Aug 2004

A days drive south saw us at Fish River Canyon, Africa's answer to the Grand Canyon. The local guides will tell you that it's the biggest canyon in the world, but I distinctly remember being told the same thing at the Colca Canyon in Peru. Either way, it's pretty impressive and we spent quite a few hours there polishing off a few previously-acquired beers.

The next day we crossed the border into South Africa at Orange River and headed for Stellenbosch in the South African wine region. And seeing as no trip to a wine region would be complete without a wine tour (and because it would be a dreadful waste of a shuttle bus with complimentary designated driver), we took a wine tasting tour around a few vineyards in the Stellenbosch region. The heat and the superfluity of wine had us appropriately sozzled by one o'clock in the afternoon and the below picture proves that there really were goats up a tower!!

Goats up a tower!!

That night we watched the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics on a bigscreen TV at a local pub. I missed the entrance of the Aussies and had to settle for cheering for the Poms. Another one for the note-to-self files: It's not a good idea to fill your camelback with wine, no matter how convenient it might be at the time.

After a spot of whale-watching in Hermanus, we finally drove into Cape Town where Table Mountain truly is the most dominant part of the landscape. We took a cable-car to the top of the mountain and overlooked Cape Town and over to Robben Island.

Table Mountain

There are some incredibly new and shiny parts of Cape Town, but there are also some historically dark and dirty parts. We took a day trip out to Robben Island, the ex-prison island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated, and it was really humbling to be able to go into the cell where Mandela spent so many years of his life.

Robben Island Prison

Overall, Africa was a brilliant country to visit with enough variety to keep things interesting. I was worried initially that I might be bored or overloaded by looking at so much scenery, but there was certainly enough culture and adventure to make me want to go back.

After leaving Botswana by (dodgy) ferry again, we entered Namibia and arrived in the town of Rundu late in the afternoon. After stocking up on new blankets for the still-to-come cold part of our trip, we headed into town to find a pub to celebrate my 26th birthday and the settlement of Hillary's first home. About 20 of us went to town and met another ten locals and had a cracking night, despite the DJs inability to play 'It's yo Birthday' by Fifty Cent and despite the theft of a lot of our belongings by some opportunistic locals. Another one for the note-to-self file: always tie your jacket around your waste, daggy as it may be!!

Many of us (Ok, all of us) woke up pretty rough the next morning and blaming the Jagerbombs (Jagermeister and Red Bull) and attempts at African breakdance for our aches and pains. We took a farily unenthused game drive through Etosha National Park and put ourselves to bed rather early the next night.

Game drives in the following days proved more exciting with the spotting of some roaring lions and a few good small-game sightings at the floodlit water holes at night time. A personal favourite of mine is the mongoose. Friendly little critters!!

We took a trip to a cheetah conservation park where the animals are bred and then released into the wild when they are old enough to fend for themselves. We rode around on the back of a truck throwing game-meat at the cheetahs that followed us and got the chance to get up close and personal with one of the parks older cheetahs.

Bec and a cheetah

On then towards the Skeleton Coast along the Atlantic Highway where the coastline is dotted with shipwrecks and old oil rigs.

The Skeleton Coast National Park entrance

The Cape Cross Seal colony was an interesting side trip, albeit very smelly and noisy. One seal by itself is all very cute, but put a couple of thousand of them together and it's a whole nother story.

Cute.....but smelly

We spent a night at Spitzkoppe, an amazing rock formation in the middle of the desert. Probably one of the best and coldest campsites so far. Amazing sunset colors.

Spitzkoppe

On arriving in Swakopmond, we were extremely excited to check into a hotel room for three nights. Ah, the luxury!!! Swakopmond is a pretty modern town or German origin and is the adventure centre of Namibia. We had a blast dune-buggying over the Namibian sand dunes. Couldn't get the Presidents Little Blue Dune Buggy out of my head the whole time.

Little blue dune buggy!!

Some of us also took a township tour to one of the shanty towns outside of Swakopmond. We met some school kids outside of their school and visited a few family homes and tried to learn some of the 'clicking' language.

School kids in Swakopmond

Living is very basic. We also met a lady who looks after people with HIV and AIDS. Apparently one in three people in the town have HIV/AIDS and they're trying to tackle this with education. It's not uncommon to see huge billboards on the side of the highway with sexual health messages on them. Condoms are given away at border crossings. We finished the township tour with a traditionally cooked meal and some African song and dance.

African song and dance

I did a lot of shopping in Swakopmond and bought a lot of soapstone carvings and wooden aftifacts. Bargaining was hard work but I was a master at it by the end of it. I really would have liked to have had a six foot wooden giraffe but couldn't fit it in the truck!!

We left Swakopmond and drove on to Sossussvlei, home of the biggest sand dunes in the world. We got up at 4:15am to watch the sunrise over the dunes, but after getting the truck bogged in the sand it was almost 7:30am before we got there. The sand dunes were a brilliant color and we climbed all over them and got very, very sandy.

Sand dunes at Sossussvlei

Sossussvlei desert

We slowly then made our way to the South African border with a stop at Fish River Canyon on Orange River, Africa's equivalent to the Grand Canyon.