Taryn & Meridith’s Epic South African Road Trip

Doug’s sister, Meridith and his BFF from Residency, Taryn, came to visit from April 29-May 11, 2010. Being able and eager travelers, we decided to take them on a road trip in South Africa to experience a variety of different sites/activities that Doug and I had been meaning to check out. It was definitely a road trip. Little Lemmy (our Rav-4) tried her best, but due to a bit of sabotage by the mechanic the week before we departed, she struggled once or twice; which of course added to the ‘epic’ part of our adventure.

Taryn (California) and Meridith (Texas) met in Atlanta and flew together to Johannesburg where we met them at the Emerald Guest House on Friday, April 29. Having loaded ‘all’ of the South African maps onto our Garmin, it finally became a useful tool, and directed us all the way to the Guest House (which was a first for the Garmin). Doug was able to scoot out of town a little early from work which enabled us to drive in the light and to make it to Johannesburg about 15 minutes before Taryn and Meridith arrived!

Emerald Guest House

On Saturday morning we drove north to the Messina Nature Reserve, just short of the Zimbabwean border to see the Baobab Trees (think Sequoias, African style). The guards at the gatehouse at the entrance to the park were a little surprised to see us. It felt as though the park didn’t get that many visitors; and on that specific Saturday, we were the only people there. After being in the car all morning, it was nice to do some walking around.

We climbed a couple of rock piles to get a better view of the trees

Baobabs towering over the tree line

Up close

Proportion

Fallen Giant

While we were checking out one of the trees, we spotted giraffe footprints in the sand and immediately started caring a little less about the enormous trees and more about finding the giraffe!

Which we did

And then he called his friends

Who proceeded to run away from us

But, one was curious (just like people, there's one in every bunch!)

Apparently, big trees attract big spiders

After an afternoon in Messina Nature Reserve, we finished the last hour of driving to Makhado where we had reservations at the Ultimate Guest House.

Clearly, the decorations were ‘ultimate.’ Yes, that's an octopus headboard.

It was a very comfortable place and we even squeezed in a game of putt-putt (or ‘Crazy Golf’ as they call it) before dinner.

On Sunday morning we made our way to Blyde River Canyon where we checked in to the Forever Resort (Yes, we’ve stayed at the Emerald, the Ultimate, and now Forever…It’s like a different prom theme for every night!).

Forever Resort

After getting settled and having a quick trail lunch, we set-off on a 7km hike through the canyon. This is always a nice way to start a hike...

It was beautiful.

And we even went swimming in a couple of (FREEZING) pools.

Doug and Meridith

This is the one that Taryn and I also ventured into...Arctic...

On Monday morning we continued our road trip through Graskop enroute to Ermelo, where we were staying for the night. On our way out of Blyde River Canyon, there were multiple scenic viewpoints; therefore, we stopped quite a bit along the way.

Three Rondavels – A rondavel is a circular house with a thatched roof that is very popular on the eastern cape of South Africa and in Swaziland. These mountains are meant to resemble three rondavels (right side of picture).

View into the valley

The Potholes – These waterfalls have eroded the rock and cut pathways which collect water in pools and resemble ‘potholes.’

God’s Window

In Graskop we stopped for crepes for lunch and Doug waited in line behind 21 people for the ATM!

After our scenic drive and delicious lunch, we continued on to Ermelo via Kruger National Park. We had some time and figured a trip to the most famous game reserve in all of South Africa would be a worthy stop.

Hippo

'DLT' (deer like thing)

Lion King bird

The last portion of our drive into Ermelo was in the dark, which made things a bit stressful. But, the most perfect little Guest House awaited us including a free minibar and beds being warmed by heated mattress pads (which I will never live without, again). Let’s just say we emptied the minibar after our stressful drive in the dark and pouring rain and unanimously agreed that we’d pay the local pizzeria any amount of money to deliver our dinner…

The only reason Taryn is not in her spot in the bed is because she was taking the photo...there was only one TV and we were SPENT.

Tuesday morning brought the final leg of the first portion of our road trip as we were on our way to Hluhlue Game Reserve for a 3 night, 4 day walking safari. We left precisely on time in order to make our 12:00pm check-in time at Mpila campground in the reserve. My now infamous last words as we drove away from the Guest House were, ‘if everything goes perfectly, we’ll be in Mpila right at noon.’ You can probably guess that things didn’t go perfectly. Actually, it was more like a mild disaster. TIA, my friends. TIA. [‘This is Africa’]

Foreshadowing

About two hours into our 4 ½ hour drive to Hluhlue Little Lemmy blew out her right, rear shock. This is why I started this entry by saying she was sabotaged. Four days before we left, Lemmy was serviced and her rear shocks were replaced. Hmmmmm…Our Garmin actually came in SUPER handy at this point because we searched for ‘Toyota Dealerships’ and located one about 50km back in Piet Retief. While this was an obvious detour, we had little choice as our shock dangled from the car and every pebble we tread over sounded like it might break the axel of the car (insert drama, here). There was an option of another dealership about 30km in the right direction, but since it was such a small town, we decided we couldn’t risk them not having the necessary parts and opted for backtracking in hopes that Lemmy could be definitively fixed.

The Piet Retief Toyota Dealership was HEAVEN and fixed our car in 75 minutes.

In the meantime, we found the only non-sketchy place in town for lunch. So random. Quiche and gelato. In Piet Retief?

We called Hluhlue once our car was fixed and we had an accurate anticipated arrival time of 4:30pm. The Trail Ranger asked the other 4 members of our walking safari if they’d be willing to wait to hike in to camp until we arrived, and graciously, they agreed. Well, once again, if everything had gone ‘perfectly’ we would have made it by 4:30pm. BUT, TIA. And it didn’t. 1) There was construction on the N2 and only one direction of traffic could pass on a 7km stretch of road, at a time. This meant we waited 25 minutes for our turn on this 7km stretch. 2) The second road we were meant to take, the 618, was not paved, yet. So, we had to drop from 120km/hr down to 60km/hr to navigate the dirt road. 3) We ran out of gas. Fortunately, this didn’t happen until the park entrance where I mercifully begged the gate guard to find us fuel so that we could make the remaining 21km to Mpila Campground. Against all rational hope, the guard gate produced a 2 liter bottle of Coke filled with petrol and once again, Little Lemmy was on her way.

Gas station

Eventually, we made it to Mpila, however, not until about 5:15pm and due to the pending darkness and wild animals, the Trail Ranger had opted to hike the other 4 members of our walking safari into camp at 4:25pm. Sad.

Sunset over Mpila

Fortunately, there was one remaining cabin available at Mpila Campground that night and since we had paid for food/lodge as a part of our walking safari, they agreed to let us use the cabin. Did I mention that it was also the LARGEST cabin?

And sent someone with groceries to cook us dinner. We bought all of the cane liquor and wine the Curio had to offer and tried to decompress after our adventurous, ‘so close, but yet so far’ day. After a spaghetti dinner, a lot of beverages, and some crazy star gazing, we retired.

On Wednesday, the Trail Ranger said that we’d hike into camp at 10:00am because we had to wait for a Trail Ranger to come off the trail and escort us. So, since we were in a game reserve, we woke up at 5:45am to go on a morning game drive.

Sightings

Manes a flyin'

Upon our return at 8:00am, we met the Trail Ranger in the road and he said that we now needed to be ready in 30 minutes! I mean, seriously? We could have been showered, full of breakfast, and totally packed and ready to go by 8:30am, but he told us 10:00am!!! Anyways, we had already caused enough trouble, so we turned into headless chickens and met the Trail Ranger.

FINALLY, we were on our way…taking off our shoes to cross the river

The walking safari in Hluhlue was by far my favorite part of our trip. It was awesome. We hiked 7km in to our basecamp and then spent every day walking on trails throughout the game reserve. We had two rangers with rifles guiding us and while on walking safari you don’t see as many animals as on a game drive, you see them in the true wild. You are on their turf and even if you don’t see them, they see you.

Camp

Toilet

Sink

Walking safari

While walking, the rangers would tell us about the plants, birds, footprints, poop, etc. that we passed along the way

Elephant leg bone

Hyena poop. It's white because they eat 'everything' and the calcium from the animal bones makes their poop pure white! This is really the only poop that I'm featuring because the rest of it really does just look like poop.

Our lunch spot on the first day

Bona making lunch

Views

Buffalo

Rhino mother and baby walking to the water (difficult to see, but we were high up!)

On our second walking safari, we sat on a beach and watched animals come to the river for a drink for hours

We also saw a lot of footprints, but no owners...

Until finally, on the last morning, a rhino came to camp

And then he left

At night, we laid in our tents listening to the lions and hyenas fighting. Like I said, awesome.

I was always at the ready, just in case...

Don't worry, it wasn't loaded (because clearly I have NO idea what I'm doing).

Our walking safari ended at noon and the donkey's came to bring in rations for the next group.

We took advantage of our time in the reserve to do another game drive on our way out of the park.

We saw a giraffe getting a drink

And the world's largest lizard sunning himself on a rock

It was on this drive where we saw our first CAT! We’ve been on the continent for 10 months and had never seen a lion, leopard, cheetah, etc. So, this was particularly exciting. We saw a lioness with her 5 cubs and watched them forever. That is until the cubs took interest in us and started to walk toward our car. I might have misbehaved a bit at this point, but personally, I felt the pictures were worth it.

After leaving Hluhlue, we only had about an hours drive to the beach in St. Lucia. Our friend Antz had given us the keys to his beach house and we were looking forward to a shower after a few days in the bush.

We got a couple of seafood recommendations for dinner and ended up in this dive biker bar where they had the best seafood, ever. It was delicious.

Then, on Saturday morning we woke-up early to go snorkeling right off the coast in the Vidal Sanctuary.

While driving in the sanctuary we had an unexpected game drive and saw a leopard! Right in the road. He just walked alongside the car and into the bush, right in front of us. Craziness. There was no time for a picture, but I’m telling you, it was a leopard!

Even the sign warns you that you might see a leopard!

We spent the rest of our day at the beach, by the pool, playing games, or reading. It was a perfect, relaxing day as our vacation wound down.

On Saturday night we went to another recommended restaurant, Alfredo’s, for more seafood. As Meridith was leaving on Sunday, I randomly asked Alfredo how far it was to the Durban Airport, from St. Lucia. He proceeded to let us know that the Durban Airport had closed as of April 30^th and that there was a new King Shaka International Airport 35km north of the city, now. Well, that was news to us! You would think at some point in the reservation process Meridith would have been informed that she had to change airports for departure – you know, kind of like they let you know if your flight time has changed, if you have to change planes, or if your seat assignment has changed? Insanity.

With this new information in hand we made our way to an Internet Café just to verify her flight details, etc. and to get directions to the new airport. I called information on our South African cell phone to get the new airport’s number and low and behold, there was no listing yet for the new airport. Don’t worry that it’s been in operation for 9 days. Who really needs a phone at an airport, anyway?

In the end, Doug located a press release on the internet about the opening of the new airport and I ended up calling the Johannesburg airport to make sure that Meridith’s British Airways flight was scheduled to depart at the same time from the new airport. Everything worked out, but once again, not without a little spice.

On Sunday, Doug dropped Meridith off at the airport and then picked Taryn and myself back up in St. Lucia and we all headed back to Swaziland.

Taryn stayed with us for a couple of more days so that she could see the Swaz and our real life. We went souvenir shopping, she saw a couple of patients at the clinic with Doug, and we also climbed Sibebe Rock.

It was another awesome adventure with family and friend. We just can’t get enough…Who’s next???