at the Waterfall

Rugged Tsitsikamma Coastline

JP braving the dreaded foam on the Sout River Trail!!

A beautiful place along the Sout River Trail

Marius and Clem returning from fishing and painting

My favorite little Oyster Catchers

The evenings were filled with good food, good music and good company. We had a wonderful time with you Clem and JP and are so very glad you came to visit South Africa and to join us for some Happy Cruising in ZA!!