Cremorne Estate Caravan Park, Port St. Johns, Eastern Cape Province, SA – 268 km

Friday April 25 Dragon’s Rest Caravan Park near Winterton, KZN, SA– 273 km

Last night our accommodation at Mountain Splendor Caravan Park was one of the nicest so far, ample showers, level sites and each one a nice size and well treed. The South Africans love their camping but it seems to take them a long time to set up by the time they have their sleeping tent or caravan which attaches to a kitchen tent which attaches to a sitting area all in place. They need the large sites to accommodate everything! If they are camping in tents they usually have a little trailer behind their vehicle that is crammed full of camping supplies, sometimes including a microwave and cupboard for their dishes. This site has little fridges they can rent as well.

The owner of the site had invited us to tea and scones this morning but we wanted to get on the road as we just can’t seem to judge how long the next 100 km will take us. She gave us a big guidebook of caravan parks in SA so that will be helpful from here on out. We had hoped to rely on our SA caravan park website but internet has been tough to get most times.

There were six little pigs running around the camp ground doing all the things little pigs do. They come towards you when they think there is food but then run away oinking and grunting.

This morning the sunrise over the Drakensburg Mountains was spectacular. If we had gotten up even a minute later we would have missed the beautiful red glow.

We can easily tell it is fall here as the trees are changing colours and starting to fall and the temperature dropped to 4 degrees last night. They do get snow in this area. Sure glad we have an air conditioner/furnace in the motorhome. We had the heat on all evening and then got up in the middle of the night to put it back on again. The high today was only 18 degrees but it has been a beautiful sunny day.

We keep saying how unpredictable the roads are (today there were sheep on the freeway as well) but the toll freeways are great. We are keeping track of how much this is costing for interest sake. We don’t seem to be able to figure out the system as sometimes it is only $1 and other times it is $7 and it appears to be distance independent.

Freeway (toll)

We stopped at a smallish town (Himeville) for a while today and went through their museum – some interesting displays including some San tribal rock art.

San Rock Art

We started looking for a campsite fairly early this afternoon as we just weren’t sure how far we could go. We found reference to this place in the camping book we got yesterday. At first sight we were a bit dubious but it is a lovely grassy open site with a great view of the Drakensburg Mountains. We are about 9 km south of Underberg. We even have our own ostriches to keep us company. The ostriches thought Norma was their friend as she went about collecting feathers they had left stuck in the fence. They walked along with her, one on each side, trying to pull the feathers from her hand.

The young girl who tried to check us in speaks no English, though all park signs are in English. She speaks Xhosa, a tribal language. It turns out the owner of the caravan park is Kelvin Strachan whose grandfather played a big role in the history of the area. The following quote is from Wikipedia: “Two prominent European settlers George Brisley and Donald Strachan played a major role in the early development of Kokstad and East Griqualand: their trading store, Strachan and Co, introduced South Africa's first indigenous currency—a set of trade tokens which circulated across a wide region, covering an area the size of Ireland.”  Kelvin is quite a character, we would still be there talking (listening) to him if he had his way. He has very poisonous puff adders on the property some of which he has skinned and mounted as trophies. They won’t be doing much “puffing” tonight as the temp will drop near freezing tonight (we are at almost 6000 ft.). The caravan park also has its own private lake which the owner pulled two 16” rainbow trout from yesterday.

Hmmm. . .Nice Place

This is a great backpackers/hikers/mountain biker’s area with mountain passes including the 10000 ft. Sani Pass which leads to the country of Lesotho. Looks like it would be a good workout for our jeep! Apparently the campers next to us have gone over the pass a few days ago on their mountain bikes and are due back today. Later note: they arrived about 8 pm last night.

Saturday April 26 Cremorne Estate Caravan Park, Port St. Johns, Eastern Cape Province, SA – 268 km

Woke to 4C and a beautiful Drakensberg sunrise again this morning. As we got closer to the coast the temperature rose to 25. Another beautiful sunny day. We have been noticing the red dirt everywhere, similar to Australia.

Another Drakensberg Sunrise

When we started planning this trip Doug had thought how great it would have been to do it by motorcycle and indeed, there are a few rental options. Now that we have experienced the roads we both know it could be deadly. First you cannot ride in any of the parks, we think due to the animals roaming, some of the towns are pretty intimidating when you drive through the all black areas and then there are the VW swallowing potholes. On a bike they could be killers. We feel so much safer in our little house on wheels.

Today’s drive was interesting. We found ourselves climbing and descending repeatedly going through farm land and scattered inhabited areas. Colourful shack-houses dot the hills. The road was very curvy and at one point there was a sign saying only “136 more bends” until the next town. This was updated as we went along.  

At one town, Flagstaff, the road went through the middle of town where they were having their Saturday market. What an experience that was, driving at a walking pace, trying to avoid people and cars. At one point there was a rear-ender just ahead of us so we were stuck in the middle of the market with a cacophony of noise, smells and colours swirling around us. Again it was all black, not a white face to be seen.

 

We were seeing people collecting firewood and carrying it along the road on their heads. The do not have running water and electricity much less central heating, so any way they can heat their homes they will do. This is also the day the kids play soccer. We did see them on the field, in uniforms having a match.

The resort we are camping at tonight was recommended to us by Kelvin at the place we were at last night. He told us it would only take 3 hours to get here but 5 hours later we arrived. When we started driving into the caravan park we really weren’t sure: 1.5 km of dirt road through sugar cane, over a few questionable bridges only to spill out into a very nice resort. We can see the Indian Ocean in the valley just beside the motorhome. We won’t go anywhere else today but hopefully will drive to the ocean tomorrow on our way out. From here the road does not follow the coast line as we can assume it is too rugged. We will need to head inland to make our way further south.

Once again, our internet access is spotty so daily postings are difficult. Also, a reminder to click the photos in the blog for better detail.