Alldays, Limpopo, SA

Random thoughts about South Africa

1.       Very friendly people but you’re never certain which language they are going to speak to you with. If they reply in something totally unintelligible it is probably a tribal language. If it sounds like a Dutch/German/English mix and you still can’t understand it is Africaans. If its sounds like English and you only miss a few words (probably important ones) it is English with a South African accent.

2.       Things are sufficiently different here to keep you on your toes. For example, the camper was picked up with ½ tank of fuel, and is to be returned the same way (don’t ask, we don’t know why). 

3.       The BBQ uses a propane tank as its base attached to it by a foot long pipe. No hose and regulator. Wish us luck.

4.       There is no accessible drain pipe for the camper grey water. When asked how you are supposed to catch it, they said just to run it out on the ground in your campsite. So we did. We had a mess on our nicely bricked trailer pad the other night.

5.       The toll roads are incomprehensible. We were charged 85 cents for the first 30 km, 4 dollars for the second 30 km and 90 cents for the third 30 km.

We are slowly getting into the right time zone though both of us were awake at 2 am and didn’t get into a good sleep again until near 5. We got an early start and headed north to try to make our way around the top of the country. We would have made much better time if we really could have done the 120 km speed posted but see the vehicle eating potholes! We did pass a “township” – dilapidated huts that serve as home for some of the black South Africans. It looked dangerous.

What a great day for animal viewing and we have just begun. Right off the bat Norma spotted a giraffe nibbling on a tree branch but we were going too fast to stop for a picture. Next we saw several ostrich, impala, wildebeest, common springbok (including an albino!), warthog, and some unidentifiable little rat looking things that kept running across the road. Are enjoying the African scenery complete with the ubiquitous termite mounds.

Other interesting things were the frequent “No Poaching zone” signs along with “Armed guards patrolling”. Poaching is illegal everywhere so perhaps they just shoot them when caught in the “zone”.

Here we are at Alldays. We stopped into a caravan park (Munala Game Lodge) only to be told by the owner he was full. They have many permanent campers as there is the largest diamond mine in SA and two coal mines close by. However, he did accommodate us by letting us park on the grass and plug into one of the cabins he rents out. He warned us that the lions will be noisy at night, but are real “scaredy cats”. And not to walk in the long grass as there are snakes. OK.