Drove around the reserve, some roads ok but most , challenging off road. Visited a couple of dams and view points. Some imported game around. Lots of bird noise. Couldn’t get hot water. Ribs and salad for dinner. No network signals or WiFi hence no blog. Had an hour of rain. Hot by day but pleasantly cool at night.
Up at 6.30 and left for Midrand to pick up camper. Usual speel on the use , lots to take in as we haven’t hired this lone before. We always forget something important. On the road at 10.30 heading for 1st night stop at Waterberg Wilderness reserve. Awful off road to campsite. Wilderness sums it up , very peaceful,we the only ones there . Chicken and salad. 1485 m elevation. Warm but coolish at night
Shopping for the trip at Woolworths after breakfast. Light lunch and met Cheryl’s mother. Chilling then off to Gregory’s for BBQ. Trip around his gated housing estate including golf course
Second day with C&J in Boksburg. Went for a walk first thing around the estates. Jeff needed to collect his computer and a chair so went on tour with him. Chilled in afternoon. Went to Richard’s in evening for a BBQ and visited his new CBD oil manufacturing facility.
Flight arrived 20 minutes early at Joburg. Very pleasant smooth flight. Dozed a bit.
Jeff and Cheryl met us at airport and took us back to their lovely new home in Boksburg.
Spent the day catching up. Dozed a bit pm. Sunny and 30 degs. Great.
Curry tonight
Left Exeter on the 9.10 National Express coach for Heathrow Airport and arrived at 1pm with five and a half hours to kill before our 18.30 flight to Joburg.
Flight left a little late. Seats 65 A & B on Airbus A380. Chicken breast and Chile red wine for dinner.
Leaving UK on the 14th February
A day by day blog of our road trip from Johannesburg to Vic Falls and back travelling through South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
A year later Covid struck the World and travelling was a No No
We travelled to Europe only when all was clear
Left Kei at about 9am to go to East London airport, dropped off the car, flight on time and arrived Jo’burg airport at 1.30. Couldn’t check in until 4pm. Put our luggage in storage and went across the road (20 meters) to the Intercontinental Hotel and had lunch on the terrace.
Checked-in and went to the lounge to update blog.
Took a little drive around Kei, had a cuppa at Yellowwood , a very interesting campsite and coffee house. Walked the beach at Morgan’s Bay and had lunch on the Deck, part of the hotel. Last day with Jeff and Cheryl. Great stay.
Took a trip via the ferry across the river and took the gravel road cross country through the spread out villages of the Transkei. Had lunch at Trennery’s a small hotel on the coast, very pleasant. Went for a drink at the Bush Pig pub before dinner.
Chilled most of the morning, Irene and Cheryl shopped a little and I helped Jeff with a little gate problem. Jeff suggested we take the two canoes down to the river, the tide was coming in so we started at the mouth and canoed upstream towards the ferry. It was a lot more windy than expected and Irene struggled to get to the other side as the wind kept blowing her to the shore. Made it eventually. Brai in the evening with four other local friends of Jeff & Cheryl.
Left Hout Bay at 8am to Cape Town airport for our flight to East London and on to Kei Mouth up the Wild Coast to visit Jeff & Cheryl. Another smallish 40 seater jet and this time we were charged for 3 kilos excess baggage. Bit of a cheek as there was only 16 or so passengers on board.
Picked up the hire car and went to Woolies to do a little shopping for Cheryl and arrived at Kei about 2pm. Chilled the rest of the day
Went into CT via our favourite shop Weylandts and drooled over some of the furniture etc. Bought a couple of packable nick knacks.
Spent a few hours at the new Silo Musuem on six floors of the old grain silos converted to a fab hotel and contemporary gallery.
Went to a local Italien Resto in the evening that served a great gluten free pizza, Irene really chuffed, the first pizza she has had for ages
Woke to a beautiful view over Hout Bay. Today we met Dave and Renate. They came here for coffee then we took a trip to the weekend market at the end of the bay. We remembered more stalls last visit two years ago, today there were more food stalls. People seem to go for breakfast or lunch. Quite eclectic. We wondered for about an hour then took the car nearer our lunch venue. We first took a look at stalls along the Quay side. We were early for our table, but it didn’t matter they were ready for us. Brendon our waiter from a previous visit had prepared all the staff for us, we felt like celebs! Great lunch of fish, Rock shandies and a bottle of red. We got back to the apartment about 3.30/4pm and have soaked up the sun on our balcony and read books for the rest of the afternoon. A very pleasant day.