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The minibus I had boarded in Manzini, Swaziland crossed the border into South Africa at the Golela border post and continued south along the N2 passing the Pongolapoort Dam and many game reserves along the way to Mtubatuba. Mtubatuba was a little way off the N2 and I was the only passenger getting off here, everyone else was heading all the way to Durban, another couple of hours drive along the road. The driver went out of his way to help me and turned off the N2 and drove into Mtubatuba and to the busy and hectic minibus park and showed me where the minibuses for St Lucia departed from. Most of the journey from Manzini I had been chatting with the other passengers on the bus and when I left I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends as they all waved goodbye as they drove back out of the bus park. I climbed aboard another minibus and waited for it to fill, which didn't take long and I was soon on my way again for the last 20km to St Lucia on the coast. Beside the road and stretching into the distance were huge plantations of eucalyptus trees, the tall trees marching across the landscape in long straight lines. I later found out from a plantation owner that these trees are used for pulp rather than construction, as the timber is too flexible.
It was back in Beira in Mozambique that the owner of the Biques restaurant and bar first recommended to me that I should make St Lucia my first stop in South Africa while on my way to Cape Town. The Greater St Lucia Wetlands stretch for 80km along the coast from Sodwana Bay in the north to Mapelane Nature Reserve at the southern end of Lake St Lucia. The park encompasses five interconnected ecosystems that consist of marine, the coral reefs and beaches; the shore, the barrier between the sea and the lake; swamps, lake and the grasslands and forests. In 1999 the greater wetlands area was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognising the areas unique ecosystems and wildlife habitat. The area is well known for it's large populations of hippo and crocodile. I was still on a mission to record a soundbite of a hippo for my website, the main reason I came here, after failing to find any of the elusive hippos at the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary in Swaziland the previous week. This would be my last chance to find any hippos on this trip.
It was almost dark when I arrived in St Lucia and the driver dropped me off outside the Bibs Hostel on the main street; it had been a long day travelling and I felt exhausted. I found the staff at Bibs excellent, especially the ladies at the reception desk who showed me to a dorm room, which was just a room with two single beds in it rather than a room packed with bunk beds. The hostel was a huge thatched barn divided into separate small rooms with a kitchen, dining and lounge area at one end. The outdoors bar was still being constructed beside the small swimming pool and the whole set up had a sociable, laid back feel to it. The manager Sean was very informative and every day organised free activities for the guests. On one morning I went on one of his free guided walks through the grasslands and alongside the lake. We did not see that much game on the walk, mostly zebra and impala but Sean definitely knew his stuff and pointed out trails and animal prints that we would of otherwise have missed. The walk took us alongside the lake and through the mangrove swamps on the shores. I was beginning to worry as we carefully walked through the swamp, crossing over hippo trails in the mud that were more like streams. I kept my eyes peeled for any hippos and crocodiles that may be lying in wait for us. We came to an inlet where we disturbed a couple of hippos, a mother and her calf, which luckily for us headed out into the lake and not towards us. The walk took just over three hours to complete.
This was the first large hostel I had stayed at in South Africa and at first I was shocked at how many travellers were staying here after being in the relative back of beyond of Mozambique. It soon dawned on me that the whole backpacking circuit in South Africa had become extremely commercialised and that backpacking was big business. All along the major tourist routes were a network of hostels, and all these hostels linked together by the Baz Bus, a bus service specifically designed to ferry backpackers from one hostel to another. This was not the kind of travelling I wanted to do. A lot of the people at the hostel had extremely little contact with the South Africa that they were travelling through and spent their whole time either in hostels, on tours or staring at Africa through the windows of the Baz Bus. I wanted to have more contact with people outside the backpacking circuit and decided that I would travel through the country on local black taxis (the minibuses), hitchhiking and trains. There was an Australian girl, Rebecca, who arrived at Bibs the day after me who also had the same ideas and wanted to travel with the locals. It turned out that our plans were very similar, we were both travelling towards Cape Town and we both wanted to visit the Drakensberg Mountains to do some hiking. We planned to travel together from St Lucia. Rebecca was on her way from Australia to Europe and had flown into Johannesburg at the start of the month for a month long trip across South Africa.
I stayed in St Lucia longer than I originally planned. I went on a few early morning and evening walks down to the estuary in search of the hippos. One morning I found them and tried to record them but found that the microphone on my recorder could not pick up such a low frequency; my mission was over. The weekend that I was in St Lucia was a holiday weekend in South Africa, celebrating Youth Day on 16th June. This small resort town came alive with visitors pouring in from all around the country. There was also a Harley Davidson rally in town over the weekend and the streets echoed to the sound of motorbikes burning up and down the main street. In the World Cup England were due to play Denmark on Saturday afternoon. There were a lot of other English travellers staying at the hostel and one lone Dane. Nearly everyone at the hostel ended up at the local bar in town, Key West, to watch the match where the beer was flowing freely. Unfortunately there was a rugby match on the same afternoon and at half time we all decamped back to the hostel where Sean (the barmen, not the manager) kept us supplied with cold beer. England won the match 3-0 and the party continued into the evening and through the night, at one stage gate crashing the biker's party at a private venue in town. I eventually got home at just past two in the morning.
On Sunday everyone, including me, woke up with a slightly sore head. This morning Rebecca and myself planned to start our journey to Winterton near the Central Berg of the Drakensberg Mountains. Being a Sunday and a holiday weekend I guessed that it could take a while to reach our destination as there weren't many people travelling. Sean, the manager, put on some music first thing in the morning at the now almost completed outdoor bar. I walked out to settle my bill at the reception and found Sean dancing at the bar, the builders dancing and the lady at reception dancing behind her desk. It is the one image of Bibs Hostel that will stay with me for a long time; everyone was happy and full of life.
We left Bibs at about 09.30 and walked to the bridge at the other end of town to wait for a passing minibus to Mtubatuba. We didn't have to wait long until a battered old bus came past and within a quarter of an hour we were back at the much quieter Mtubatuba bus park. My guess was right, there weren't many people travelling on this Sunday in the middle of a holiday weekend. We waited for just over three hours for the minibus to Durban to fill up, by now any ideas of reaching Winterton in one day were dashed. Instead we aimed to get to Pietermaritzburg by nightfall. Once we did get going again the drive to Durban only took just over two hours and the driver dropped us off at an intersection were minibuses to Pietermaritzburg departed from. At last luck was on our side and we took the last two seats on the minibus and after only being in Durban for not more than twenty minutes we were travelling north along the N3.
It was a fairly short journey and soon the driver dropped us off in the centre of Pietermaritzburg from where it was just a short walk to the Sunduzi Backpackers on Berg Street. Tied to the gate was a notice saying that they had moved and a phone number where we could contact them. There are not many budget places to stay in town, the other being Earthwalkers Backpackers, which had closed down. We walked around the corner on to Chapel Street and phoned the number; half an hour later Grant turned up and gave us a lift to the new lodge. It was way out of town to the east, a good fifteen or twenty minute drive. Grant was still renovating the building and officially the place was closed as it was low season, but he put us up for the night and cooked us dinner. I have a horrible feeling that Grant has made a mistake moving right out of town, as I guess most people would be just passing through this town and a central location would suit a lot more people. Nevertheless, if the Baz Bus stops at his door then maybe he won't have any worries.
In the morning Grant drove us back into the town centre from where we took a minibus across town to another park where we waited for a bus to Estcourt to fill up. Today was a holiday Monday and the town was quiet with not many people travelling anywhere. After a while we were back on the road heading north. To our west we could see the dramatic Drakensberg range of mountains, the tops capped with snow. On seeing the mountains I felt excited about our upcoming hiking expeditions. After another long wait in Estcourt we finally left for Winterton. The minibus was full of locals returning home from shopping in Estcourt and as they were dropped at their homes along the way to Winterton they said goodbye to us and waved as we disappeared down the road. Everyone we had met on this trip from St Lucia had been helpful and friendly, just like everyone else I had met on this journey down this continent. Every white South African I had met before I embarked on this trip, and while I was on the road, warned me not to travel in the black taxis. It now dawned on me that all these people offering their advice had probably never travelled on this form of transport in their lives. I didn't get mugged, robbed or murdered like I was lead to believe by these people, but only made new friends.
At Winterton I phoned the Inkosana Lodge, a place recommended to me by another traveller a long time ago, to see if they would pick us up as they were about 25km down the road towards the mountains. They only did pickups for Baz Bus passengers so we hitchhiked instead, but first crossed the road to The Keg for a pint of beer and a late lunch. It took us two lifts to reach the lodge and arrived at around 16.00, our last lift dropping us off at the front door. Ed owns the lodge and knows just about everything about hiking in the surrounding mountains, he's also famous for his huge breakfasts and dinners, which is just what you need to sustain yourself for a long days hiking. The legend of Ed's homemade bread has also travelled a long way. The lodge is in a beautiful setting just 9km from Monks Cowl and the escarpment of the mountains, the peaks of Sterkhorn 2,973m, Cathkin Peak 3,148m and Champagne Castle 3,245m towering above us to the west.
The person who recommended the Inkosana Lodge to me also told me about an overnight hike they did to the Zulu Cave and told me it was a beautiful hike and a really peaceful place to spend a night. Before we headed out into the mountains we decided to go on a day hike to warm up for our two-day trek. Ed had some good ideas for a day hike and dropped us at Monks Cowl in the morning with a basic photocopied trail map. There is a good system of well-marked trails radiating out from the park headquarters at Monks Cowl and we set off for Nandi Falls, a secluded waterfall at the top of a gorge on the Mpofane River. From there we followed the Hlatikhulu Forest trail that lead us through some patches of indigenous forest north along the base of the escarpment that towered above us. Ed recommended that we take a path that looked seldom used, which followed a heavily forested gully up the side of the escarpment. The path was tricky to follow, there were very few trail markers on the way but after a steep climb through the forest we reached the grassy slopes above where we stopped for a late lunch and admired the view below us.
The Natal Drakensberg covers an area of approximately 250,000 hectares and forms the border between KwaZulu Natal and the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. At the low altitudes the mountains are made up of near horizontal sedimentary sandstones, mudstones and shales. These are topped by basalt flows that reach up to 1km thick and form the main escarpment. There are also outcrops of dolerite, which have been pushed up through fault lines in molten form and occur as straight dykes across the landscape. The lower sandstone zone forms multicoloured cliffs from almost black and grey to brown and pink sandstones to shales of blue and red and mudstones of cream and yellow. This zone is known as the Little Berg where weathering and erosion has formed many caves that were inhabited by the San people who left their mark with cave paintings at a myriad of sites. Above the Little Berg is an area of relatively flat, rolling grassland that leads up to the sheer walls, buttresses and scree slopes of the main escarpment. The summit of the main escarpment is characterised by jagged peaks and steep passes.
There are 1,800 known plant species in the Drakensberg, 350 of them endemic to the region. The vegetation forms three main belts that coincide with the main topographical features of the mountains. The montane belt is found below the sandstone between an altitude of roughly 1,200 to 1,800m. The greatest variety of plant communities and animal life are found here. On south facing slopes there are beautiful montane forests with tall yellowwood trees. On the drier north-facing slopes protea woodlands grow. On the scree slopes where boulders have fallen from the cliffs above that provide some protection from fire, small patches of woody plants grow, including the tree fushia and the sagewood.
The sub-alpine belt occurs between about 1,800 to 2,850m between the montane of the Little Berg and the alpine of the summits; this zone is covered by grassland. The grasslands vary with altitude and aspect, temperate evergreen grassland characterised by the spiky festuca costata on the moist south-facing slopes and on the scree slopes, and shorter highland sourveld grassland, with themeda triandra, which goes red in winter, covering large areas. Woody vegetation is largely confined to sheltered slopes and valleys and consists mainly of leucosidea sericea scrub or sub-alpine fynbos. The Drakensberg cycad is found here and is more common in the northern Drakensberg than the southern. In most places there are large colonies of dwarf proteas, which survive fire by having most of their growth underground in the form of large rootstocks. Closer to the sandstone of the Little Berg taller protea species form open woodland. The alpine belt is found between about 2,850 to 3,500m and consists mainly of heath-type vegetation dominated by erica and helichrysum species. The vegetation is sparse and there are no trees.
The night before our trek Ed sorted everything out for us and showed us the route on the map; we also arranged to borrow a couple of sleeping mats. The days at the Inkosana Lodge were bright and sunny, the skies clear and deep blue, not a cloud in sight; the nights though were very cold, there was a frost on the grass by sunrise. I was worried about how cold the night would be in Zulu Cave; it had the potential to be absolutely freezing. My sleeping bag was only rated as a one and a half season, but after surviving cold nights at altitudes on the big mountains of East Africa I convinced myself it wouldn't be a problem. On this journey through Africa this was the first trek I had been on that we didn't hire a guide and just went off into the mountains armed with a map and a compass. As we were only going to be out in the mountains for one night we didn't bother taking a stove with us and instead took a loaf of Ed's bread and stopped at the shop on the way to Monks Cowl to buy some cheese and other sandwich material.
From the park headquarters at Monks Cowl, at an altitude of approximately 1,300m, we began walking up hill towards the Sphinx. The trail lead through some small woodlands in the gullies at the bottom of the mountains, crossing over small, crystal clear streams. The gradient wasn't too steep as the path contoured up the escarpment climbing steadily. We reached the Sphinx, a large outcrop of rock that slightly resembles the Sphinx in Egypt, at an altitude of 1,700m. We stopped for a few minutes on top of this rock outcrop to take in the view of the undulating landscape stretching away into the distance below us. The weather was absolutely perfect, the skies blue without a cloud in sight and the warm sun shining on our faces. The climb became much steeper from the Sphinx as the trail lead us up onto the grassy plateau above the escarpment of the Little Berg. Once on the plateau we crossed over the breakfast stream and carried on to Blinds Man Corner at 2,100m a distance of 5.5km from the park headquarters. Rising up in front of us were the impressive peaks of Sterkhorn, 2,972m, Catkin Peak, 3,148m and rising up behind them to the south, the flat-topped Champagne Castle, topped with ice and snow at 3,245m.
The original plan on this hike was to climb Sterkhorn on the second day on the way back from Zulu Cave. Looking at the mountain now it looked very challenging, the trail up the ridge to the summit looked very steep and narrow, the summit surrounded by cliffs of shear rock. I began to have second thoughts about this one especially as we didn't have a guide with us. From Blinds Man Corner the path contoured along the base of the main escarpment, the peaks to our west. The walking was easy as the path twisted in and out of gullies and across small streams that formed tributaries of the Sterkspruit River as they flowed down valleys to the east. The grass was very dry now as it was the middle of winter and the parks authority had been carrying out controlled burning. They had used the path we were walking along as a tracer line and burnt a stretch of grass about 20m below the path. This had left a huge black scar burnt across the landscape along the base of the escarpment, which wasn't the most appealing to the eye. We passed by the Turret at 2,670m to our west and after 2.5km from Blinds Man Corner we reached Hlathikulu Nek in a saddle between two low mountains, a valley falling away in front of us, roughly to the north that concealed the Zulu Cave.
We stopped for lunch before heading down into the valley that snaked off into the hazy distance. In the far distance to the west was the distinctive Intunja Mountain at 2,408m; Intunja in Zulu translates as 'eye of the needle' and the summit of this mountain had a hole right the way through it, a geological feature I had never seen before. This is where I found a discrepancy between the map Ed had given us and the actual landscape before us. The map marked the trail leading off the main path and along the east of a buttress between two valleys that joined to form the valley where the cave was. The path was nowhere to be seen, so with the good visibility we plotted a route 'off road' down to where the valleys joined. The walking was not that easy through the lumpy, long grass and the going was slow. We stopped about halfway on the way down to the valley, when I turned around and saw the trail looping around the west of the buttress and down the hill behind us. We joined the trail once again and soon made it to the point where the two rivers met, the sides of the valley towering above us and on the ridge to the east the distinctive 'V', a notch in the flat ridge. It took a bit of searching to pick up the trail across the river, again the map had the trail in completely the wrong place but we soon found it leading down the side of a waterfall and then across the river and up the steep bank on the other side. From here on it was just a case of following the trail along the base of the valley, across a couple of small tributaries and then up a side valley to Zulu Cave. Along the way I almost stepped on a snake, later identified as a Berg Adder although at the time I thought it was the deadly Puff Adder, that was sunning itself on the dusty path. It's camouflage was excellent and I am still surprised that I spotted it when I did.
The Zulu Cave was up a tributary valley to our west at the bottom of an escarpment. The cave was a huge rock overhang, a river cascading over this overhang forming a waterfall and a curtain of water across the middle of the cave. The park headquarters say that this cave could sleep twelve people, but the reality was that you could sleep three times this many. This afternoon we had the cave to ourselves and no one else turned up. It was a wonderfully peaceful location hidden away in this valley, we felt like we had left civilisation a long way behind, it was perfect. I am so glad a ran into the person who recommended this hike to me all those weeks ago, whoever they were, they were certainly right about this place. We sat on a rock admiring the view in the last warm rays of the afternoon sunshine; the sun disappeared early behind the ridge above us and the temperature soon began to drop. Just before it got dark something caught my eye in the distance to the east, a couple of streaks of high cirrus cloud. I tried to ignore what I had seen as this type of cloud is typical of a weather system approaching, but the chances were that by morning it could be wet. Later in the evening, after we had eaten our monster size sandwiches, I noticed that the stars were no longer visible and that this high cloud now covered the skies above us. Looking on the bright side, at least it wouldn't get so cold tonight with this blanket of cloud above us trapping some of the days heat in the atmosphere. It was still chilly though and by 19.00 we curled up in our sleeping bags on a bed of dry grass and Ed's sleeping mats, leaving a candle burning into the night illuminating the gloom around us, the sound of the cascading water sending us to sleep.
Considering where we were I had a reasonable nights sleep and slept far better that I thought I would of. The night wasn't nearly as cold as I feared it would be, but as day broke I could see why, we were enveloped in a heavy mist and drizzle. It was 07.00, I had been lying on the floor of the cave for twelve hours and my back hardly ached. We waited for a couple of hours to see if the weather would lift or if the rising sun would burn off the mist. It didn't, so we packed up camp and walked back out into the valley. Any plans of climbing Sterkhorn today were also abandoned, it would be far too treacherous to attempt a mountain like that in this weather; what would be the point if you couldn't see any views from the summit? The trail to the Zulu Cave was very little used and the long grass encroached over it. The one thing I hate most about hiking is long, wet grass, you don't stand a chance of keeping your feet dry. Today was no exception and within a couple of hundred metres our boots were soaked, our socks squelching. There was nothing else to do except put one foot in front of another and get off the mountain as quickly as possible and back into the dry, warm Inkosana Lodge.
We walked on mostly in silence thinking our own private happy thoughts; mine for some strange reason centred on what would taste good with a jug of hot custard. As we walked back up through the valley towards the contour path it looked as though the weather was lifting and the visibility improved. This didn't last long though and soon the hike became reminiscent of a wet hike across Dartmoor in the southwest of England. By the time we reached the contour path between Hlathikulu Nek and Blind Mans Corner the drizzle intensified and the conditions became depressing, the water squelching out of my socks with every step. This was the worst weather I had encountered while trekking on this journey across Africa, I suppose it had to happen but luckily we were walking off the mountain and were not stuck hiking between two huts. We walked at a fast pace, hardly stopping and after three and three quarter hours we were back at the park headquarters at Monks Cowl feeling cold and very wet. The arrangement with Ed was to phone him and he would send someone to pick us up. I think Ed must have been surfing the internet today as the phone was engaged for about an hour and a half. Because of the weather there were few other hikers around and only one car in the car park, so trying to hitchhike back to the lodge was not much of an option either; the park headquarters are at the end of the road. Meanwhile we stood and froze and waited until finally I got through to Ed who told me the bad news that his pickup was out collecting firewood and probably would not be back for half an hour. During this half hour a couple of hikers returned off the mountain and they kindly gave us a lift back to the lodge, passing Ed's pickup truck along the way. It was time for a hot shower, warm clothes and a large pot of tea.
One of Rebecca's plans while in Southern Africa was to go to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. I had never intended to visit this small enclave in the heart of South Africa and didn't know much about it but as we did some research, this tiny country began to intrigue and fascinate me. We made plans to travel to Lesotho in a couple of days time, but first we took a day off to do some laundry and also to watch England play Brazil in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. We was robbed and lost 2-1, the dream once again lay in shatters all around me in Ed's lounge; I was distraught especially as we would of had an easy semi-final against Turkey to put us through to the final against Germany. Why oh why does this always happen? Surely it was our turn to again be world champions; roll on 2006 when we will have to suffer all this agony again. It didn't help either that a certain Australian girl I was travelling with did not understand that this was more than just a game, it did matter who won. Looking back on it at least we were beaten by the new world champions.
The next day we bade farewell to Ed and his dogs and hitchhiked back to Winterton. We planned to cross the border into Lesotho at the Caldenspoort crossing, just north of Butha-Buthe; a journey that we guessed would take all day. It was a day of changing minibuses from Winterton to Bergville to Harrismith to Qwa Qwa to Bethlehem and finally to Fouriesburg, 10km north of the border.
As Rebecca and myself crossed the border from Lesotho back to South Africa at the Van Rooyen's Gate, we left behind the traditional way of life of the Basotho people. We were once more back in the modern South Africa, a first world country on a developing continent almost a world apart from Lesotho rather than a few footsteps through the dust. Once we finally made it through the queue at the immigration post and walked down a road on the other side of the fence I began to miss the mountain kingdom we had left behind. I am glad now that I took this unplanned detour to this small landlocked country in the mountains. My memories of Lesotho will last a long time.
We now found ourselves standing in a dusty taxi park in South Africa looking for transport to Bloemfontein, the capital of Free State and also the judicial capital of South Africa. There was nothing much in the way of a settlement at the Van Rooyen's Gate. The R702 tarred road stretched off into the distance crossing the plains to Bloemfontein, the landscape a stark contrast to the mountains of Lesotho. We found a minibus and waited until all the seats were full before we pulled out onto the highway and continued our journey to Bloemfontein. After spending the last week in Lesotho, travelling in minibuses where there was always room for one more, it felt odd to be in a minibus carrying a maximum of only fifteen passengers. The journey along the R702 was uneventful, passing through the small town of Dewetsdorp on route as the road beat a path across the plains to Bloemfontein.
As we neared the city the road passed through the townships that seemed to surround every major town and city in South Africa. Some of the conditions looked terrible, makeshift shacks of corrugated iron and other cast off rubbish formed ramshackle houses, the township's layout in a chaotic mess. In stark contrast to this there were areas of new housing, identical cinderblock square houses in long neat rows stretching away from the road in long straight lines. The new housing had been built with almost military regularity and precision; it reminded me more of a barracks than a low cost housing development. This was all part of the new South African governments plan to provide housing for all the people of South Africa. The minibus stopped many times along this road past the townships dropping off most of our fellow passengers. We were the last two passengers on the minibus as we arrived at the taxi park in downtown Bloemfontein near to the railway station.
Rebecca and myself planned to travel our own independent ways from this city. My plan was to take an overnight train to Port Elizabeth, on the coast, the following night, Monday. It was late Sunday afternoon when we arrived; the city was quiet, the streets away from the minibus taxi park and the railway station, almost deserted. It was also World Cup final day, Brazil taking on Germany. We walked the short distance up Harvey Street to the railway station where I booked a ticket for the following nights train and also found out from the ticket clerk that Brazil had won the World Cup. There was a small television on in an office behind the clerk where I could just glimpse the Brazilian team celebrating. We came to Bloemfontein mainly to sort out a few things after spending the best part of the last two weeks in the wilderness of the mountains of Lesotho and previous to that the Drakensberg Mountains. Rebecca had to contact her airline to see if she could extend her ticket by a couple of weeks. Depending on the outcome on Monday she would either continue her journey by train south to Grahamstown or would have to double back to Johannesburg to catch a flight to Europe. I needed a bit of time with a reliable internet connection to catch up on some correspondence and to sort out my finances online.
There were not many budget accommodation options in the city. Bloemfontein is not really on the backpackers route and the Baz Bus doesn't come this far. There were two hostels listed in our guidebook, Taffy's and Naval Hill; we chose to head for Taffy's, no one we had met had any good things to say about Naval Hill. We found a private taxi outside the railway station and gave him the address of Taffy's; of course he had not a clue where this street was so he asked some other taxi drivers before heading north out of the downtown area. What should have been a five or ten minute taxi ride turned into a magical mystery tour of the northern suburbs of the city. The taxi driver failed to find the street and drove around hopelessly lost, stopping now and again to ask for more directions before doing yet another u-turn. He had not grasped the basics of navigation and was quickly losing heart. A map could have helped him; he had no excuse they hand them out free at the tourist information centre. After almost half an hour we finally found Louis Botha Street, it felt like we had won the lottery, our days journey from the mountains of Lesotho was almost over. We stopped outside Taffy's; it was just another ordinary suburban house. It was deserted, no one at home, the hostel closed down.
After all the effort of finding this place we returned back towards downtown and the Naval Hill Backpackers, situated at Naval Hill overlooking the city. We also found ourselves only about 2km up the road from the railway station where we started this epic taxi ride into the unknown. We felt sorry for the driver, after all he had tried so hard to find the address we had given him; he was just not very good at it. We checked into the hostel, the end of another days journey. Ahead of us lay one of those organisational days that you have to devote some time to if you are ever on the road for any length of time.
The backpackers was different but not really as bad as other people had made out. Any budget traveller passing though this city ends up staying here. The building is an old converted water pumping station. It was a cold, noisy place. The dormitories were partitioned off with corrugated iron; even the doors were corrugated. The partitions had no ceiling and were dwarfed by the cavernous building. It was the middle of winter, the night time temperature was dropping close to freezing and this large building did not hold heat very well, especially once the sun had set. I was only staying a night so it really was not a problem.
The next day I spent most of my time down at the Waterfront, a shopping and entertainment complex alongside a man-made lagoon in Kings Park, west of the downtown area. Downtown was easy to navigate by foot as the streets were laid out in a grid pattern. Some of the streets had changed their name since my map was published, part of the governments renaming program since the end of apartied. The twin hills of Signal and Naval Hill to the north provided a backdrop to the city. Seeing shops again fully stocked with almost everything under the sun felt strange after coming from Lesotho, where there was nothing. South Africa, I was beginning to learn, was a land of contrasts when compared to its neighbours on the rest of this continent.
Later in the afternoon I met up again with Rebecca back at Naval Hill. She had been successful in changing her flight and now had an extra two weeks to spend in the country. Her journey would now take her on the overnight train towards Port Elizabeth to catch a connection to Grahamstown. After a drink at a local bar/restaurant that evening we took a taxi the short distance to the railway station. We were advised by every local white person not to walk to the station in the dark; the small fee for a taxi fare seemed like a good insurance policy.
I was booked on the Algoa express train that runs from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth. The train was due to arrive in Bloemfontein at 21.20 but was running over an hour late. So was the Amatola that runs from Johannesburg to East London, which was due in at 19.50. It was a cold winters night; passengers crammed into the waiting rooms to keep warm, others stood in small groups along the platform, all of us waiting patiently. We began talking to a local man who was returning to work after spending the weekend at home in a small town north of Bloemfontein. This was a journey he made every week, spending most of his time away from his wife and children, whom he missed. It turned out that he was a building surveyor, the same profession as my brother. We began talking about the work he was doing. His plan to further his career was to study a degree course at the Reading University in England. This was also the university that my brother studied at for three years. I knew the university had a good reputation for surveying courses in the UK, but didn't realise that it was world-renowned. I gave the man my address if he ever needed any advice or information about the university in the future, he could always contact me.
Time passed quickly as we talked on the platform, our breath condensing in the cold, night air. At 22.30 our train finally arrived and in a fairly orderly way everyone clambered aboard. The train was not busy and Rebecca got a sleeping compartment in the next carriage to mine; I was booked into a two-berth compartment, which I had to myself. The one thing I will never forget about this train journey was the cold. It was the coldest train ride I had ever been on. The heater in my compartment only seemed to work when the train stopped at a station but eventually it stopped working altogether. I huddled around the heater in the middle of the night in the desperate hope that it would begin working again. It didn't. At 01.30 I pulled my sleeping bag out from the bottom of my pack and wrapped myself up and shivered myself off to sleep. I didn't sleep that well, it was far too cold and eventually by daybreak I gave up and welcomed the start of a new day.
I looked out of the window and in the first glow of the morning sun saw the dry, rocky landscape we were travelling through on our way south to the coast. Along the more fertile river valleys we passed by farms, many of them farming ostriches. Hundreds of these enormous birds roamed about the fields in huge flocks. Aloes were flowering, giving the landscape a splash of red colour amongst the rocks and the dust. It wasn't long into the morning when we reached the station at Alicedale where Rebecca left and continued her journey onto Grahamstown. We said goodbye on the platform, our journey together from St Lucia over the last two and half weeks at an end. Within a few minutes the trained pulled away from the station and I continued on to Port Elizabeth by myself, another couple of hours down the line.
By mid morning the train finally reached Port Elizabeth, PE for short, slowly making it's way past the huge townships that stretch alongside the railway line outside the city. I was leaning out of the window enjoying the warm sunshine after the freezing cold of the night. A familiar smell suddenly hit my nose; I breathed deeply; I could smell the sea, the smell of home. I looked across to the other side of the carriage and through the window I could see the ocean, Algoa Bay, the bay that has given it's name to this express train. The sea sparkled in the bright sun, like a thousand diamonds glinting in the sun. It was great to be back on the coast. The train at last rolled to a halt at the station, my twelve hour journey from Bloemfontein almost completed; all I had to do now was to find a hostel to stay in for the night. The station is next to one of the old landmarks of the city, the Campanile, a fifty-two metre high tower built to commemorate the arrival of the settlers in 1820. It's almost dwarfed by the elevated freeway running right past the station skirting around the edge of the downtown area. As I began walking into the city everything felt very strange. For the first time since embarking on this journey across Africa I had arrived in a large western city. I walked the short distance to the friendly and homely Port Elizabeth Backpackers Hostel on Prospect Hill and checked in.
PE is the largest coastal city between Durban and Cape Town and is a major industrial centre and busy port. The city has come a long way since the first British settlers arrived in 1820 to become this busy metropolis. I relaxed at the PE Backpackers, an old Victorian building, while I tried to make some plans. My plans seemed to be very fluid at the moment and I was seriously becoming road weary. The excitement of arriving in a new city had lost it's shine, it felt more like a chore; to see the sights, take photos, visit museums etc. I needed a break. I was very near to Cape Town now, the original destination of this journey from Kampala in Uganda. I was now only a days bus ride away from my objective; it was tempting to get on the Greyhound or Intercape and be in Cape Town the next evening. I spent a couple of hours chatting with the owner of the backpackers, hoping she would come up with some good suggestions to stop me jumping on the next Cape Town bound bus. She did and recommended Storms River and the Tsitsikamma Coastal National Park. There were two long distance hiking trails here too. My plans were set, I would go hiking in the wilderness again, but first I had PE to explore in an afternoon.
My room at the PE Backpackers looked out across to Donkin Reserve, a public park on top of a hill that looks out over the city and port. There is a lighthouse in the park built in 1861, which now doubles as a tourist information centre. There was also a stone pyramid. Rufane Donkin erected this pyramid as a memorial to his wife, Elizabeth, who also gave her name to the city. I took a map of the city, pulled on my walking boots and went to walk along the Donkin heritage trail to get a feel for the layout of the city and glimpse some of it's history. The trail is marked out by a blue dotted line painted on the pavement for tourists to follow. Trying not to look too much like a tourist I followed the blue line from the opposite side of the road. I walked up Prospect Hill and picked up the trail along Belmont Terrace.
I soon came to Fort Frederick. It is a small fort sitting on top of a hill overlooking the mouth of the Baakens River and the bay. Built in 1799 it was the first stone building built in Eastern Cape. It never saw any action and no shots were fired in anger from it or at it. I continued following the trail along Bird Street and on to St Georges Park. From the park I took a shortcut and headed back towards downtown along Havelock Street past Havelock Square. Along Ivy Street and Upper Hill Street were the original settlers cottages dating back to 1820. I finished my walk in Market Square next to two of the most impressive historical buildings in the city. The City Hall, built between 1858 and 1862 and the Public Library. The library was indeed a fascinating building from the early Victorian period. The facade is made from terracotta, which was shipped out from the United Kingdom in 1837. The building started life as the courthouse before becoming the public library in 1902, which it remains to this day, although it was closed for renovations during my visit.
I left PE the next day. I didn't have an early start, which made a pleasant change and walked down to the long distance taxi park, next to the railway station at midday. I boarded a minibus taxi that was heading west along the N2 and jumped out a few hours later at the junction for Storms River village, a couple of kilometres past the Storms River bridge. Once the minibus departed I was left standing in the middle of nowhere beside the road, the Tsitsikamma Mountains towering above me to the north of the road. I had no idea how far the village was from the junction and began walking. I was surprised when in about ten minutes I was standing at the main crossroads in this small village. A sign reading, Rainbow Lodge, pointed to the right, the guesthouse where I planned to stay. I continued along the dusty, dirt road until I reached the guesthouse.
Once I had settled in that evening I made some enquiries with the owners about hiking in the area, and especially the two long distance trails, the Otter Trail and the Tsitsikamma Trail. The Otter trail seemed a fairly tough trail, especially the eleven river crossing, some of which you had to swim across depending on the tide. I didn't have the necessary equipment to fully waterproof my pack for a challenging crossing like that. I decided the Tsitsikamma trail through the mountains and forests was the trail for me. My plans were not looking hopeful; as I had expected you could not hike the trails by yourself. There was no-one else staying at the guesthouse, apart from four gap-year students from the UK whose only physical activity appeared to be drinking beer. I waited until the next day to phone the Regional Forestry Manager to see if anyone else was booked on the Tsitsikamma trail whom I could join. It was bad news; there were no bookings for the next fifteen days. My hiking plans had come to nothing.
Instead I spent the rest of the day on short hiking trails in the surrounding local forests. I walked to the eastern edge of the village to the start of the Goesa Nature Walk. The trail is short at only 2km but takes in some fantastic indigenous forest, the highlight being the forest of tree ferns about halfway along the trail. These ancient trees made the forest seem almost prehistoric, as though time had stood still. The indigenous forests of the southern Cape look similar to the classical rain forests of the tropical regions. There are some major differences though. These forests here are not as tall, with a canopy height of about 27m and are not so species diverse. There are 470 different forest species, of which 87 are tree species. The major tree species are the yellowwood, ironwood, stinkwood, white pear, cape beech and cherrywood. The Goesa Nature Walk didn't take long to stroll around, so I walked north out of the village and along the N2 to the Ratel Nature Walk. This walk is longer at 4.2km and runs along the lower slopes of the mountains of the Tsitsikamma range. After half a kilometre I reached the Tsitsikamma Big Tree, a giant yellowwood and a popular tourist attraction. The walk through the forest gave me a glimpse of what I was missing on the Tsitsikamma Trail.
I decided that I would leave Storms River the next day and travel to Cape Town, a city where I wanted to spend some time and where I had originally intended to end this journey.
I decided to leave Storms River Village and travel to Cape Town. Public transport from the village looked non-existent; there was no minibus taxi park, in fact I never saw a local minibus taxi in the village during my stay. The only minibus I ever saw in the village was the Baz Bus; this was not the way I liked to travel, so the Baz Bus was not a viable option for me. All the minibuses and busses kept to the main highway, the N2, and didn't appear to stop in the village at all. The owners of the Rainbow Lodge told me that a bus from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town stopped in the village once a day. I chose to hitch hike instead and to travel west as far as Knysna, where I planned to stop for a night before taking an Intercape bus the rest of the way to Cape Town. The owners of the lodge disapproved of my plans to hitch a ride on the N2. They recounted countless horror stories they had read about in the media of people hitch hiking and coming to unfortunate ends.
I thought the challenge of hitch hiking would add a bit of excitement to what had become an easy, rather non-eventful journey across this country. I left the lodge at around 09.00 and walked through the village and back to the junction on the N2, where a few days earlier I had been dropped off. There was a steady flow of traffic, but no one looked like stopping. After a while I saw the Baz Bus approaching, I tried to hitch a ride, I thought it would make a good story, the day I hitched for free on the Baz Bus. The driver didn't slow down and as he drove past me, I waved as a dozen white faces peered out the windows, watching Africa flash before their eyes. A little over an hour standing beside the highway, my luck changed. A car pulled up to the junction from the village and saw me standing there; he pulled over and offered me a ride to Knysna.
The driver of the vehicle turned out to be a white student visiting Storms River with his family for a holiday. He was studying at the university in Stellenbosch, just outside Cape Town. I asked if he was driving back there today. He wasn't, he was just bored and had decided to take the car down to Knysna for the day. Knysna is about 70km west of Storms River and the journey didn't take long. On route we passed the Baz Bus again, which was waiting at a junction to turn out on to the main highway; I waved again as we drove past. Along the way a troop of baboons were causing traffic chaos. They were sitting alongside the road, the large males slowly crossing the road or walking down the middle. They seemed to be completely oblivious to the passing traffic, which had to brake sharply and swerve around them. After successfully dodging the baboons the rest of the journey was plain sailing and we reached Knysna late in the morning.
Knysna is one of the major tourist towns along this stretch of coast, known as the Garden Route. The Garden Route runs from the Tsitsikamma National Park in the east 200km west to Heidelberg. The coast is separated from the interior by a range of mountains were rain falls all year round on the southern, ocean facing slopes, which are covered in lush green forests. The interior, north of these mountains, known as the Karoo, is dry and treeless, a stark contrast between the coastal strip. This dramatic change in vegetation and climate occurs in little more than 20km. Hence the Garden Route was named, published and advertised as the number one destination to visit in South Africa and today is the most popular place to visit. I was dropped off in the centre of Knysna, along main street and walked the short distance to the Highfield Backpackers Lodge. The town was bustling with people, thronging along the main street, which was lined with various craft shops, restaurants and bars. There was a definite holiday feel to the town. When I checked into the lodge I found out that I had arrived on the first day of the annual oyster festival. Accommodation was in short supply but I managed to get a spare room up in the attic of the lodge. I only booked in for one night and made arrangements to book a bus ticket to Cape Town the next day. If I had not been so travel weary after spending almost twenty four weeks travelling overland from Kampala I would of spent more time along the Garden Route exploring many of the beautiful coastal towns and national parks. Cape Town, the destination of this trip, was now within my grasp, just a days bus ride away. I felt drawn towards this city, like a magnet, after so long dreaming about this day and the successful completion of my trans-African journey. I spent my afternoon strolling around this small, but busy town and the evening exploring the various bars and nightclubs the town had to offer.
I woke the next morning feeling slightly better than expected after the previous nights tour of the town. I soon checked out and walked down to main street to wait for the Intercape bus to arrive at around 10.00. It was another bright sunny morning, there were about half a dozen other passengers waiting patiently for the bus. It showed up on time, I climbed aboard and took my seat excited with the knowledge that by the time the sun had set on the day I would be in Cape Town. The journey was very comfortable and pleasant. The memories of my previous bus journeys on this continent seemed now a long time ago. In some ways I missed the chaos of those journeys, the colour, noise and the whole unpredictable nature of the journey. Today, though I was happy to be sitting in this modern bus with the knowledge that I would arrive at my destination today and on time.
Our route today followed the N2 all the way to Cape Town, passing through Wilderness, Albertinia and Stormslvei on route. By late afternoon the bus wound its way up into the Hottentots Holland Mountains and we drove through Sir Lowry's Pass. As we emerged on the western side of the mountain range the bus slowed and I was greeted by the most spectacular view of Cape Town I could of ever wished for. The sun was low on the horizon disappearing behind the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, casting the whole scene in an orange glow. Almost immediately below us False Bay stretched around all the way to the Cape of Good Hope. Around the bay, the area known as Cape Flats, home to the majority of the black residents in an unimaginable sprawl of townships, including Guguletu, Khayelitsha, Mitchell's Plain and Nyanga. Punctuating this whole scene is Table Mountain, standing proudly, looking over the city. It was an emotional moment for me as I glimpsed my first view of this city, twenty-four weeks after embarking on this journey from Kampala. Within an hour I was disembarking from the bus at the main bus station, alongside the railway station downtown. It was early evening and by now dark. I took a taxi north to Observatory and to the Green Elephant Hostel that had been recommended to me by the manager of the Rainbow Lodge in Storms River. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going and after a day travelling the taxi fare seemed worthwhile to finish off my journey quickly. After I bit of wandering about I found a taxi, jumped in and headed out of downtown. The driver was friendly and welcomed me to the city and gave me a street map so I could navigate to Milton Road.
The Green Elephant is a nice, relaxed place to stay run by the owner Robin and his eccentric tree-climbing dog, Defa. Robin is a very experienced traveller, often disappearing off on adventures across Africa and beyond. On the wall of the bar is a photo of Robin on Mount Everest planting the new South African Flag deep into the snow. In a frame next to it a letter from the former president, Nelson Mandela, thanking Robin for a copy of the photo. The Observatory district is the university part of town, with the Cape Town University just a short way along the main road from Milton Road. This gave the area a relaxed feel with plenty of facilities you would expect to cater for a student population, namely a good selection of bars and restaurants.
That evening I met some of the other guests staying at the hostel, either upstairs in the lounge and television room or in the bar downstairs playing pool. As well as other travellers there were also students from Europe staying waiting for the start of the new term at the university. I met Frank and Chris that evening, both from Germany, Chris was going to study at the university and was looking for an apartment to rent for the term; Frank had just flown into Cape Town at the start of an extended holiday. I also ran into the infamous Defa, Robin's dog, patrolling the corridors and the garden, tail wagging continuously. I joined Frank and Chris for dinner that night at a local restaurant where I ate the most amazing butternut soup I have ever tasted; I made a mental note to experiment back home in my kitchen with some butternut squash and a blender.
This city should have been the end of the road for me and I should have booked a flight home from here. I didn't though; my plans were flexible enough to continue this journey. I planned now to go Namibia, and travel north along the western coast of southern Africa. So many people I had met had told me how beautiful Namibia was with stories of vast deserts and stunning scenery; a complete contrast to the countries I had travelled through along the eastern coast of Africa. I would now book a flight home from Windhoek, the capital of Namibia when I reached the city in a couple of week's time.
I spent six days in Cape Town, my longest city stay since I left Dar es Salaam back in April. The weather was going to govern what I would do on a day-to-day basis. It was the middle of winter, the nights were cold and the days unsettled with weather systems rolling in from the Atlantic bringing rain and leaving Table Mountain cloaked in cloud. I decided that the first morning I woke up to bright sunshine I would climb Table Mountain. My first day was a typical winters day though in Cape Town; it was cold, grey and raining lightly. Chris had just bought a car, a VW Golf, so together with Frank we went for a drive down the peninsular towards Cape Point. It was a Sunday morning, the city was quiet as we drove through downtown and along the M6 through the suburbs of Sea Point, Clifton and Camps Bay squeezed between the ocean and the steep hills of Lions Head and Signal Hill.
We continued south to Hout Bay, a small town set on a cove with a fishing harbour and marina and on up Chapman's Peak Drive from where there is a popular viewpoint looking back across the bay. Even on a grey, damp day like today the views were impressive, the surf crashing onto the beaches below us. The road from here was closed and apparently had been for some time after major rock falls early in 2000. We wanted to get to Simon's Town for lunch and had to double back to Hout Bay and take the M63 cutting through the hills to Constantia and the eastern coast of the Cape.
Simon's Town is named after Simon van der Stel, the Dutch governor of the Cape who decided to use the bay as a winter anchorage after it was discovered by a Dutch East India ship in 1671. In 1768 the Cape colony transferred into British hands and Simon's Town became a naval base for the South Atlantic Squadron. The town was ceded to the Admiralty in 1895 and remained a British Territory until 1957 becoming an important base during the Second World War for repairing damaged ships. Today, on this grey Sunday lunchtime with the rain still gently falling, I felt very much at home walking along the main street lined with Victorian era buildings. As we looked for somewhere to eat lunch we walked past the Lord Nelson Inn; I could have been walking through an English seaside town. By the time we had finished lunch it was still raining, the low cloud obscuring the hills; we decided to return to Observatory and the Green Elephant.
The following morning I woke to find the weather had changed dramatically. The sky was clear and blue, the sun rising behind Devil's Peak, which towers over this part of city. Today would be my mountain climbing day. There are numerous trails leading up Table Mountain as well as a cable car. The most popular, and easiest, hiking trail up the mountain is through the Platteklip Gorge, a fissure in the vertical rock face a few hundred meters north of the cable car station. By the time I reached the start of the trail the morning was wearing on and with it the cloud was beginning to build. It's between a 600 - 700m vertical climb to reach the summit of this flat-topped mountain, which towers over the city below at almost 1,070m above sea level. The trail winds it's way up the flank of the mountain until it reaches the Platteklip Gorge, from where the trail leads steeply up through this ever-narrowing crack in the rock. It didn't take me long to reach the summit, I was still feeling very fit from my previous mountain treks. The trail lead towards the cable car station next to the mountain top restaurant and souvenir shop. The views were stunning and worth all the effort climbing up here. From this vantage point I had a 360' view looking east towards Cape Flats and False Bay; south along the spine of mountains stretching down to Cape Point; west overlooking Camps Bay, Clifton and the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean and north over the city centre and Table Bay. My ascent was timed to perfection. As I was in the restaurant having lunch and a cold beer, the cloud rolled in and the views disappeared. I hiked back down the Platteklip Gorge and took a bus back into the city, leaving the mountain shrouded in cloud.
I booked myself on a tour of the local vineyards, it seems that this tour is almost obligatory for any wine loving tourist arriving in the city. Frank also came along and the two of us were the eldest people on the tour and supposedly the most sensible. The tour took all day visiting three vineyards including a lunch stop at the second one. The wines we tasted were wonderful and plentiful. As well as consuming many different varieties of wine the tour also educated us on the production process involved, including the making of Champagne (sparkling white wine, for the purists). By the end of the tour we were singing along to Moby in the back of the minibus drinking a nice bottle of Pinotage, a grape variety I had encountered, and fallen in love with, for the first time in South Africa. By the time I stumbled back into the Green Elephant I was in a very unfit state and soon fell asleep.
The next morning I met another guest in the garden as I woke myself up with the first of many cups of tea that morning. I was sure I had met him somewhere before on my travels through Africa, so I asked. I was sort of right I had met him last night on my return from the wine tour and had apparently talked for almost an hour in a drunken stupor about how great South African wines were. I apologised.
After spending a day sobering up from the wine tour and trying to remember which were my favourite wines, I booked myself onto a tour of Robben Island, the former prison home of Nelson Mandela for 27 years. The next morning, another clear, calm and sunny day, I made my way down to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, a tourist development around the still working port, packed with shops, bars, restaurants and tourists. I was booked on the 10.00 ferry and tour of the island, which departed from Jetty 1 for the 13km sailing to the island. The catamaran took about twenty-five minutes to make the crossing. The views looking back towards Table Bay with the city nestled below Table Mountain and wisps of high cirrus cloud streaming across the blue sky were stunning. From out to sea I could really appreciate the setting of this beautiful city.
The previous day Robben Island had made the headlines in the national newspapers when the prison guides, the former prisoners, went on strike. According to the papers tourists were stunned to find that the guides had locked themselves into the cells and had gone on hunger strike. They were protesting about the management of the island, now a museum and the allegedly misappropriation of funds. I did not know when I arrived at the V & A Waterfront whether the tours were still continuing, luckily they were.
The island has been used for many purposes since white settlers first arrived at the Cape. At first the authorities used the island for convicts and later as a leper colony and a home for paupers, cripples and the mad. A military base was established on the island during the Second World War and remained there until 1960 when the military handed the island over to the Department of Prisons. The island then entered its most infamous period and became best known as the place where the prominent members of the ANC were imprisoned. Towards the end of 1996 the prisoners were removed from the island and the government approved plans to turn the island into a National Monument and National Museum. On the 1st December 1999 the island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Due to the islands isolation over the years it has also become a major wildlife site with over a hundred species of bird and a large breeding colony of Jackass Penguins.
As the passengers disembarked at the small harbour on the island we were divided into separate groups and assigned a former prisoner as a guide. Our group first took a bus tour of the island visiting the former leper colony, the small village on the island while being given a history of the events that took place on the island. We also stopped at the lime quarry and were told of the conditions endured by the prisoners as they were forced to work. We completed our circuit back at the prison and were taken inside. Our guide apologised because he felt weak, after beginning a hunger strike the day before. He did not have the enthusiasm for the job today and went through the paces without doing much talking. I felt rather disappointed by the end of the tour and didn't gain much of an insight into conditions and life at the prison.
Upon my return to the mainland I stopped for lunch at the V & A Waterfront and sat outside in the warm sunshine with a cold beer. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the Castle of Good Hope, the oldest colonial building in South Africa. Work started on the castle in 1666 by Commander Zacharias Wagenaer and took until 1679 to complete. The stonewalls of the castle are built in the shape of a pentagon, each being 150m long and 10m high. At each star point is a bastion named after the titles of the Prince of Orange who ruled Holland at the time, Buren, Catzenellenbogen, Nassau, Oranje and Leerdam. The entrance to the castle is between Leerdam and Buren bastions. The entrance originally faced the sea between Catzenellenbogen and Buren but was moved in 1684. I crossed the moat that surrounds the castle and walked through the entrance and into the garden court. Straddling across the centre of the castle compound is the Kat, built in 1691 when Van der Stel was made governor and served as the Governor's residence until British rule. Under British rule the castle served as government headquarters.
Today the Kat is home to two museums, the William Fehr Collection and the Secunde's House. I entered the William Fehr Collection through the impressive Thibault and Anreith pediment entrance. The collection reflects the social and political history of the cape with paintings by John Thomas Baines and William Huggins, Japanese porcelain and Indonesian furniture. I found the paintings the most interesting, showing scenes and landscapes of Cape Town during the 18th and 19th century. These paintings really brought to life the colonial history of this part of the world. On the first floor of the building is a huge hall with a dining table that can seat 104 people. The whole collection was by far the finest I had seen for a long time.
After six enjoyable days in Cape Town I decided to leave and begin my long journey north to the Namibian border. I booked myself on an Intercape bus to Springbok. The bus went all the way to Windhoek, the Namibian capital, but I decided that Springbok would make a good stop for the night, before continuing my journey on local transport to the border and my first destination in Namibia, Keetmanshoop. The journey north from Cape Town along the N7 was very comfortable, stopping frequently at service stations so that we may stretch our legs and buy refreshments. The further north we travelled the drier the landscape became until we reached the semi-arid region of Namaqualand, of which Springbok is the regional centre. The bus arrived in Springbok just after the sun had set, the low rocky hills glowing in the last rays of sun as the stars began to emerge in the clear deep blue sky. I walked to Annie's Cottage, which allegedly had backpacker accommodation at reasonable prices; it didn't. I finally ended up at another guesthouse, which too was full, but the elderly lady who ran the place gave me a key for a small apartment up the next street. I made myself at home before wandering into the town centre to a local diner for an evening meal. I found Springbok to be a very different town to all the others I had visited on my travels across this country. It had a frontier feel and definitely still felt like a mining town. The first European run copper mine was established just outside the town in 1852. Today the town is a major service centre for the surrounding copper and diamond mines.
I woke early the next morning. It was still dark. As the whole of South Africa is on the same time zone, the sun didn't rise until after 07.00. I dropped the apartment keys into the letterbox of the guesthouse as I walked out of town and back to the N7 to hitchhike to the Namibian border. From my enquiries the previous night I found that there was no local transport going north, only the Intercape bus I got off of last night. It took over an hour to walk back out on to the N7 at the northern junction to Springbok. There I stood waiting for a ride. Traffic on this road was very light; I could see down the road for almost two kilometres and quiet often there wasn't a single vehicle in sight. After an hour and a half, a pickup driven by three local black men pulled over and offered me a ride to Steinkopf for thirty rand, so that they could buy breakfast. After waiting so long I decided to pay for the ride and climbed into the back of the pickup. Steinkopf is only about 50km north of Springbok, but at least it would be a change of scenery and would get me on my way.
It didn't take long to reach Steinkopf and I was dropped at the main junction on the N7. A small group of men were standing here beside the highway trying to hitch north as well. I decided to start walking north, so as not to be in competition with them for the very few vehicles that had made it this far north. After a while I stopped and waited. Hardly any traffic passed along this road. Most of the vehicles were white owned 4WD returning from Namibia at the end of the South African school holidays and were travelling south. After twenty minutes the second pickup travelling north pulled over. It was driven by a white mine worker and was going to the border town of Vioolsdrif. I climbed into the back and watched the desert landscape streak past, a preview of what I would find in Namibia. 75kms later I was dropped at the South African border post next to the Orange river, my journey across South Africa at an end and a new journey in a new country about to begin.
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