We left Clarens in the balmy temperature of minus 4 degrees (the day before apparently it was minus 8! So we were grinning through chattering teeth). The boys' vehicles were entirely crusted in ice. Initially we drove peering through two spectacle holes of foggy windscreen. Pretty ice crystals all over Keith's Prado. Rising sun on…
Road to Clarens
It has been a fascinating exercise driving through the towns that have completely imploded as a result of municipal mismanagement. Large brand-name retail buildings have disintegrating roofs and walls, rusted signs outside, roads that are a shambles out front. In Bethal, the trash (thickly) lined both sides of the road from the town for kilometres…
Road to Dullstroom
So we left Kruger National Park with rhino having utterly eluded us right to the very end, in spite of us driving through hundreds of kilometres of thicket and woodland absolutely perfect for them. Not once did a rhino artfully step from behind a mopane tree just to give us a glimpse. Never mind, the…
Letaba & Shimuwini
We drove beneath a low ceiling of puffball clouds, heading for the middle of Kruger National Park, end destination Shimuwini Bush Camp but with a night's stop at Letaba Main Camp first just to break the journey. Lovely bushveld. Dense mopane woodland crowding out any hope in hell of spotting anything unless it biffed you…
Road to Talamati
Sorry, Jan! The closest you'll get to a Wild Dog pic . . . the Sightings signboard. T'was too dark for photies. But H. corrected me, we saw more like 11 or 12 dogs, not the 6 or 7 that I originally reported. We're still so excited about it! And so it goes … one…
Biyamiti & Painted Dogs
We have learned to stop looking at sightings boards and we no longer take heed of verbal reports of lion, leopard, cheetah. Animals materialise out of, and melt back into, the dense vegetation so rapidly it's impossible to repeat a sighting hours (or even minutes) after the report. A good example is the time Keith…
Berg-en-Dal to Biyamiti
A different but beautiful (in another way) change in landscape as we enter Mpumalanga and its giant bouldered kopjes, bushveld trees, and citrus and nut orchards. A brief overnight stop in White River had us ensconced in a lovely hotel in the elegant Casterbridge centre. Just love the rock outcrops and wild bushveld. You can…
Rolling Hills & Water Everywhere
We left our gorgeous Giants Castle hideout with a completely snow-draped barricade of mountains at our back. But before we drove away I discovered a taxidermied Bearded Vulture in the Ezemvelo shop. Now, I'm not generally a fan of taxidermy, but I was delighted to get up so close to a real specimen. The Lammergeier's…
Giants Castle Walk
This morning, with an evil icy wind blowing (and a lining of snow on the mountains), the three of us set off on a 4 km walk high above a rushing river to the start of the Main Caves (we didn't sign up for a guide to take us there; this is where the high…
Dragon’s Back Mountains
The meander from Golden Gate to Royal Natal National Park in the Drakensberg was definitely an "it's all about the journey" drive … from the spectacular banded sandstone cliffs and treacle-dripped rock of Golden Gate to the dragon's-back pinnacles and spires of the Drakensberg, the rampart filling the horizon from one end to the other.…
Quirky Girl Traveller 