Parys, North West Province, SA – 371 km

Tuesday, May 13, 2014 Parys, North West Province, SA – 371 km

The temperature only dropped to 9 degrees overnight and quickly warmed up as we got going. Another day of prairie driving with nothing to see on the horizon. For some reason the area seems a little richer, not as many townships, bigger and nicer houses associated with productive farmland.

When we stopped for gas the station attendant saw we were from Canada and asked if we would take him home with us. A Canada sticker had to suffice, no room in the luggage.

We followed the map in our caravan book to find both of the two places written up (just outside of Parys – pronounced Paris) don’t seem to exist but we did end up at a lovely place by the Vaal River called “Smilin Thru” (spelled that way).  It is a very tranquil place where we enjoyed sitting on the river bank watching the cormorant and just generally relaxing. Being winter here the place is virtually deserted with only one camp set up across from us. We can just imagine how busy it can by with the location so close to a larger center. The manager told us they just closed up the restaurant last weekend as the business slows down. There is a real menagerie of animals here, from the pot belly pig who kept following us around, to the goats, the peacock, ostrich, cows and lots of ground squirrels. She told us they keep a skeleton crew on all winter due to the risk of fires and as we see all the dry grass around we can see why. The crew are busy painting and staining the wood, etc. getting ready for the next season it seems.

Norma's new friend

Cormorant drying wings

Vaal River

Local birdlife

 

We have good internet access here so we will make this our last post prior to flying to Calgary tomorrow evening.

As we look at the peaceful Vaal River flowing by we find ourselves a bit reflective as our trip comes to a close:

Reflections on South Africa 2014

Many months ago as we started planning this trip we kept hearing from family and friends about their concerns re our safety. Everyone seemed to have a story from a distant source of what could happen to us. However, we made a decision to work hard at not letting paranoia interfere with our trip and for the most part have succeeded. That does not mean casting caution to the wind, just to be street smart and trust our instincts.

We did find ourselves in a few out of the way places where we didn’t feel too comfortable but we just kept all the doors locked, did not stop and avoided eye contact as we made our way to perceived safer ground. In retrospect we were probably in no danger. People seem surprised and children excited to see this motorhome making its way through their small communities.

We have encountered many wonderful and helpful people, black and white, on our trip, most asking the same question. Why did we choose South Africa as a vacation destination? Our pat answer has been “it is something we have both always wanted to do”. In response to our mode of travel they would state “you have chosen the best way to see our country”.

Our travels have taken us into all 9 provinces, which was one of our goals. We have seen some differences in these provinces but also a lot of similarities.

We have experienced temperatures ranging from a low of 4 degrees C overnight to a high of 39 degrees C but mostly around lower 20’s. We have had wonderful sunshine and blue skies with only a day of rain and storm and a few days of heavy winds as we were driving.

In our conversations with black South Africans not one mention of racial tension has been made. Not so for the whites, it comes up in every conversation we have. We keep hearing the caution not to let our guard down. We, having grown up in a supposed anti-racist society, find this one of the hardest things to fathom. But who are we to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude? Would we be any different in a similar situation? Probably not. We can’t help but get the feeling that South Africans are uncomfortable and as a result somewhat unhappy in spite of living in their beautiful, fascinating country. One of the conversations we had had with a white couple from Cape Town was how their daughter and her husband had gone on vacation to Australia and how relaxed they felt compared to their home. A German lady who was one of our camp managers stated a very similar situation where her son and his SA wife decided to move to Australia to raise their two girls in a safer environment. We find this very sad. We wish we had a magic answer for these people to find some comfort. Perhaps time will be the cure – keep in mind that to 20 year old South Africans apartheid is basically a historic concept.

Another question we often get asked by South Africans is “how did we find the caravan parks”. The answer we give is “overall very good”. Although some of the ablution facilities have been old, we have yet to find one unclean. Prices have ranged from about $12 to $36 (strangely enough with the former being close to the best and the latter the worst). Average cost per night 18-20$ with seashore and mountain sites being the highest. We wish more of them had WiFi – something all could address very easily and we suspect they are getting a lot of pressure from campers on this as they all have their stock excuses e.g. “it’s not working right now” or if we pick up a wireless signal “I don’t know the password”.

We have seen very few black families enjoying the various parks. It is probably an economic factor as the National Parks are quite expensive and obviously you need to be able to afford camping equipment and the transportation to go camping.

Do we have regrets?

We maybe should have come in the dryer season as the animal sightings could have possibly been better, but we were still very pleased with what we saw. We should have avoided the school holidays. We didn’t realize the impact when we were setting our dates but now see the cities empty out on holidays and the surrounding areas are flooded with people.

Probably the main one was that we didn’t have enough time. It would have been wonderful to also have visited Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and seen more of Botswana (our few hours on the game drive didn’t give us a real feel for the country). In speaking to people who have travelled to all four that would have required a second month.

We will need to see if we can manage another trip once we have done some of the other things on our bucket list. This has been an excellent experience for both of us and we have such wonderful memories, like seeing the pair of leopards, being at knee height with a male giraffe just a few feet away from the front of the motorhome, watching the monkeys and baboons in the camp grounds to mention a few. We will cherish and share these with our friends and family for years to come. 

We have been told several times that it is more exciting and rare to see leopard which we were lucky enough so see in a pair!

But we didn’t see a lion!