The Multistrada is tucked up safely in a cocoon in England and I’m in South Africa. Been here about 2 weeks so afraid I’ve been a bit remiss not reporting before. Staying in a hired house with South African friends in a place called St Francis Bay, near Port Elizabeth. Spent the time fishing, riding e-bikes, eating, drinking and swapping stories. Now finally beginning to chill out. The sun has been shining and I’ve needed sun tan lotion, which I didn’t need in England, suffice to say. Today I rode 30k on an e-bike with my mates wives while my Mrs went fishing with them! How does that happen? She’s suddenly gone mad for fishing and is pretty good at it. I’ve ridden the e-bike pretty much every day and as a result I feel great, I’m going to buy one asap when I’m back. Tomorrow I’ll do another 25k, it’s not really that much but it’s enough to get you fit. St Francis has a small canal system with thatched houses built alongside. A few years ago a fire took out a swathe of properties and now due to risk and insurance many are being converted to tiled roofs which is a shame. Nonetheless it’s a beautiful place and as our SA friends brought boats and e-bikes it’s absolutely made it. Not only that, they’re fantastic cooks too. This morning we had Mullet for breakfast, caught last night, cooked with just salt, pepper and flour and it was fab-u-lous darling! I’ll post more in the coming days but here’s a start. Doh, having trouble uploading pics from here.
It’s on the Kromme River just as it meets the sea. Caught sharks, Rays, plenty of Mullet and a couple of Grunter.
Really hope it doesn’t go down the tubes, it’s a fabulous country. There are power cuts every 2-4hrs, for 2-4hrs. I think it’s accross the whole country but different areas at different times, spreading the load. Basically the whole country has power 50% of the time.
Drove from St Francis to Addo Elephant Park. Apparently it’s the 3rd biggest game reserve in South Africa. We’re staying in a hotel/private game reserve right next to it, which worked out well because it meant we could see far more differing species of animals. Seen Buffalo, Kudu, Impala, Oryx, Springboks, Baboons, Giraffes, Warthog’s, Gemsbok, Elephants various others that I’ve already forgotten and a chuffing great big Dung Beetle which stank. I wonder why. It’s now absolutely pissing down with rain like you used to see in old B movies, where the rain comes across almost in waves. Doubtless it’ll be dry as a bone in an hour. Apparently Kruger game park is flooded so we’ve canned that idea. Plan is to spend a couple of days driving around Lesotho to The Drakensberg Mountains, been wanting to go there for years. I’m getting to like this retirement lark. I’ve got a full on year planned and if anything else crops up and I can fit it in I’m going to do it. More trouble loading pics.
E-biking with South African friends. Even the Mrs did it, which was great. I didn’t think she would. Couldn’t believe how close we could get Seems like a nice fella. Decided not to get on the wrong side of him It’s a big, big, country.
Jeez, looks like I picked the right time to be out of the country. For a start, the weather’s better here !
The drive from Addo. As the road around Lesotho is now apparently impassable because of potholes and lack of maintenance we had to go from Addo through Bloemfontein and Bethlehem stopping over for a night in Aliwal North. It was a shame because the Lesotho route looked interesting whereas the longer route was long straight roads and very boring. So boring I was glad not to be doing it on a motorbike. The overnight stop in Aliwal North was, shall we say ‘interesting’. It was built by a Scotsman in 1908 in the style of a Scottish Castle and his ancestors had done almost nothing to it since. It was a proper spooky period piece with high ornate ceilings. All the furniture was imported from Scotland in 1908 and everything creaked including the old brass bed complete with blankets…from 1908. When we went to bed I kid you not there was a Bat flying around the room, totally silently and not a small one either! There was an adjoining room so I went in and turned on a torch which I’d bought because of the blackouts. In flew Dracula whereupon I quickly went back into the bedroom and shut and locked the door. Check the lock, check the lock! Fortunately I’d eaten lots of garlic on my Pizza at the local Pizzeria. There were no other guests and the lady of the house inexplicably never appeared the whole time we were there, strange. The internet was also from 1908 therefore didn’t work. We survived until the morning but decided against using the tired old cast iron bath with claw feet and tried the shower instead. I turned on the hot water tap and…and...nothing came out. No clanking of pipes just, oooh look, three drops of water! Much hilarity, you can’t make this stuff up. It was a very quick cold shower. At breakfast we should have sat at each end of the very long table but we didn’t, we huddled in the middle. To top it off suddenly the Mrs squawked at me as a drop of blood had run down from the bridge to the end of my nose. I went back to the bathroom, washed it off and there was no scratch, no cut, no apparent source of the blood on my nose. I can’t explain it, I honestly can’t but I don’t appear to have developed a fear of sunlight. It was an event, it was very weird. We are now in the Drakensberg mountains.
Been about 17 years since I last visited South Africa, 6 work trips to the Jo’burg area over 4-5 years, absolutely loved the place, pics are great
Sarah, the 'berg. Loved the place. Spent a lot of time hiking around the place. The idea was to to eventually hike it from one end to the other (over a number of years of course...). Never did that, but still did a substantial part of it. Enjoy and take care. BTW. If you want some books with excellent pictures of the Drakensberg, lok for two by R O Pearse. 'A barrier of spears' and 'A camera in Quathlamba'. Well worth looking at.
Spent a few days at The Cavern in The Drakensberg mountains. Beautiful scenery, mountain walks every day and I even got the Mrs on a horse. Didn’t think she’d do it but there were no complaints. We’ve had lovely weather during the day but at night we’ve had Biblical rain and massive thunderstorms. More ‘thunder and lightning very very frightening’ than ‘Riders on the Storm’. Although there was plenty of rolling thunder there were mahousive cracks which shook the whole building. I was glad of the enormous lightning conductor pointing skyward from the hotel. The buildings are all thatched, don’t even think about the consequences. The rain was the type of unbelievable almost egg sized droplets that instantly turned the ground into a swimming pool. You just knew if you ventured out you’d be drier if you jumped into a washing machine, turned it on and slammed the door behind you. Every day on the walks we got to drink fresh water from the streams. It was delicious, smooth, soft and of course no chlorine. On one of the walks the guide brought along a couple of dogs. As we went past a small reservoir the dogs darted into some reeds and were rustling around and out shot a baby crocodile! The dogs knew it was there but we certainly didn’t. It bounced off the French girls legs who was in front of us, shot between the Mrs’s legs and flew over my toes as I jumped backwards. It was fast, very fast. Like a flash it launched itself into the air and down into the water never to be seen again. I had time to shout ‘Jeeez’ and it was gone. The dogs had sniffed it out, scared it out of its wits and in turn it had scared us out of ours. Our guide turned to us and in a very relaxed way explained it was in fact a Water Monitor, a very large type of Lizard. It was probably about 1.5 metres long, strong, fast and very solid. You could sense the weight of it through the ground as it shot past. It moved like a crocodile and at that speed it looked like a crocodile. I’m in Africa, first thought; ‘Fuck me it’s a crocodile!!!’ It was certainly snappy and I always thought a Water Monitor was someone holding a big jug at school dinners. What do I know? Why were they called school dinners anyway, not school lunch? Another thing I dunno. Pictures later. Cattle sheep and goats all in one herd. Approach to Drakensberg
Today we’re going to The Spion Kop, or Spioenkop in Afrikaans. It’s an hour or so from where we are. The Battle of Spion Kop was fought about 38 km west-south-west of Ladysmith on the hilltop of Spioenkop along the Tugela River, from 23–24 January 1900. In what the British have always referred to as The Boer War. They were trying to relieve the besieged Ladysmith, which they did at the 4th attempt a month later. Spioenkop literaly translated means Spy Hill, or Lookout Hill. It was a debacle and almost 300 men of of the Lancashire Regiment lost their lives. Most of them from Liverpool. Personally I have a real loathing for the ineptitude of the British command. Although it was the first time the British Army had faced Guerrilla warfare, a tactic which the Boers used very effectively. Most of them being farmers they were also excellent marksmen. Of course we now have the benefit of hindsight but I feel the British command should have adapted faster and had more regard for the lives of the rank and file. It was the same in the 1st World War. As I understand it Guerrilla means little wars. The Lancashire’s were sent up the hill at night. They took it and the Boers lost 8 men and withdrew. Equipped with only 20 shovels they attempted to dig in. However they could only dig a trench 400mm deep because of the rock. Daybreak revealed the Boers occupied the two higher adjacent hills. Not only that, they could fire down the length of the trench. It was a massacre. The British were forced to withdraw. In 1906 when Liverpool football club built a new stand, Ernest Edwards the sports editor of the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo came up with the tribute name for the many Scousers who had lost their lives 6 years before. The steep nature was said to resemble the hill near Ladysmith, South Africa. Thus probably the most famous stand in football has been known ever since as the Spion Kop. Or just ‘The Kop’. Even if you don’t like football, it’s interesting.
Stunning country we did the garden route a few years back . Get yourself to Nysna if you haven’t already. Beautiful and reminded me of a very warm Cornwall. Enjoy!
Greetings from Margate. We’re in Margate and it’s bloody awful. What did I expect? The weather’s grim and there’s a place called Ramsgate just down the road. Everyone has high walls around their houses and electric fences on the top of the walls. We’re getting up early and getting out of here. The trip to Spion Kop was interesting. However some of the information I’d read beforehand turned out to be inaccurate. Spion Kop is actually the highest hill, a great vantage point over an enormous area. Nowonder both sides wanted it. The two hills either side are slightly lower. I’m glad I went because I could see clearly what happened. The British took the hill without too much problem or casualties but holding it was the real problem. The Boers could see the British position at the top and just shelled and shot from two sides. Simples. Someone… should have thought that through before sending men up there and dealt with the other hills and the armour stationed there at the same time. They were sitting ducks. There were men from various regiments but the largest number was the Lancashire’s. The British dead and injured seems to vary, the truth being the first casualty of war. 230-330 dead and 1000 to 1500 injured British. Against 58 Boer deaths. 140 wounded. Apparently Churchill was there as a non combatant news reporter and Ghandi was also on the hill as a non combatant stretcher bearer, amazing. As we know, both survived. Enough of that. Wifi is non existent here, I’m loading this off a South African Sim, so I’ll load photos when I get a decent Wifi connection. We drove down towards Durban via a very scenic route called ‘The midlands Meander’. Although there were plenty of huge potholes in the road, big enough to lose your front wheel in. We saw a 4 x 4 at the side of the road with a completely wrecked wheel. I kept my eyes on the road and drove at a speed that allowed me to manoeuvre around them. Once back on the dual carriageway again there was only the odd pothole but again some were biiiiig and deep. Avoid. Margate South Africa, also avoid. It’s now 8am,we’re well in our way.
I lived in SA for 27 years so know it pretty well, really enjoying your stories as you travel , brings back a lot of memories. I spent 2 weeks in the Western Cape in January 2023, what a fantastic place, made me want to return soon and retire there (seeing as I can no longer retire in Europe due to Brexit).
