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Tag: rocks

  • African shoestrings – South Africa Day Thirty-six – Cape of Good Hope

    We got an even closer look at the Cape the next day after picking up a cheap hire car from the unknown (to us anyway) Atlantic Car Hire. The plan was to explore the peninsula for the day and drop off the car in Stellenbosch, centre of the South Africa’s wine industry and some 40 odd kilometres away and still be within the free 150 kilometre mileage. What we didn’t realise was that drop off and pick up mileage were also included so we ended up having to fork out more money at the end of it than we had budgeted for!

    Nonetheless the Cape Peninsula is a beautiful spot. This is white man country, large two storey houses, apartment blocks and trendy little village’s front onto the white sandy beaches on both sides of the peninsula.
    No black or coloured townships here, just Cappuccino’s, designer labels and more BMW’s and Merc’s.
    Along the western side the famous Chapman’s Peak Drive is up there with the rest of the world’s great scenic drives. Carved into solid rock, this winding 10 kilometres of bitumen has several lookout points to avoid accidents caused by sightseers slowing down to admire the panoramic scenery at every bend. I’m not sure that worked. Cars screech to snail pace as they suddenly realise that they want to stop at the lookout they are in the process of passing!

    Somehow that day we managed to visit the World of Birds and Groot Constania the Southern hemisphere’s oldest winery, follow Chapman’s Peak Drive, tour the windy Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve and explore the trendy the St. Tropez of South Africa, Clifton.

    We finished up having fish & chips from ‘Fish & Chips at the Rack’ in Hout Bay supposedly “the Capes best Fish and Chips” and then somehow finding our way back to the guesthouse in the dark with an extremely basic map.

    The Cape of Good Cape, a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.
    The Cape of Good Cape, a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.

     

  • African shoestrings – South Africa Day Twenty-five

    The hostel itself was an old large rambling single storey house with hand me down furniture spread haphazardly around the place,………… lounge chairs, torn dining chairs and card tables that had all seen better days and a large garden.
    Sounds all right doesn’t it? Well I did miss out one important fact. It backed onto the runway. It didn’t take too many jumbo jets to fly over to work out why it was called the Airport backpackers!
    Gerard was actually the owner and due to his Aussie manager being away, the manager as well.
    A white South African in his late 30’s or so, Gerard just likes to drink and talk and without doubt is a wealth of information on travel in Africa.
    Mind you, as Gerard’s bar was outside in the garden, conversations were often interrupted by the take off or landing of 747 or something similar. The noise was deafening initially until strangely enough you got used to it.
    What fascinated me more were the clientele; an Israeli couple who were not together, so they kept saying anyway, helping Gerard in slow motion; two Scottish girls who spent the day sun-baking and were never far from each others side; a Sri Lankan family, who never left the place and seemed to spend all their time cooking and washing and finally a Norwegian man in his late sixties with a much younger Thai wife, who just seemed to hover all the time in the background.
    The last couple had houses in both Norway and Thailand and he was a retired engineer, the last person you would be expecting to backpack around Africa.
    They were waiting to catch the ‘Baz’ bus to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Now the Baz bus is one of those innovations born from the principle, necessity is the mother of invention. Clearly aimed at the backpacker market it’s a hop on hop off bus that runs between J’burg and Cape Town with several side routes and of course it’s relatively cheap. We toyed with the idea of using it ourselves except for one important detail, it didn’t go anywhere we were going!

    A leopard eats it's prey amongst the rocks in Central Namibia
    A leopard eats it’s prey amongst the rocks in Central Namibia

  • African shoestrings – Lesotho Day Nine

    The main reason why we had come to Malealea was to go Pony trekking. Somehow though, Mick had not only talked us into taking an ensuite cabin rather than a lot cheaper Basotho hut but had also persuaded us to wait a day before going Pony trekking. I’m glad he did because that allowed us to walk to the Botsoela waterfall.

    For the measly sum of around A$5.00 we hired a guide, David to take us to the falls. David was probably around 6 foot tall and quite well built and to our surprise, was only twelve years old! He obviously did this often, because towards the end of this four hour jaunt, we had trouble keeping up.

    Malealea village itself was our first taste of the Bastho way of life. Mud huts and houses with small areas of crops in the garden, smoking fires, ladies patching up the mud walls and children approaching us once again with hands outstretched for “sweets”.
    Some of the mud huts had different colour flags flying. This David told us was all to do with beer.
    A white flag meant that beer made from Sorghum had just been brewed. If it was yellow then it was Maize beer.
    Having tried Maize beer before we decided not to pursue any potential tasting.

    This  for the village of Ha Mohlakana, on the way back, was pretty much the same, except it had absolutely priceless views. In fact all along the walk we had difficulty in looking where we were walking. We just couldn’t take our eyes off the almost Tibetan scenery.

    The falls themselves were a bit tame but every cloud has a silver lining. The crystal clear water in a small pool at the base of the falls to dangle was perfect to refresh our aching feet in.

    The Botsoela waterfall near Malealea in Lesotho
    The Botsoela waterfall near Malealea in Lesotho