Serendipity Guest House Wilderness

... then! Our accomodation is two double bunks in a tiny room with whitewashed brick walls.. Just imagine a cell from the series Porridge and you'll get the idea! Clean and basically comfy and it had a power point so I couldn't complain...
Our next destination was Rocky Road in a place called The Crags in Natures Valley... we drove for about an hour or so and finally managed to find it down a little bumpy track with private residence... On arrival ...

... is in a beautiful situation and has a lot going for it with the trails, the beach etc. But is very popular with people from Jo’burg etc so it does get very busy especially at weekends. If you like sociable camping then you would probably enjoy this camp. For us after living in the solitude of the African bush it takes quite a bit of getting used to being next to large numbers of people again. Each to there own way of life.

... a traditional Zulu wedding. When she got back we had lots of questions for her. It turns out that it wasn't a wedding but a girl's coming of age ceremony. Manon showed us the photos and it was odd. Basically all the young girls (in their teens) wear short skirts and no tops and all. Then they dance around while the guests drink Zulu beer. At the end the guests place a monetary donation in the headdress of the girl who is coming of age.

That night we went to the hotel bar where there ...

... up at Prince Albertweg Station......only 90 kms out of our way to get back to where we started. It was a beautiful sunset though....and I I figured the sun sets to the west and we were heading in the wrong direction. The journey back was a nightmare, as it was dark and there aren't many signposts. It took us a while to figure out how to get the full beam lights and most of the roads weren't on my map. We went ...

... to get the fantastic photos you see below. It was simply jaw dropping to watch and it makes my hairs stand on end just writing this now - that's how good it was! And then as we were sitting on the rocks watching this - we actually heard the mother calling to the calf - we were actually hearing real whale song and it was incredible. And so our little guy stopped his splashing around and made ...

... our walk over the hills towards a local shebeen while I practiced my newly learned Zulu phrases on people passing by. It was quite a nice day and I was happy because this is what I wanted to do when I was in Swaziland. Damn those quad bikes! That evening I ended up at Shakaland (Zulu, Disney style and the location for the the filming of the movie Shaka Zulu) for a Zulu dance and buffet dinner. While eating the waitress asked if I enjoyed Shakaland. I informed her I ...

... ended up cooking dinenr by candlelight, which reminded me of frequent power cuts I have at home, and something I probably have to look forward to in a couple of weeks time. Dinner took ages cos the oven was stupidly slow, and Brent got bored and started throwing a ball of foil at Bart's back whilst he was washing up. Bart strangely liked it and insisted on one of us rolling the ball of foil down his back in a weird massage. I took pity ...

We left Joburg and drove to Hilton- about 5 hours. This is where Venessa and Mark live. It is a small lovely town near Pietermaritzburg. They have built the house themselves. Mark and another guy built it from scratch and it is a fantastic house. It is an industrial, modern style house set on a lake with glass and space everywhere. We had a lovely dinner of vegetables and told mark all about our adventures in THE KRUGER...

We spent Saturday morning organising items for our night camping at Inanda Dam. Once this was done we went down to Garvies beach to take advantage of the unusually pleasant weather for a long weekend. Unfortunately in the afternoon rush, Cheyenne had somehow forgotten about organising us a tent and we resigned ourselves to the fact that were not going to be doing any camping at the dam that evening. As the sun disappeared ...

... have nothing to say about them. It means boring. Baseball on TV would probably be sleepy according to most guidebooks. Oh and then it says that Mossel Bay is in the Guinness book of records as having the mildest climate in the world, second only to Hawaii. What? Really, I say, this I gotta see for myself. A town second to a 400 km chain of islands in climate. Can anyone explain that? Is that actually a legit claim to fame? Are there people in Mossel Bay who check the ...