19th May 2013

1^st May 2013   

Well here we are again.  Still in South Africa! and still trying to leave  but ‘They’ won’t let us!

After we left Annie’s place we drove down to Mossel Bay and had quite a surprise as we came across a railway yard that was crammed full of the rolling stock from the railway that I wrote about in the last blog.

This will be a special ‘blog’ bulletin and I really would like to make time and write about that, with lots of pictures.First, I must continue with our travels. We drove up to an area of South Africa known as the Little Karoo. It is a really interesting and picturesque part of the world.

What are you lookin at ?

Having driven up through the mountains, we eventually found ourselves passing the Ostrich farms for which the area is famous and then went to stay at a campsite of sorts. It was an odd and quite idiosyncratic place, run by a German woman who has set up as a so called eco-lodge, which is made largely of bamboo structures set out on stepped ledges. All the guests were also from Germany so we found ourselves in abit of a transient German speaking colony.

We moved on through the Karoo and found more abandoned railway, which eventually ended in Calitzdorp Station which is now a campsite!  We drove there and it looked so good but it was closed and deserted.    

The station was completely intact but for the drawing pin!

I was quite disappointed but we continued on to Warmwaterburg stopping for a short time at Ronnies Sex Shop. Warmwaterburg had been recommended to us as it has a hot spring bath. Wow! Never done anything like that before.  The location was stunning surrounded by mountains and wonderful semi desert .You just sit up to your neck in hot water and take it all in.There is hot water in every tap and interestingly even the toilet systern are filled with warm water which is a bit weird. Also it appears that the water is fairly heavily laden with iron as nearly everything looks rusty.We spent a happy couple of days in this happy well run place. The water I think was once thought to cure everything but now it it is a very pleasant experience.

Once we left  Warmwaterburg we drove on ad during the course of the day I became aware of a smell that was pervading the van. It was familiar but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was however definitely there.Then it came to me, it was the same smell as comes from the angle grinder when cutting iron and steel. I was really worried as there were no awful sounds coming from the van but it stank of iron oxide. It was after an hour or so worrying that I realised that we both stank of rust as we had been soaking in the spa bath for a couple of days, this was mixed blessing as we now could relax about the source of the smell but we really couldn’t carry on all day stinking of scrap iron.

Oh by the way, Ronnies Sex Shop deserves a better description. It is quite famous locally . Locally requires liberal interpretation as it is really in the middle of the desert.

The best chips ever are to be had here!

It is actually a rather quirky café. The story goes that the building called Ronnie’s shop was being renovated  and some bright spark added the word sex to the name Ronnie’s Shop while it stood empty.  Far from being outraged Ronnie decided to leave it be; now it is a regular haunt for bikers as well as tourists.  The place itself is adorned with underwears and other souvenirs donated by customers. It also serves up really quite good food. The chips are really the best I have had since Burrows fish shop in East Acton closed down.

So there you have it.

Puncture number 11 . Repair supervised by Fritz the Rotweiller

It was around this time that we found puncture #11. Not only was the tyre flat but on closer examination I found that it had worn bald in one place, this meant that the tyre was breaking up from the inside. This the 3^rd one to really break up. Fury does not describe how I feel about Vass and Co in Bedfordshire who flogged me a dud set of tyres knowing what type of journey we were embarking on!

We had been invited by our new friends Ken and Betty Moore who we met in Swaziland, to visit them at home when we got to their town.

I resisted phoning them to make an arrangement as we have found that time estimates are really impossible. So I said let’s be sure that we are in an easy distance and then phone.  I spoke to Betty from a place called Gansbaai  to be told by a quite puzzled Betty that Gansbaai is only about half an hour away!

So we took a drive down and went to visit. We spent a couple of days staying with them in the lovely town of Hermanus. Ken and Betty are wonderful hosts and incredibly knowledgeable about their area. They looked after us really well and ensured that we had a very pleasant and interesting time. We had difficulty explaining that we would like to have stayed longer but by now we really have to get going.

Dinner and such hospitality

Ken and Betty being very generous hosts, took us to a very significant place. They took us to Cape L'Agulhas, which is the most southerly point of Africa.

This is as far South as we were going today

We had for various reasons driven away from here  but it really does herald the halfway mark of our travels. Ken explained that the Portuguese name describes how Vasco Da Gama‘s compass had apparently gone crazy and led them astray when in fact all it did was indicate that they were no longer travelling South but were now going East.

Ken works running whale watching boat tours and what he doesn’t know about marine life in the area is probably not worth knowing. And although this is not the whale season we still learnt a lot from him.

Ken Moore Whale man extraordiaire

TYRES!

I really had to do something about tyres but found to my horror that replacing the tyres like for like for those already on the van would be prohibitively expensive.

Ken introduced me to a dealer who was able to advise on alternatives. I am afraid that I fudged the issue and decided to continue before making a decision.

8^th May2013 - So we set off to Cape Town.  Ken advised us that if we wanted to meet some African Penguins we should go to a place called Betty’s Bay. Apparently in the famous location near Cape Town there is   a proportion of 250 tourists watching about 8 penguins whereas at Betty’s Bay this proportion was reversed . Actually we had such an interesting time almost the only people gazing at hundreds of nesting penguins as well as lots of chicks it was in a lovely location too. Really great.

P  P  P Pick up a  Kit Kat

That evening we arrived in a seaside town with the unlikely name of Fishhoek, just outside Cape Town .There was a campsite there. It was run by the local council and we were greeted by a security guard who told us that the office is closed.  He was clearly in charge of a boom gate so I said (quite reasonably, I felt), ‘no problem, let us in and we can pay in the morning’.

‘Nope you have to have proof that you have paid before I can let you in’ he said.

‘But I don’t have proof because I haven’t paid yet’.

‘Then you can’t come in’. 

We to,d and fro,d like this for a while.

He then said, ‘ring the number on the gate ‘

I said, ‘It’s an answering machine’

‘Yes, that because the office is closed ‘ he said.

Eventually, I said ‘Ok, no problem, we can camp here in the car park’.

‘No you can’t do that’

‘Yes I can and I will’  ‘

‘No you won’t’ 

Yes I will etc etc .

Camping outside an empty campsite

I then tried to move things on a bit by saying. ‘What would you do?  Either I am allowed to go into this official campsite which is almost empty or I park outside in the car park’. This went on for a while so we decided to set up camp outside the entrance. He got his supervisor on the phone and I had a similar conversation which ended with ‘I will be with you in a few minutes’.

The supervisor never showed up and in the meantime we each went into the campsite and had a lovely hot shower, undetected. Ping cooked us a lovely dinner and then we went to sleep.  Woke up the next morning had breakfast and packed up and left. What a daft set up but not as daft as what happened a bit later! 

We set off for a trip up Table Mountain, and drove up to a toll road that had a height restriction boom. We drove under it and it just touched the roof of the van. The man would not let us go through. I said ok but what other route is there. The guy was evidently baffled by this question, so we were left to work it out for ourselves. 

That was silly enough until at the end of the day we were driving out of the City and took a route that took us along a particularly nice drive along the coast. Once again we found that it was a toll road. We had a row with the person in the booth who refused to accept that the van is a camper and not a commercial truck. I quickly got into a rather pointless and upsetting nose to nose conflict with her. Her supervisor refused to leave the office to deal with it. The result was I paid the much higher rate after about 20 minutes of nonsense.

The roadway is carved into the cliff  I guess it must be the same heights both ways.

We drove along the scenic and beautiful road which was carved into the cliff face.  I did start to wonder about the height of the rocks above our head but we continued. Then blow me - a man popped out in front of us and demanded to see our receipt for the toll. Of course in the short time the receipt had gone AWOL. I was not surprisingly getting a little bit irritated. Eventually the ticket was found and we pressed on, rounded a corner and found ourselves driving up, from the other side this time to the boom we had not been allowed to pass earlier. There was no indication at the toll booth that there was any kind of height restriction. Apparently it only applies in one direction.

What is important is that we had a really great day up the Table Mountain celebrating Ping’s birthday. ‘Best birthday ever’ she said. The cable car ride up the mountain was thrilling and it was absolutely lovely at the top, magnificent views and very good walking trails, making it truly one of the new wonders of the world.

On top of Table Mountain that's me on the right

TYRES! 
Now, I was still worried about the bloody tyres so again I went to a reputable tyre company, and had a long and very helpful consultation with Gavin who clearly knows his stuff. He first of all looked at our tyres and without prompting he was able to read the date code and told us that the tyres were over 12 years old and really shouldn’t be used. This was before I had told him all our tales of tyre woe. He again enquired about replacing like with like. They were again hideously expensive and would take several days to arrive. He also said that he felt that the design is really rather dated and gave us a quote for a set of better tyres. We were sufficiently impressed by his knowledge and agreed to spend a stonking amount of money on a new set. Once they were fitted, I felt an immediate sense of relief. Once again having added Gavin to our list of nice new friends, we drove away.

The cape of Good Hope with Ant Helen and Ping  That's me on the right

This really is the Cape

The next day we met up with some friends whom we had met at The Wild Spirit Lodge.  We spent a wonderful day with Helen and Ant, visiting the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. In fact, we had such a good time that we ended up leaving the National Park rather late, and got shouted at by the park security officer who threatened us with a 1000 Rand fine!

BLOODY TYRES!

Having made our apologies to the man at the gate of the National Park, we headed back to Cape Town on the motorway. After driving for about an hour and almost exactly 24hours after our new tyres were fitted we had a double blowout! The first one we changed the wheel in the dark, on the motorway and very, very ticked off, we drove on. Ten minutes later the second one burst. And I now no longer had a spare to use and serious sense of humour failure! 
As might be imagined, we were pretty cheesed off. I called the AA (South Africa).I explained that a clause in my insurance gave us breakdown cover. The operator was very helpful and clearly identified with our special circumstances.(ie we live in the van). 

Unfortunately he put me without my knowledge on a conference call with the insurance company. I was on a conference call to a woman, who in my opinion was unusually unsuited to deal with the public on the phone. She insisted that “we are not covered for breakdown”. …but then went on to a rather bizarre tac  that a double puncture was classed as an accident and therefore she was only able to have us towed to a garage which is not bad as she reckons we are not covered at all.

I was on the phone for about 40 minutes and getting pretty irate while the helpful man at the AA managed to elicit that as I am a member in the UK and on that basis agreed to send us a garage and covered the cost. It was cold and dark and I was unhappy. I decided that I would see if I could remove the tyre and put in a new tube. I have watched enough people doing this after all and I did have everything that was needed to do the job.

JP and me struggling with the repaired wheel

Had just got the tyre off when the garage arrived. JP, for that was his name said that he would only be able to tow us,  but he then started to help me to fix the tyre. He explained that he hadn’t done this before either, but his help was invaluable and between us we got it done. In all, we were at the roadside for about 3 hours. Ping rustled up dinner and tea for everyone in the meantime.We returned to the campsite at 1am, having woken the security man to open the gate.

The next day was Sunday,so we could not go to the tyre shop, instead we put our feet up and had a much needed rest.

A nice Braai on our day off actually we had T bone steak that could not be beaten

On Monday, we went to see Gavin.  To his credit he was horrified to hear about this.  However, this didn’t stop Ping giving him what for!  Any how I eventually managed to pull her off him.  She was drooling a bit and had a very unpleasant gleam in her eye!

On examination it was found that the tubes were defective they had split along their length which should not happen. Gavin suddenly turned his attention to the realisation that he has a contract to fix ‘Cash in transit’ vans and that a number of tubes from this batch had been used for them. He had to arrange for all their vans to be recalled. It further emerged that this whole thing was probably caused by some kind of fraud  where the tubes had somehow been substituted.

Ripped inner tubes

While the tyres were being changed it was discovered that the drive shaft covers were split and need to be replaced. So that was our job for the next day. Not too bad,  as I have a complete set  which we brought with us.

We went to a specialist shop who set about the job and then said that the spares I had would not fit. Ahwell!  They had others and did the job in just one hour. So the next day we set of on our final leg in South Africa .  I am sorry to say that by now we are really both feeling the strain a bit. Having had one disaster too many. Not sure how we will respond to more problems. But we pressed on!

As we do press on we stopped at yet another local authority campsite and our 'neighbour' has come up to us and by way of introduction, he presented us with two huge (the size of small lobsters) crayfish, freshly cooked. It was such a lovely gesture and good eating too!

Tomorrow 

So Let's round up a bit.

As I write we have just had lunch in a café quite a long way from anywhere. It was an odd experience helped a long by a particularly humourless lady. The food was an all day breakfast and  it was ok but really nothing great. However the caff itself was an experience .

It was a café, O.K. it was also a wool shop and clearly stocked anything and everything needed for knitting. It was also a temple to Kittens!  All around were huge murals and tapestries depicting kittens in all their cuteness. They sell jig saws and lots of other things including all manner of pretty souvenirs. Bibles were there too and a background of New age music. A huge  TV screen  showing a boxing match in every gory detail. An idiosynchratic array!

South Africa has,  you may realise has really captured our attention. It is a really surprising place. It was very difficult to come here without some preconceived images based on past politics.

Our first experience was of course The Shoestrings Lodge in Johannesburg where we had a warm welcome and now we have new and firm friends.

Tabitha ad Ping at the Shoestring

The Kruger was such an extraordinary experience not easily put aside.

But the country and the people has been an education. This is a place where political correctness has no real place. Where  people express their views frankly when asked without fear of offence. The level of expressed mutual respect among the people we have met, is striking.

Nobel prize winners

If you walk through any of the numerous shopping malls  you will see people of all classes and colours  going about their business with noticeable humour It is quite normal that any kind of contact is accompanied by a greeting, people rarely walk past another without some acknowledgment or greeting.

It is not appropriate for me to comment on deeper issues and I have no place to criticise. So I don’t . One might feel that my viewpoint is naïve and it really is taken from the standpoint of a wide eyed visitor. What I find is that there are still wide ranging views of how things should be and indeed how they might have been. It is interesting that almost everyone I have met speaks in terms of great respect about Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk and Archbishop Tutu. So something has been got right. It is also interesting that nearly everyone I have spoken to black and white has said that the same things need to change in order for the country to move happily forward.

• Stop once and for all political patronage and corruption
• End positive action
• Take drastic steps to reduce the levels of criminal violence and the fear of same.

There are nevertheless all kinds of other issues including grinding poverty still in some quarters, that need to be addressed but these are fundamental and are stifling growth and development.

I have addressed these matters here only because they are impossible to ignore I have no intention to make further political comment. I may do that in private and when I feel qualified to do so. I do however genuinely feel that this country has a huge amount to shout about and to teach the world. I am unsure if many South Africans realise that yet.

Now onto the important stuff. It is with great relief that I find that along with ‘political correctness ‘ The wholemeal police ‘have not yet landed on these shores, Hooray!  There seems to be a Wimpy on every corner and a ‘Milky Lane’ in every mall, lovely milkshakes and ice cream!  The very first bowl of Kellogs I had in South Africa had full fat milk in it. It was a  gorgeous surprise. If you go to a supermarket and ask for wholemeal bread someone will quietly take you aside and suggest you might alter your  expectations a bit and please keep your voice down. We had one difficult situation when Ping went up to the bakery counter and asked for a granary loaf!Concerned for the reputation of the store someone called security and it took me some time to persuade them that it was all a horrid misunderstanding and that 4 loaves of the white stuff that sticks to the roof of your mouth is what we really wanted. This seemed to satisfy honour. 

Nice Food

Apparently , we learned later there are certain shops , if you know where to go where they do keep  a few loaves of wholemeal under the counter for ‘special’ customers.(The editor has allowed for this small piece of imagination, as she's been able to locate delicious, seeded wholemeal bread and 2%fat milk which Noel has had to accept)

As overland travellers it is always difficult to deal with the inevitable question ‘Which is the best country you have been to. This is because we are travelling for its own sake and all our experiences are part of that patch work.

Having said all that,  our time in South Africa has been far longer than we ever intended. We have had experiences that we could only ever imagine. We have met kindness friendliness and respect at all levels. We have met with old friends  Most importantly we have made new friends that we shall always remember.

Friendly doves

As I write this I am sitting in the glow of the braai (BBQ) as the sun sets and it is like something out of one of those old Disney films. There are two pairs of doves mooching around my feet having their dinner, completely undeterred  by my presence, a small flock of brightly coloured finches have landed a few feet away. You really couldn’t make this up - a mongoose has just stepped into view clearly looking for food. Two huge shiny black beetles are passing through.  A couple of bright yellow birds are circling close by.  Stone me  the neighbour's jack Russell is now sitting on my foot staring balefully at me.

Do you think I should buy a gun?  I feel like a cross between Snow White and the Pied Piper!

Anyway It is time to get up close and personal :

Ken + Betty thank you for your hospitality and for you patience and fortitude in dealing with our inadequacies as tourists

Sheryl + Gary thank you for your generosity and good humour  we very much enjoyed staying with you.
Susan, thanks for introducing us to Sheryl and Gary

Rob, Thabitha and Jackie at The Gstrings ,+ backstabbers  Shoestrings Backpackers Lodge. We are coming to take over !

Have you met Rob?

We have just arrived in Namibia - not sure about access to wifi, but we are feeling very cut off form home. Please, please keep the emails coming!

Love
Ping and Noel

pingbow54@gmail.com
noelbow51@gmail.com