The Aliwal Shoal

I was beginning to feel deprived of diving, so after a very long drive north from The Wild Coast, we arrived at uMkmoaas. This small town, around 40km south of Durban, is where the dive boats launch for the Aliwal Shoal. Often quoted as being one of the top 10 dive sites in the world, it is known for the abundance of sharks, in particular “raggies” (ragged-tooth sharks).
















We set of early in the morning with Aliwal Diving Centre. The launch here is a slightly hair raising affair – they use small inflatable boats which speed out from the river across the surf with the divers hanging for dear life. Getting back in is equally fun as they head the boat straight at the beach and go as fast as possible to avoid having to drag it up too far.
















The cage diving near Cape Town was freezing, so we were somewhat concerned this would be an unpleasantly cold dive. However, as this is now the Indian Ocean, and we were wrapped up well in 5ml wetsuits, it was actually fine. The visibility was reasonably good, but the currents were strong and unpredictable, buffeting us around quite a lot and making the going pretty tiring. We did two dives, and whilst not the most exciting we have done recently, we did three see three raggies, a bull ray and several stone fish. The reef is also an interesting landscape, covering quite a large area, meaning that it doesn't matter if you drift around with the current, there is always something interesting to see.
















After our day's diving, we drove up to Durban for a two night stay to allow ourselves to get organised for the next stage of the trip. Despite all the horror stories the locals had told us in Cape Town and on the way up, about how unsafe Durban is, we felt pretty comfortable, albeit we used cabs to get around and didn't leave the security gated and electric wired hostel. The motto of our hostel, Tekweni Backpackers, was “Tekweni goes off”, so the second night we felt obliged to join the staff in an excess drinking session. Other than that, we spent much of our time trying to book a 4x4 hire car to take to Lesotho, and touring the city's malls. The latter activity was focused on buying sleeping bags, and other equipment, that we need for our overland tour from Jo'burg, and for Richard's proposed Kilimanjaro climb. We were duly conned into spending far too much money in the kit- tastic Cape Union Mart (probably equivalent to the UK's Blacks). All the gear and no idea...
















Having had our fill of shopping malls, we were picked up the next day at 9:30am to get our 4x4 hire car. However, we didn't manage to leave Durban until about 6pm, and in the dark... a whole story in itself which I will leave until the next entry.

The Wild Coast

After East London the N2 starts to curve inland as the coast becomes increasingly more rugged, making a straight road impossible. This area is considerably less developed than the rest of the south coast, with undulating hills scattered with traditional rural settlements. It is considerably poorer than the other areas of South Africa that we have visited so far, having previously been the Transkei homeland that was disenfranchised during apartheid. The majority of the people living in the area are Xhosa and live traditional rural life styles. The area is also known as being the birth place and home of Nelson Mandela (he was the son of a Xhosa chief).















After a couple of hours we turned off the N2, onto one of the only tarred roads that head back towards the coast. The hilly landscape is scattered with rondavels, which are the traditional brightly coloured, mud-brick, round houses. The journey is made more fun by having to swerve around the every increasing number of potholes whilst dodging the goats, cows, dogs and mules that appear from nowhere then insist on standing in the middle of the road.














After a bit of scramble up a gravel road covered in boulders, which probably did no good to our hire car, we finally arrived at the Coffee Shack, our accommodation in Coffee Bay. This has a picturesque setting on the beach, at the river mouth, and our room had the added bonus of being a rondavel. We whiled away the evening in the bar entertained by an African drumming session whilst trying to ignore the hostel's attempt to get the party going by having drinking rules in the bar, and the constant offers to sell drugs from the guys hanging around outside (this is a big dope growing area).













Next day we had signed up for a day's hiking and cliff jumping along the originally name “The Cliffs”, just north of Coffee Bay. We set off along the cliff path equipped with all our usual hiking gear as our local guides bounded off in front of us in bare feet. The walk has spectacular views of the incredibly hilly coast line and after a bit of scrambling it drops down into a cave which is rumoured to have been used as storage for weapons by the ANC. After some slightly hairy rock climbing and wave dodging, we got to the cliff jumping spot. Rich was game, so after watching the guide's expert jump, duly flung himself off a couple of times from dizzying heights into the churning sea.













After being dropped back at the Coffee Shack we rapidly set off again as we needed to make it to the rendezvous point for our next accommodation by the pick up time (as the last part of the drive can only be done in a 4x4) and before it got dark. We had to follow our hand written map very closely as there isn't the remotest hint of a sign post, few land marks and the locals mostly don't speak English. We did stop briefly to give a lift to a couple of local ladies in traditional long skirts. They didn't speak any English but seemed very entertained by us and that we had actually stopped for them. By some miracle we arrived at the pick up point, where we were bundled into a Land Cruiser with a couple of other guest. Another hour of incredibly bumpy driving in the dark we were relieved to arrive at the very remote Bulungula Lodge.













The travellers' haven of Bulungula is as much a community project as it is a lodge. It is a joint venture between the local community and the traveller who set it up. The rooms are again in rondavels with a chilled out bar and lounge area looking out over the river mouth and ocean. Much of the proceeds from the lodge go back into the community, with most of the vegetables being bought from the community farm, and the activities and tours being run by locals. You could easily spend weeks or months chilling out here. We, unfortunately, only stayed two nights, but still enjoyed traditional Xhosa dinners, the novelty of the paraffin lit rocket showers, learning a few words of Xhosa (although not sure we really mastered the clicks) and an african drumming lesson by the fire.













One of the highlights of our stay was a guided tour of the village. Despite only having 800 inhabitants, this takes a good few hours, as the houses are spread out over a number of hills. It does make you feel a little pathetic when you are puffing and panting up a hill, and an elderly lady passes you balancing a huge water container on her head. We also got to see the five boys staying in a “circumcision lodge” were they live prior to the ceremony, dressed only in a blanket with white covering their face and body.














We left Bulungula sadly, and set off on the bumpy road back to the N2. This was followed by a long drive through several very poor looking towns villages , including the village were Mandela lives near Mthatha, and finally leaving the Eastern Cape into Kwazulu-Natal.

Addo Elephant National Park

After the disappointment of not seeing a single elephant in Etosha, we decided to up the odds and head for Addo, which has 450 elephants in an area less than a tenth of Etosha. We had to push it to reach the Orange Elephant backpackers from Bloukrans before dark, and skirting round the edge of Port Elizabeth at dusk, I was glad we were no later.














Addo is another self-drive park (although you can do 2-hour game drives with the guides), and with only one sighting on the board at 10am, we drove off in that direction. Of course elephants annoyingly move around, and whist there was plenty of evidence in the form of large piles of dung on the road (one should avoid running this over to protect the dung beetles), after 2 hours of driving round we'd not seen one.














Looking increasingly like we'd fail to see any, we made our way back for lunch, and straight into the path of a herd crossing the road to the water hole. One of them obviously thought we'd looked at him funny, and did the ear waving thing (a warning sign) – Kirsten quickly wound up the window, and he walked off.














The afternoon was far more productive, with our progress repeatedly stopped by elephants walking down the middle of the road - when something weighting 6 tons is lumbering past your car, you're just glad they don't decide to sit down. Addo also has masses of warthogs, antelope and cape buffalo, however we didn't see any of the black rhinos, or recently re-introduced lions and hyenas.















As an alternative to driving, we took the early morning (novice) game ride. This takes place in a area of the park absent of lions and hyenas, but the horses were still a little skittish in the early morning mist. We didn't see any elephants (or much else besides ostriches and far away antelope) on the ride, but it was still good fun.














After the ride, armed with newly purchased binoculars from the park shop, we did another game drive, before driving down to East London (as dismal as its namesake). Driving the N2 can be a hairy experience at times; South Africa has over 10,000 roads deaths per year – given peoples inclination to overtake on blind corners, it's not hard to see why.

Storms River

We did venture down to the beach at Little Brak River, however the wind was so strong that the sand really hurt as it was driven into your face. We drove on to Knysna for lunch. The town seemed deserted and shut up - this was because the whole area's power was out (apparently planed, rather than because of the storm). Luckily we did find an open restaurant on the waterfront, proudly displaying its generator.

A little way on from Knysna is Southern Comfort Ranch, a horse riding and quad-biking centre, and our home for the night. Again we were their only guest in their basic, but adequate, accommodation. We were quickly sold into a 12km quad-bike trail, guide by both Mr and Mrs Quadbike - as there had been a lot of tree downs, Mr Quadbike took a chain saw. Pretty soon he was cutting through the first tree blocking the path, which was followed by several more. With the path clear, we zoomed round for a second time, coving ourselves in mud.

Early the next morning we started our horse ride. My horse, Sultan, we the fattest they had (this is becoming a theme), and therefore quite reluctant to actually move. The ride though the forest was very refreshing, even though I had to resort to waving a stick in front of Sultans face to get him to walk. From Southern Comfort we dropped back down to the coast at Plettenburg Bay for lunch watching the surfers in the bay.
















We'd been rather missing monkeys, so decided to get our fix at Monkeyland. Here, monkeys rescued from depressing lives as pets, or show pieces in poorly run zoos, get to live out their lives in 12 hectares of protected forest. You are guided through the forest in small groups, with the monkeys playing just above your head (it's a good idea to not have a monkey just above your head). The area has monkeys from South America and Asia, as well as Africa and Madagascar, so you can see Ring Tailed Lemmas playing with Squirl Monkeys. The monkeys are feed, but often catch and eat hapless birds – was saw a Gibbon finishing off some bird intestines.
















On the way to Storms River you cross the Bloukrans toll-bridge, the highest bridge in Africa spanning a huge gorge, although you hardly notice as you're driving over. This is the site of the world's highest bridge bungee; it's 216m from the jump site on top of the giant support arch to the tea coloured river below. We pulled in for a look, and watching people leap from the bridge into the abyss is frightening enough – I decided not the jump then, but sleep on it.














At Storms River, they have a canopy walk with a difference – rather than rope bridges between the tree platforms, you slide on zip lines between the trees. Ten slides in total take you down through the forest, for a fun couple of hours. In our group were three Irish lads on an adrenaline and drinking tour of the Western Cape. They were heading off to do the bungee, so I joined them.
















After being kitted up with your body harness, you have to walk to the top of the supporting arch. The route is a mesh walkway blotted to the underside of the bridge – many people find this more frightening than the jump itself. Once in the centre, you find the crew pumping out dance tunes and getting on with things in high sprite. Two of the Irish guys had paid upfront for three jumps (the third, Paul, was a bit scared of heights a glad to get just one over with) – they did the standard swan dive, a backwards fall (also with rope attached to ankles), and a running jump with the rope attached to the body harness.
















I was the last to go (I needed the heavier rope), and even though I done two before, when they get you to the edge, the panic really sets in. Fortunately they don't give you much choice, and soon enough you're over the edge hurtling towards the ground – seven seconds later you're rocketing upwards for a slightly smaller repeat performance. Once you've stopped bouncing around on the end of rope, hanging some 150m above the ground in the middle of a canyon is really quite peaceful. So enough the winch man reached you to hall you back to the platform. While I was drinking gin in the Cliff Hanger bar, we watch on the monitor a clearly distressed, crying girl being shoved off a bridge by two very large blokes.

From Great Reds to Great Whites

Puncture dealt with, we headed off down the Cape Peninsula and our home for the night, Simon's Town backpackers. The main draw of this town is the colony of African penguins who reside at the nearby Boulders Beach. The beach itself is very attractive with white sand strewn with beautifully rounded boulders. It makes a lovely setting for taking photographs of the very cute penguins. I could have spent hours watching them go about their business of building nests, protecting their young, bickering and wandering off down the beach for a plunge into the icy cold sea. I had to be dragged away before I filled yet another memory card with photos. There was just enough time before it started getting dark to make it to Cape Point and the renowned Cape of Good Hope, the most south-westerly point of Africa (as apposed to the most southerly), where we duly stood in line to take our photo next to the sign proclaiming this.

The next morning the weather had improved greatly, which we were grateful for, as the National Botanical Gardens, Kirstenbosch, was on the agenda. These lovely gardens sit between some very smart suburbs of Cape Town and the backside of Table Mountain offering some gorgeous views. There also happens to be a very pleasant cafe were we indulged in breakfast and then, after our walk around the garden, a very luxurious English tea complete with cucumber sandwiches and scones. Worth the trip for this alone.

We continued on our journey, skirting around the edge of the township area of Cape Flats, marking a strong contrast with the massive white washed villas and the armed security card patrol cars of the leafy suburbs around Kirstenbosch. However, soon you are in the countryside again and after around forty minutes or so you pass the first vineyard of the famous Stellenbosch wine area. Stellenbosch itself is a very attractive town with avenues of oak trees, quaint little whitewashed buildings and a old university town vibe. We stayed at the very smart (for a backpacker) Banghoek Place and enjoyed a quiet night in, catching up on episodes of House and making sure we were hangover free for the next day's activity, which was, naturally, wine tasting.

Whilst it is very feasible to drive yourself around the vineyards, in particular given the high drink driving alcohol limit here, we opted for being driven around in a minibus so that there was no limit to our indulgence. This proved to be a good idea as South African wines are decidedly drinkable (and strong). We started the day at Simonsig where we were given a quick tour before tasting the excellent quality wines, starting with their well known sparking wine (this being the first estate in the country to produce bubbly), followed by a lovely pinotage (the only grape specific to South Africa), and finishing with the standout Merindol Syrah (probably the best wine of the day). After that I'm afraid my memory of the wines is not quite so good. The second stop of the day was the Fairview estate, near Paarl, which in addition to producing wine, produces goats cheese and award wining camembert which made a an excellent addition to the tasting. The final vineyard of the day was Tokara, which is ultra modern in design with beautiful views back to Table Mountain in the distance. We finished off the day with dinner a Wijhuis, and a bottle of the entertainingly named Goats do Roam, from the Fairview estate.

We decided that there was time for one last vineyard, so stopped off at Vergelegen the next day, on our way towards to coast. The grounds of this estate are very large, with a very picturesque Cape Dutch style homestead. We had a pleasant lunch and a decent glass of white before continuing on to Klien Bay, the base for our next adventure – diving with Great White sharks. The weather had unfortunately turned pretty miserable, and we sat in our guest house watching the storming weather approaching with some intrepidity. To be honest it was cold enough out of the water let alone in it and we were almost hoping the trip would be cancelled because of the weather.

However, our luck was in, and next morning at 8am we were bundled onto a boat, huddling in fleeces and rain coats, and speeded off to Dyer Island, home to African penguins and seal breading colonies, and as a result shark-infested water. At this point, I really didn't know if I more scared of the thought of getting in the cold water or of the sharks. Our luck continued – as soon as we got to the island, and the crew had tossed bucket loads of anchovy oil and fish blood into the water, we got our first glimpse of a dorsal fin circling around the boat. Within minutes we'd squeezed into our 7mm wetsuits and been shoved into the cage attached to the side of the boat. It was then a case of holding your breath and diving down each time the shark approached whilst being careful not to let any of your limbs poke through the cage. They circled in front of us, checking out the tuna which the crew were enticing it in with. A couple of times it headed straight at us which was pretty exciting, although didn't make great photos as it churned up the water reducing visibility to almost zero.

I was initially disappointed that the operators who do these trips don't use scuba gear, but in reality, as the best views of the sharks are near the surface, its not a problem. They claim the reason is that, as you don't know whether the sharks will turn up five minutes or two hours into the trip, it takes too long to get people into the water with scuba gear on. Whilst this may be true, I also think the fact you can get more people into the cage without gear at one time may be a factor.

After twenty minutes of watching the sharks from the surface whilst the rest of the group had a go, we got back in the water. Unfortunately, by this time, the sharks had got bored of us and we sat shivering for twenty minutes seeing absolutely nothing. Nevertheless it was still a great experience and we felt privileged to be so close to these awesome creatures. The tour operators were keen to emphasise the dangers facing the Great White's existence, who some experts believe will be extinct within 10-20 years, and do their best to make sure the tours have as little impact on the sharks as possible. We saw three sharks in total and the largest of these was around three meters. This is apparently pretty large for sightings these days as the larger ones are becoming rarer and rarer due to them being killed for their jaws as trophies. As the female sharks can't breed until they are around four meters this has a huge impact on the species.

Back on dry land and eventually warm again, we watched the storm approaching, which was forecast to have swells of up to eight meters. Indeed the next day was pretty miserable, so we mainly stayed in the car, briefly jumping out at Cape Agulhais, the most southern point of Africa and the point were the Indian and Atlantic oceans officially meet. Whilst its claim to fame is more impressive than the Cape of Good Hope, it is unfortunately less attractive. As the wind increased we arrived at Little Brak River, near Mossel Bay. Our backpackers for the night proved to be an excellent choice as there was no one else there giving us a bathroom, kitchen and living room to ourselves. Excellent opportunity to catch up on some more House.

Cape Town - Part 2

The main road down from our new hostel runs just behind the new stadium, and is lined with a good range of eateries. This led to deepening levels of laziness, where we ventured no further than the well-healed district of Sea Point. The freezing fog that had descended on the city didn't help our desire to do much beyond eat, sleep, and drink.














Finally I took the bull by the horns and booked in for a day's sandboarding with Down Hill Adventures; Kirsten declined the pleasure. My guide and instructor, Mark, picked me up from the hostel, and this is when I learned that a) I was their only client, b) they didn't have a dune buggy to ferry you to the top. The location for the boarding was a large sand dune area 40km north of Cape Town; when we arrived it was being used by around a dozen quad-bikes, an equal number of motorbikes, a couple of 4x4s and about 20 kids.















These guys use proper snowboards and boots – the boards are modified with a laminate stuck to the base that needs floor polish applied before each run to reduce the friction. I've never snowboarded before, so the day started with a few tumbles and splats, followed by long slogs back up the (not very large) dune. After four hours of this I could get down the dune and put in a few relatively controlled turns – time to hit the snow.

One adrenaline activity done, I thought it was time to abseil off Table Mountain. We took the cable-car to the top for the second time, when Abseil Africa are waiting to rope you up. Once I was harnessed in, the women told me there would be a surprise half was down. I duly walked myself over the edge and down the cliff face. So far so good for 50m or so, before the 'surprise' – a large overhang which meant the remainder of the drop was in mid-air, well away from the cliff face.














Safely on the ground (or more precisely a ledge 100m from the top of Table Mountain), I handed the equipment to the ground guy, to be hoisted back up in a bag. I however had to walk the 20 minute trail back up.














Activity list ticked off, we picked up the new hire car (a Chevrolet), and headed down the peninsular. After a pleasant brunch in Camps Bay, we discover we had another puncture – this time only an hour after picking up the car. I changed the wheel and we drove back to town to switch cars for take-two.

Cape Town

The centre of Cape Town is constrained by Table Mountain to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the North. Our hostel, Inn Long Street, was towards the southern (read party) end of Long Street. The plan was to get our barrings, but not really do that much for a couple of days. Unfortunately Long Street never sleeps, and given that our room faced the street, neither did we.
















Sleep deprived, we wandered the length of the street up to the Victoria and Alfred waterfront – the tourist heart of Cape Town. Given that it was a beautiful clear day (these become more of a rarity as winter approaches), we booked on a ubiquitous sunset tour of the harbour before plunging into the mall.
















The man who sold me the tickets for the catamaran assured me that the sparking wine would be free flowing and not limited to one glass – and he was true to his word. The water does afford great views back to the mountain towering over the city, and of the new stadium being built for the 2010 world cup, right on the waterfront – this must ruin the views of the houses on the hill behind, unless they prefer the view of the back of a football stadium to the Atlantic Ocean. Of course this being May on the south Atlantic, things turned a little chilly. Fortunately the crew were quick to hand out large red blankets, but this did interfere with the wine drinking.
















We'd not wanted a big night, but popped into Jo'burg (a bar on Long St) for a night cap. There I discussed nose shapes with a Nigerian drug dealer, before being forced to down half-a-dozen Jägerbombs (Jägermeister shots dropped into Red Bull) by an English bloke (Barry) who worked on an oil survey ship. The next morning was a write-off, and all I could manage to do was go downstairs and hand over 300 rand so we didn't have to leave the room.

By mid-afternoon we'd gotten into a taxi to the Table Mountain cable-car station. This shoots almost vertically to the top station at 1066m, whilst rotating its floor to give you a full 360° view. Once on top the cool clear air did wonders for our heads. From the front (city) side you get the view of the city down to the V&A waterfront, and then Robben Island sat out in the bay (looking a lot smaller than it actually is); while from the back side you get the more impressive view along the spine of the peninsular down to the Cape of Good Hope some 20 miles south. It was fortunate we went up when we did, because it was the last time we saw the mountain for several days.
















With winter starting to kick in, and slightly delirious from lack of sleep, we took the 30 minute ferry to Robben Island. A thick sea fog reduced the visibility to less than 10m, making the island quite eerie as it appeared from nowhere. Robben Island's role in the history of apartheid South Africa is well known – the way the tour is structured (given visitor numbers there's not much choice) is to heard people onto coaches to cover the wider history of the island; a leper colony, a second world war fort, a normal prison, then finally a dumping ground for increasing numbers of political prisoners. The island contains three lime quarries, where prisoners worked hard labour before its abolition under international pressure in 1981. The island now has 100 permanent residence (family of people who manage the island), around 5000 African penguins, and possibility a million rabbits.
















For the second half of the tour, you are handed over to a former political prisoner – in our case Sparky, arrested in 1980 on terrorism charged for recruiting for the armed wing of the ANC - for a tour of the prison block. He showed us his room, shared with 59 others, and the excise yard where messages would be battered between the wings inside tennis balls. The tour ends by passing Nelson Mandala's 2m by 2m cell – his home for 18 years before being transferred to Pollsmoor prison for the remaining 4 years of his 27 year incarceration.
















After four days without sleep, we got our act together and moved to the much quieter Green Point – this boarders the V&A water front, upmarket Sea Point and the Marylebone like 'gay village' of De Waterkant.