Southern Hemisphere Hoo Haa - South Africa

Well played South Africa. Wow. What a place!

I arrived a week ago weary from three flights but eager to see and explore a new country. I shared my soon to be retired Qantas 747 with the ‘Chiefs’ Rugby Union team. No idea who they are and honestly only realised they were famous when people were doing photo bombs at the airport. Touchdown in South Africa was as expected. Everything was already being done at an African pace and there was disorder at the passport queue. There was also an annoying lady there that was obviously visiting family that had disowned her for being annoying who kept trying to engage in conversation with me. After 16 hours of air time, I was not coping well with this and tried hiding from her in the line… not easy to do when you are almost 6 ft tall, white female usually, however I was in good height company so managed to obscure from her view.

After a turbulent flight on the South African low cost airline Mango (probably resurrected an old retired Qantas plane and Nigerian airlines pilot I say), I was greeted at Durban airport drive thru by Melissa and her papa Luke. The first couple of days was great by the beach, with a quiet and quant seaside village called Shackas Rock- here you won’t find much other than a long, rocky and rippy sea, but you will find a cool old man’s bar called Salty’s and the best coffee in the whole country at a little café across the road from our apartment- called Salt haha, must be a town theme. We were invited by Melissa’s great Aunt Joy and Uncle Fred for lunch – roast chickens on the second day and went exploring Balito prior to lunch. We were at the local woollies where I smelt the chickens cooking and I said to the fam ‘I hope this is where Aunty Joy is getting her chickens from’. We then turned the corner of the aisle and this crazy woman leaped towards us. I had no idea what was going on. But as it turns out – that was Aunty Joy getting the chickens for us from Woolies! Small world.

It was a great relief for sun seeking Liss and I to follow the ‘enough to be indoors but not enough to be drought breaking’ rain up the coast on our way to our Safari at Leppard Mountain (NOT!). After three hours enroute we were greeted at the gate by a round black jovial man who proclaimed ‘please be careful, call us if you get stuck, my road is fucking crap’. He was spot on and about 10kms in we were glaring through the thick rain at a muddy slippery slide hill which needed to be crossed in order to reach our lodgings. Liss’s dad Luke and Liss were quite positive ‘50/50’ chance. Liss’s mum Shaz and I had little faith in our little shit box car and this lack of hope was reiterated by a man in a four wheel drive that had just crossed. Man to Luke (laughing): “Do you think that little car will make it?” Luke “Not sure mate, I’ll keep the revs up, we can only try!”. It was like the travelater at the end of gladiators, three quarters of the way up was when it was touch and go. I think most cars were consumed, but our little white beast was determined, and only got close to bottoming out when we had just enough edge of car over the peak…. Phew! Driving on, Liss excitedly pointed out the Lions. In our shit white car, I won’t lie – I was fucking scared (cue video of rhinos charging white car). But we sat in the car and watched and I noted that the lions were spotty which I thought was unusual. The next animal we saw was a family of pumba’s or wort hogs, my fav Lion King character only marginally to Zazou, which we also saw on safari.

Arrival at Leppard Mountain was our own little haven. We had a king size bed to die for and a plunge pool for each room. The mornings were up early for safari, afternoons were relaxation and nights were again safari. The staff were awesome and the food was exquisite. By the final day my thighs were touching and we still hadn’t seen an elephant. We got up for the early safari on our final day not expecting to see a single thing, as it seemed with it, the rain fall had washed away the animals. We were cutting laps of the now accessible dam looking for the wild dogs, to no avail. That was until Liss spotted a Kudoo, thankfully I spotted three fluffy tails running rapidly behind ‘The Dogs!!’. Soon, the whole lot of the five adjoining parks safaris groups were following the wild dogs, only 450 remain in South Africa and only a couple of thousand throughout Africa in the wild. I began to wonder if I had really seen the dogs, or just some other animal and sent us all on some wild goose with fluffy tail chase. But then bingo, they had been found chasing a Kodoo some 30 minutes later. Instead of hoping to find them, I was stoked for the Kudoo, having survived the feed, but then, we saw all five dogs, bloodied mouths and all. We stayed with them for another 20 minutes or so, then decided to leg it and chase up the earlier bull elephant sighting. We found the large bull, heavily camouflaged

behind what looked like a twig tree in comparison to the elephant. Our morning ‘safari special’ Amarula, hot choc coffee was enjoyed in the company of the Ellie bull before we were heading back to camp. Enroute however we were not disappointed, seeing a bunch of giraffes and then another Ellie, with her new born complete with umbilical cord. Now it all made sense as to why we couldn’t find elephants for days as they herd together in a circle and protect the mama ellie as she gives birth. The next scenes were extraordinary as we watched the mama bathe the new born for the first time. It was then, inconveniently or conveniently that we got a flat tyre. We were silent (hard work for our lot) as the protective mama and her little bubba passed by, so close we could hear her breathe. We waited for them to pass/ stumble by and were out of our eyesight, and we hurriedly changed the tyre, not believing what we had just witnessed.  

We departed leopard mountain having saw some

amazing creatures, some pumbas, porcupines, cheetahs, elephants, African wild dogs, inyala, impala, koodu, buffalos, white and black rhinos, the list goes on. It was here I had to say goodbye to Tempah, my Zulu prince (he called me his beautiful Zulu Angel, and every other gullible female haha). We left our ranger, Bea, and set off for Cape Town on another turbulent Mango flight.

The flight was horrific. I was definitely happy when we landed or skidded on the runway. Cape town was instantly a hit. We left the comfort of the airport and saw the discomfort of the shanty townships which was saddining to me however the landscape was picturesque and somehow it all worked. Our hotel was seaside at Seapoint. Our stunning new home was The Hyde apartments; the rooftop pool was the epitome, overlooking Table Mountain and supporting Liss’s and my desire to become three shades darker in a day, although our tinge of red the next morning was a disappointing result. We kicked off with a morning run and explored the amazing city. Cool place, great little bars, the city felt safe, people were polite and the shopping was top notch. Wednesday we drove to the national park and went swimming with the penguins at Boulders beach, a highlight, all of them reminded me of Happy Feet or Mick Boyland. We had dinner with the Pfisters and were told facts about animals from Jo’s adorable son’s, who apparently know more about the Platypus than I know- who else knew that the Platypus was the only male to lay eggs? Our final full day was again up early, but this time for a wine tour. We visited three wineries and managed only to get a little bit tipsy, but added some more to the hips with the biltong and cheese. The highlight was Liss stating that she could taste undertones of toilet water when she tried the Sav Blanc and I finally got her to like one red wine- a nice bottle of Syrah.   

 

The final day I decided to combat my touching thighs and set off for a run. It was only supposed to be 4kms, but when the shops were closed at the other end, I turned around and ran back for our final breaky. I passed ‘The Marathon Man’ Eddie Izzard who was close to completing his 27 marathons in 27 days, I said ‘Guten Tag’ and got goose bumps as I passed, although I had no idea who he was, I assumed by his entourage he was doing a great thing, and when I got back and googled, I saw I was right. Liss and I said her goodbyes to her parentals and flew our final Mango flight to Joburg, thankfully this time, it was peaceful, the pilot clearly could fly, and landed well. However Mango is on my personal never to fly again list, with Ryanair. We had our last supper at Jackson’s at Joburg airport and boarded separate flights. Mine another exit seat, hers a much longer middle seat cramped flight. I had a minor anxierty when there was a screaming baby next to me and I couldn’t find my hallucinagent sleeping tablets – stilnoct, however as it turned out I was sitting next to a pharmacist who handed me 10mg of candy which put me nicely to sleep after part 2 of Hunger Games MockingJay and I woke up just under 2 hrs from landing, baby still screaming.   

South Africa, top marks. Your coffee is alright, your eggs are overcooked, Your tinder men are second only to Hong Kong’s and Cape Town rocks my massive world. I’ll be back. 5 spuds.