South Africa - Road trip part 2

After finally managing to sneak our way through South African immigration officers we triumphantly started our driving trip in big, bad Johannesburg. We based ourselves in Soweto the notorious township/slum area which in all honesty we found pretty charming. Despite being told to get in and out of Jo'Burg quickly we managed to while away a few days at the Apartheid museum (wow overload) and getting down and dirty in the hood on a Soweto bike tour.

Kota - LOOOOADED with goodness! (Chips, spam, fake cheese and salami)


Cycling in the hood.


Soweto Township


No shit?


Sip, sip, give.

On the way to Namibia, we drove to the Khalagadi National Park for our first game driving experience alone in our car - We saw some wild life, but the highlight was certainly getting bogged in sand. Day 3 in the freaking car and we already ripped the bottom engine cover off! To add to the dilema, while John was swearing profusely I was left to scout for any leopards. When we finally got pulled out the driver told us the name of the place we were was known as leopard's ridge and they'd seen one early in the day eating a kill!

Meerkats!


Osterich x 2.

First night camping

After all the hire car problems we'd had in Namibia (broken boot, missing hubcaps, cracking windscreen) we re-entered South Africa on a high note - John crashed the hire car into a pole in front of a police officer at SA Customs! What was it with us and South African borders? After slight delays at the police station with the captain and sergeant discussing if a report was needed for the badly injured metal pole we continued the mega drive onto Cape Town.

Driving into Cape Town was breathtaking - what an amazing location: high rocky mountains, beautiful coastline and a whole lot of charm....and perhaps most importantly a whole lot of wine and cheese! Cape Town started out so well and it was one of the places we were so pumped to go - whats not to love - beautiful city, amazing nightlife and awesome weather.

Camps Bay - Cape Town

Nom, nom, nom.

Cape sunsets

Fast forward a few days and that kind of all went down hill when Johnny was admitted to hospital in pretty dire shape with an undiagnosable disease and lymph nodes like golf balls. After 3 stressful days of brain scans, a doctor saying 'cancer?' and a trillion and one tests the doctors could still not find what was wrong. On the upside though all the drugs being pumped into John's system made him feel a whole lot better and managed to wipe out any African disease in the system. Eventually he was allowed to go home with the doctor reassuringly telling John to let him know if he ever finds out what he had....will do!

Woe is me (John).

There was nothing else to do but throw ourselves back into the trip with a vengence (you know, live life to the max and all that), so we celebrated Johnny's release with a wine tour in the beautiful Stellenbosch region the day after his release! Amazing wines with cheese and chocolate to match ensured that a memorable day ensued....less so for me (ren) who cant really recall a thing after the chilli shots over dinner with the wine tour group.

"Hmm, cranberries on the nose, with a hint of rosemary and cajun spiced zebra testicles... tasty"


The Stellenbosch winelands.

Perhaps two of the biggest highlights of Cape Town were Table Mountain and our day trip to Cape Point. Table Mountain sits perched 1000 metres over Cape Town and provides one of the most incredible views of a city
we have ever seen. It probably helped that it was also the first totally clear day we had so the views stretched all the way to Robben Island - Nelson Mandela's home for 25 years in imprisonment.

Penguins


The top of the Table.


Table Mountain.

Cape Town.

Cape Point and the coastal drive around this area was one of the most beautiful drives/days in the trip. We saw penguins and seals (so strange after all the lions and elephants) and surely one of the most beautiful national parks in the world. Perhaps the day shines in my memory because of the awesome seafood platter we had too but i'll say it was mainly the views...

Home - 11,642km away - YAY!




Cape Point

Despite all the beauty of the Cape (the only place to rival Sydney thus far) there was still certain skeletons that kept you from totally adoring it and that was quite simply the sheer gap in the rich and the poor - Or the blacks and the whites. It is hard to feel comfortable in a place that has trillion dollar mansions on one side of the road and then ramshackled tin sheds housing thousands of dirt poor people on the other. It is a very strange thing to see. Nowhere in all of Africa have we seen such a huge distinction between the haves and the have nots!

Moving on from the Cape was easy to do because of the adrenaline of what was to come in Hermanus and Gansbai - diving with the Great White Sharks! The day that Johnny had been waiting for and I had been terrified of finally arrived. What an amazing experience! Whilst it was nothing like what we expected (unfortunately no cage ramming or angry sharks) we were awed by how peaceful the sharks were, how huge they were, and a little deterred by how many of them were circling our boat! The day was topped off by a whale and her calf sailing by our boat.... Wow!

Nnn, nnit

Mmm, skittles.

The next 10 days of our trip was following the gorgeous coast line: the garden route, the sunshine coast and the wild coast of South Africa. In short this meant amazing beaches, dotted with visits to the wineries and cheeseries (this isn't backpacking - its pure holiday??).

Bombs away!

Our super cool outfits!

Bugs

Last photo of water IN the canyon.

Highlights of the beaches were kloofing (canyoning) in Wilderness, Ostrich riding and caving in Outshdoorn and the all round awesomeness of Plettenberg Bay. We ended up getting a little ahead of ourselves with the whole perfection/first world thing and then got quite a shock to re-enter backpacker world along the wild coast - dodgy dorms resembling prison cells and wretched bathrooms.....um what? Just when i thought i was going to be able to clean up my feet and wash some clothes...

Yee-haa! Riding a bird?

A cave.


Osterich racing.


Train room on the beach - Toot toot.

Luckily our last stops throughout the southern and northern Drakensberg mountains were breathtaking. Now normally John is the mountain man, but the incredible hiking and stunning scenery of the Drakensberg even managed to force the Drakensberg into my list of must sees - secluded waterfalls and swimming pools probably tipped it over.

Southern Drakensburg Yogi Master

Rock pools!

Hiker Ren!

The Ampitheatre - North Drakensburg

We even managed to hike into the small neighbouring country of Lesetho for a day which was an incredible experience - I never thought a country that you could walk to could be so vastly different from the one you started in, but Lesotho had a definite old world charm...a throw back to a simpler Africa.

Lesotho

Kids school soccer pitch.

We even had time to try the local brew in someones hut/ pub along the way- the smell alone was stomach churning!!

Be disarmed - That's a little hard with two of them.

Celebrate life!

Speaking of stomach churning as i write this we are all set to go to the airport for the next leg of our trip. It seems our 7 months in Africa has come to an end. For now at least. Next stop Lebanon.

Thanks for reading,

Ren and John