If one would think after Etosha we had seen enough wild animals for a while, think again. Our itinerary in South Africa includes a lot more. Wide views, canyons, savannah and steppe would keep us busy the first week.
Just as we did in Windhoek the last day, also our first days in Johannesburg (commonly abbreviated to Jo’burg) we spent relaxed. We found a small backpackers hostel with free airport shuttle service called Ghandi’s backpackers. Nowhere near any tourist hubbub we know of, it was perfect for our needs: quiet, not many guest, a lovely garden, sun in our faces from sun up to sun down, old but well kept town house – with wooden flooring - converted into bedrooms, and a garden shed converted into the most laid-back bar I’ve seen so far. Not many customers (not many residential guests neither), but one well-stocked bar and pool table.
And just as in Windhoek, we haven’t seen anything in the major city of the country. We just took our sweet time preparing for our next adventure and enjoyed some self-made meals.
On Monday morning we picked up our rental car to drive to Cape Town. After some issues, we got an upgrade from a Toyota RAV4 over a Nissan X-Trail (we drove that one already in Namibia and these had way too many mileage already) to finally being sent away with a brand-new Toyota Fortuner. After picking up some groceries and a camping gas cartridge, we continued our journey towards Blyde River Canyon over the freeways. Although on first sight maintenance is done by collecting toll, probably also a lot of money is being made with speed controls. On 150 km highway I noticed no less than 10 fixed or temporary speed controls. Once off the freeway, the controls also stops very suddenly. I wonder…
According to the tourist information, a big part of the road from Jo’burg to Blyde River Canyon is via the Panorama-route. Lots of pano’s indeed, but as a country I wouldn’t be too proud on it. The hills are pockmarked with the scars of wood-felling. And although you can see the gigantic plantations with new or even mature trees, it’s obvious everywhere that the green rolling hills are actually just economic profit and nowhere close to the abundance of fauna and flora a real forest would have. Major disappointment.
Our mood lifted again once we arrived at the Three Rondavels lookout at the canyon itself. The God’s Window lookout wasn’t worth it (still pockmarked landscape), but this one was. Oef! Let the pictures speak for themselves!
Further on we drove again to the other side of the canyon to our lodging and diner for the night: the very adeptly named Blyde River Canyon lodge. After a warm welcome, we checked in to our surprisingly small luxurious room and changed for diner.
We contemplated going back to the canyon to visit the Bourk’s Lucky Potholes viewpoint a bit. But the extra driving hours, the overflow of tourist buses we saw already passing there earlier on our way to the Three Rondavels and the prospect of being able to sleep in a tad longer before driving long days in Kruger made the decision for us…
Late (08:30 AM) breakfast and entering Kruger via the more northernly located Phalaborwa-gate it was! And so our second safari-experience started! Wiiiiiiiiiii (that’s Véro interrupting my thought and writing process).
