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Ralph & Angela's travels
Howick 15 August 2006
We are back in Howick after our beginner's trip to Royal Natal, Kruger and Ithala (a beautiful mountainous KwaZulu Natal Park which helped break up the journey back to Howick).
The round trip was 4089 kilometres and apart from the trailer brake (see Kruger Postcard for details), both car and trailer have behaved perfectly. The roads have been excellent, a mix of 2 lane motorways, A roads and dirt roads (compacted and great to drive unless rutted, in which case your fillings re-organise themselves).
The scenery has been spectacular and big, it reminds us of the US state of Utah, huge sandstone buttresses and flat topped mountains in Kwa Zulu Natal. Most of Kruger is bush, changing to grassland dotted with Acacia trees, depending on the area. It is nothing like Big Cat Diary territory, spotting the wildlife can be very difficult through the thick bush cover.
Without exception the people have been friendly, helpful and welcoming whether Zulu, Shangaan, Afrikaner, English South African or even Australian! Our British English throws most of them, including the English speaking South Africans, even though English is the main language now. We have the same problem in reverse, and Afrikaans, Zulu and Shangaan remain unfathomable languages! Our attempts at pronouncing the Afrikaans place names are a constant source of amusement for our hosts, Pat & Roger De La Harpe.
The 4x4 trailer is being serviced, the braking system repaired and an extra electric point added. The Landrover Discovery is also being serviced, wheels swapped around and we've practiced tyre changes.
We have more spares than the average Landrover dealership. To comply with various regulations we now have 3 warning triangles, spare bulbs, reflector strips, T symbols front & back, a yellow triangle on blue background sticker, ZA stickers and document copies that require a trailer of their own.
We've practised our off road skills in the local nature reserve, using low box for hill descent and ascent and will be doing a 4x4 course on Thursday. The trailer is very easy to tow, but reversing is incredibly difficult, a slight turn on the wheel results in a near jack knife of the trailer. If we do need to get away from elephant, or chicken out half way along a 4x4 trail, it will be interesting driving!
The reason for the vehicle and trailer servicing is that our next trip will be across South Africa to the western desert areas of the Kalahari, the Kgalagadi (try pronouncing that one!) Transfrontier Park and then on in to Namibia, where we will take 3 months or more to travel up and across that vast landscape.
We had hoped to go south first and see the flowers of the Karoo desert, just beginning to blossom now after the first rains, but time is against us as our visas expire in early September. The flowers will be on the growing list of things we must do next year!
If all goes well we will visit Etosha National Park in Northern Namibia then head east along the Caprivi Strip, touching in to southern Zambia then down the east side of Botswana (both countries will need a separate trip at a later date) and back in to South Africa in January 2007.
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