More South Africa
Current location: Port St Johns, Wild Coast South Africa
17 February 2009 – 19 March 09
Well another month has gone by and we are still in South Africa. Guess we like it here. As mentioned in the last post we were off north to visit home affairs to extend our tourist visa. The town was Malmesbury as we had heard horror stories of home affairs in Cape Town and how it could take days there, whilst in Malmesbury it should only take an hour. As we arrived at home affairs, it certainly appeared to be a typical African governmental office, paint peeling off the walls, 1 or 2 tiny windows set crookedly in the wall that you could hardly see through due to the fact that they hadn’t been washed since the days apartheid left this place. There was only one English couple sitting at the visa extension handling desk, it took them about an hour to clear the way, seems they were having problems extending their residents permit, perhaps South Africa is heading down the slippery slope that Zimbabwe is on, more on that later.
Now it was our turn, we didn’t think it would take long as the person sitting opposite us taking care of our paper work happened to be white, is that politically correct? Anyway sitting opposite a white person at a government office in South Africa is definitely not BEE (Black Economic Empowerment). We fill in the forms and they discover that we only have to 10 days left on our current visa, not good, they bring out this additional form. It was an apology letter and went as follows:
I / We __________________________
Sincerely apologise for not having requested a visa extension within 30 days of the previous one expiring for the following reason: ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
As you can imagine we were gobsmacked, but duly filled in the blank lines, I was refraining from laughing my head off when I wrote this:
We offer our sincerest apologies as we were completely unaware that we had to apply for a visa within 30 days of the previous one expiring. We kindly request to have our visas extended as we have been mesmerized by the beauty of your country and its people.
Well that was fine, next they needed to know if we had had enough funds to stay in South Africa for another 3 months. Now wondering how I was going to prove this she stated a figure that we would need, about 30’000 Rand (3’000 USD). So off I went to an internet cafe and printed out a copy of my Credit Suisse bank statement. She didn’t even look at it. Next thing she tells us is that it normally takes 2 to 3 weeks to process. We asked what we could do to speed up the process so we wouldn’t be in the country illegally. As she was the supervisor (this may explain her skin colour), she said that we could come back on Monday. So what were we to do for a week we asked her? She then quite happily offered us her insight into the local area and a little further afield. Now is it just me or did we just walk straight back into a typical “Monkey Africa” country and not notice we crossed a border. So far South Africa has proved to be the most civilised country we have been into in a long time, yet you show up to a government agency office and it’s like you’re back in the big bad Congo.
With nothing left to do but be tourists for a week in the west coast area, that’s exactly what we did. We headed first to Langebaan for the evening. We found an ok campsite (caravan park) and watched one of the better sunsets we have seen setting over the hills, oceans and ships in the bay. As we weren’t too keen on the 80’s style caravan park, (the mens loos had been burnt out in one corner, seems that no attempt had been made to repair it either), we left to go a little further north where we found Columbine Nature Reserve just on the outskirts of a quaint little fishing town called Paternoster. Stunning, we camped right on the rocky water’s edge and had no sounds apart from the waves, birds and howling winds. Once the wind had gotten the best of us we headed yet further north. We ended up in a place called Lamberts Bay, pretty much at the end of a dead end road in the middle of nowhere. Now this is where we start to discover that camping on the west coast is not the best idea and is something that should be left in the 80’s. We found yet another unappealing caravan park and were faced with the hard choice of having to stay there as it was getting late. Lamberts Bay is quite a disappointing place they have stuck the town’s only economic feature bang smack in the middle of it and this happens to be a fish processing plant. So as you can imagine it stinks, it also seems that the place has long past its heyday, as the youngest looking resident is about 200 years old (clearly the young had moved out long ago), and the houses don’t look much better. The only reason to visit the place that we could see was its Cape Gannet colony, and perhaps the little coffee joint where you get served by women dressed like ‘working girls’.
Heading back inland, clearly as the coast has nothing to offer but wind. We went to the Cederberg hoping to camp at a place called Algeria, but this place was closed due to recent bushfires where apparently half of the Cederberg has suffered from bushfires. We ended up in Citrusdal, as you can imaging by its name this is South Africa’s citrus capital and I think it has a juice brand named after it.
Off for some wine tasting in Riebeek Kasteel, a little known wine area north of the main wine regions. Tried some excellent wines and had an excellent lunch. Headed out of town to find a nice camping spot, now this is definitely not an area that is in the guide books so we were relying on the GPS for a camping spot. First place we went to no one was home, though the sprinklers were on, we tried all the phone numbers listed on the door to no avail. Next we stopped next to a sign that said camping 2 kms down a gravel track, thought let’s call them first to make sure they have room, no answer here either. Found another on the GPS about 18 Km away went to that to discover that hubby was out playing golf and he was in charge of that sort of thing, wifey was adamant that only one camp was available in the whole place, and it was full, though to us it looked like there were about 20 spots free (shame because there were zebras wondering around). Now off to Tulbagh where the GPS tells us there is a caravan park, figured that would be a safe bet. Oh how wrong we were. We arrive at this place and the security guard lets us in and we are the only souls in the place, not only that gave us the heebie gebbies, the fact that the toilets were covered in graffiti and every braai spot had been demolished made it worse. As you can imagine we made a quick escape and headed back to the safety of Riebeek Kasteel, where we found a nice little cottage run by a lovely lady, the cottage was called Morway (R400 for the unit. Great!).
It was and Monday we could get our visa finally, now we thought this would be a quick in an out thing. But how wrong we were we handed in our little bit of paper that said “pick up Monday”. Then we waited for over an hour and finally the woman walked out with our passports after possibly, we think, either drinking tea for that long or trying to find the visa sticker in amongst the mess of paper that seemed to pile high everywhere. It’s quite surprising that anyone will be able to call the coming elections in South Africa free and fair, if home affairs is as disorganised as this, what are the other departments of this countries government like. We all know that the most likely next president has the education of a 6 year old, is as corrupt as they come and spends more time in court than most prisoners spend in prison, and I have yet to find a single South African that supports him, black or white.
After finally getting the visa we headed to Cape Town to meet up with our long lost fellow travellers Anne and Reindeer a.k.a The Dutch bikers. We spent the night at the Ashanti Lodge, what a disappointment; we got a room with a bed, a sink, a window that I couldn’t fit my head through and no form of cooling from the stifling heat. Needless to say we hightailed it out there the next day to visit the mechanic in Muizenburg. Jim is a Scotsman turned South African over the years, very helpful. Checked a few things out, and as he is probably the busiest mechanic in Cape Town made an appointment the following week to get more minor repairs done. Ended up crashing at Tammy’s in her lounge (Trevor’s sister) for the night. Thanks Tammy and flatmates!
As we had yet another week to kill around Cape Town till the mechanic had time to tend to Eddie’s needs. We headed out to Gordon’s Bay for no real reason at all. We headed back to Franschoek for some more wine tasting and beautiful surroundings, found that nearly every place was booked out but finally found a place called Calais Country Cottage. Louise had a little cold but we went wine tasting anyway, discovered that La Motte was rubbish, Grande Provence is not too bad and Boekenhoutskloof was the winner of the day. At the end of the day we headed to the wine shop in town to send a selection of wines to our friends in Mtunzini. We drove back to Cape Town and stayed in Kalk Bay. The following day I went down to see Jim again, we had the parts and now it was time to replace one of the front hubs, thanks to the mechanics in Windhoek for over tightening two of the three bolts and stripping the thread the whole hub had to be replaced while Jim replaced that. I swapped out the rear half shafts and driving members, and ‘bush mechaniced’ the rear shocks as I can’t find the right bushes for them. A quick oil and filter change and we were away.
We headed out to the peninsula again this time to the other side Nordhoek, where we had heard there was a good campsite. We discovered a couple of other overlanders, Isabella and Thomas from Switzerland, who have been on the road for a year and will spend at least another 2 years travelling around Africa in their giant Man truck, equipped with garage to store the BMW motorbike in the back. Also there where Sean and Lucy, an English couple from Henley who have spent the last couple of months coming down the east coast, their website www.bigafricanadventure.co.uk made me want to drive back up the east coast now, they also introduced us to the phrase “monkey Africa”.
Now on Wednesday the 4th of March it was time to see some more fellow travellers, we went to Hout Bay to have dinner at Annaliese and Stewart’s, the South African couple that we met at Big Millys in Ghana. They had another couple staying with them for the weekends cycle tour the Argus. At about 10 at night in the quiet neighbourhood in Hout Bay we heard the neighbours shouting that someone was trying to break into a van. Though Edmund would not approve of being called a van sure enough it was his window that was smashed, and a backpack was taken. We didn’t lose much, a few camera items, nothing that is irreplaceable and no one was hurt. Little shits.
The next morning we started early ringing places for a new window, no one had one but it’s amazing how helpful people in this country are. Telling you to try this person or that person, telling us how sorry they are to hear our car was broken into. Eventually PG Glass down by the waterfront could organise one for us for the following Monday though it was only fitted on Tuesday. We also headed out to the police station to get a copy of the police report, which was not possible as the constable was in court. Seems he was in court for the entire week as we finally only got a copy the following week as we were leaving Cape Town, more signs that South Africa is becoming more like Monkey Africa.
The broken window meant that we were campsite bound for the whole weekend in particular since the Argus we right outside the campsite and they shut the road for the whole day. (Unfortunately we didn’t manage to spot Matt Damon on his bicycle though, whilst sipping wine with Sean and Lucy at the nearby pub). We did manage to go to the Cape of Good Hope national park, after having our first McDonalds since we left Switzerland, though were duly chased away by baboons, I did get revenge as I chased them away with the help of Edmund as they were trying to destroy another vehicle.
Finally it’s Wednesday the 11th and we are leaving Cape Town, no offence meant but after first waiting for the visa, then the mechanic and finally the window replacement we were well overdue to be on the move again. We headed towards the southern most tip of Africa, after a quick lunch stop in Hermanus we headed just past Gansbaai, where we found yet another one of these caravan parks from the 80’s. The following day we headed to L’agulhas to take the necessary photos of the most southern point in Africa. For the night we ended up in De Hoop nature reserve where we would have liked to stay longer but at 275 Rand for camping, nearly 30 USD, we decided one night was enough. Next was Knysna, Trevor’s hometown. Spent a couple of nights there taking the necessary photos for Trevor, and enjoying the area before heading to Nature’s Valley for the next day. Then it was back to Storms River Mouth, where storm is the operative word, it blew gail force winds and rained all night. We had dinner in the car and went to bed in our ground tent at 19.30! Needless to say the next day looking much the same as before we headed out of there and tried to get back into Addo Elephant Park, it was full. We ended the day in Port Alfred a quaint little coastal resort.
We are now in Coffee Bay sitting in a campsite on top of some cliffs overlooking the turquoise blue ocean, listening to it crash into the rocks and generally enjoying the sunshine. We will spend a few more days on the coast before we head to Sodwana Bay for more diving with friends Chris and Dudley.
Milan
17 February 2009 – 19 March 09
Well another month has gone by and we are still in South Africa. Guess we like it here. As mentioned in the last post we were off north to visit home affairs to extend our tourist visa. The town was Malmesbury as we had heard horror stories of home affairs in Cape Town and how it could take days there, whilst in Malmesbury it should only take an hour. As we arrived at home affairs, it certainly appeared to be a typical African governmental office, paint peeling off the walls, 1 or 2 tiny windows set crookedly in the wall that you could hardly see through due to the fact that they hadn’t been washed since the days apartheid left this place. There was only one English couple sitting at the visa extension handling desk, it took them about an hour to clear the way, seems they were having problems extending their residents permit, perhaps South Africa is heading down the slippery slope that Zimbabwe is on, more on that later.
Now it was our turn, we didn’t think it would take long as the person sitting opposite us taking care of our paper work happened to be white, is that politically correct? Anyway sitting opposite a white person at a government office in South Africa is definitely not BEE (Black Economic Empowerment). We fill in the forms and they discover that we only have to 10 days left on our current visa, not good, they bring out this additional form. It was an apology letter and went as follows:
I / We __________________________
Sincerely apologise for not having requested a visa extension within 30 days of the previous one expiring for the following reason: ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
As you can imagine we were gobsmacked, but duly filled in the blank lines, I was refraining from laughing my head off when I wrote this:
We offer our sincerest apologies as we were completely unaware that we had to apply for a visa within 30 days of the previous one expiring. We kindly request to have our visas extended as we have been mesmerized by the beauty of your country and its people.
Well that was fine, next they needed to know if we had had enough funds to stay in South Africa for another 3 months. Now wondering how I was going to prove this she stated a figure that we would need, about 30’000 Rand (3’000 USD). So off I went to an internet cafe and printed out a copy of my Credit Suisse bank statement. She didn’t even look at it. Next thing she tells us is that it normally takes 2 to 3 weeks to process. We asked what we could do to speed up the process so we wouldn’t be in the country illegally. As she was the supervisor (this may explain her skin colour), she said that we could come back on Monday. So what were we to do for a week we asked her? She then quite happily offered us her insight into the local area and a little further afield. Now is it just me or did we just walk straight back into a typical “Monkey Africa” country and not notice we crossed a border. So far South Africa has proved to be the most civilised country we have been into in a long time, yet you show up to a government agency office and it’s like you’re back in the big bad Congo.
With nothing left to do but be tourists for a week in the west coast area, that’s exactly what we did. We headed first to Langebaan for the evening. We found an ok campsite (caravan park) and watched one of the better sunsets we have seen setting over the hills, oceans and ships in the bay. As we weren’t too keen on the 80’s style caravan park, (the mens loos had been burnt out in one corner, seems that no attempt had been made to repair it either), we left to go a little further north where we found Columbine Nature Reserve just on the outskirts of a quaint little fishing town called Paternoster. Stunning, we camped right on the rocky water’s edge and had no sounds apart from the waves, birds and howling winds. Once the wind had gotten the best of us we headed yet further north. We ended up in a place called Lamberts Bay, pretty much at the end of a dead end road in the middle of nowhere. Now this is where we start to discover that camping on the west coast is not the best idea and is something that should be left in the 80’s. We found yet another unappealing caravan park and were faced with the hard choice of having to stay there as it was getting late. Lamberts Bay is quite a disappointing place they have stuck the town’s only economic feature bang smack in the middle of it and this happens to be a fish processing plant. So as you can imagine it stinks, it also seems that the place has long past its heyday, as the youngest looking resident is about 200 years old (clearly the young had moved out long ago), and the houses don’t look much better. The only reason to visit the place that we could see was its Cape Gannet colony, and perhaps the little coffee joint where you get served by women dressed like ‘working girls’.
Heading back inland, clearly as the coast has nothing to offer but wind. We went to the Cederberg hoping to camp at a place called Algeria, but this place was closed due to recent bushfires where apparently half of the Cederberg has suffered from bushfires. We ended up in Citrusdal, as you can imaging by its name this is South Africa’s citrus capital and I think it has a juice brand named after it.
Off for some wine tasting in Riebeek Kasteel, a little known wine area north of the main wine regions. Tried some excellent wines and had an excellent lunch. Headed out of town to find a nice camping spot, now this is definitely not an area that is in the guide books so we were relying on the GPS for a camping spot. First place we went to no one was home, though the sprinklers were on, we tried all the phone numbers listed on the door to no avail. Next we stopped next to a sign that said camping 2 kms down a gravel track, thought let’s call them first to make sure they have room, no answer here either. Found another on the GPS about 18 Km away went to that to discover that hubby was out playing golf and he was in charge of that sort of thing, wifey was adamant that only one camp was available in the whole place, and it was full, though to us it looked like there were about 20 spots free (shame because there were zebras wondering around). Now off to Tulbagh where the GPS tells us there is a caravan park, figured that would be a safe bet. Oh how wrong we were. We arrive at this place and the security guard lets us in and we are the only souls in the place, not only that gave us the heebie gebbies, the fact that the toilets were covered in graffiti and every braai spot had been demolished made it worse. As you can imagine we made a quick escape and headed back to the safety of Riebeek Kasteel, where we found a nice little cottage run by a lovely lady, the cottage was called Morway (R400 for the unit. Great!).
It was and Monday we could get our visa finally, now we thought this would be a quick in an out thing. But how wrong we were we handed in our little bit of paper that said “pick up Monday”. Then we waited for over an hour and finally the woman walked out with our passports after possibly, we think, either drinking tea for that long or trying to find the visa sticker in amongst the mess of paper that seemed to pile high everywhere. It’s quite surprising that anyone will be able to call the coming elections in South Africa free and fair, if home affairs is as disorganised as this, what are the other departments of this countries government like. We all know that the most likely next president has the education of a 6 year old, is as corrupt as they come and spends more time in court than most prisoners spend in prison, and I have yet to find a single South African that supports him, black or white.
After finally getting the visa we headed to Cape Town to meet up with our long lost fellow travellers Anne and Reindeer a.k.a The Dutch bikers. We spent the night at the Ashanti Lodge, what a disappointment; we got a room with a bed, a sink, a window that I couldn’t fit my head through and no form of cooling from the stifling heat. Needless to say we hightailed it out there the next day to visit the mechanic in Muizenburg. Jim is a Scotsman turned South African over the years, very helpful. Checked a few things out, and as he is probably the busiest mechanic in Cape Town made an appointment the following week to get more minor repairs done. Ended up crashing at Tammy’s in her lounge (Trevor’s sister) for the night. Thanks Tammy and flatmates!
As we had yet another week to kill around Cape Town till the mechanic had time to tend to Eddie’s needs. We headed out to Gordon’s Bay for no real reason at all. We headed back to Franschoek for some more wine tasting and beautiful surroundings, found that nearly every place was booked out but finally found a place called Calais Country Cottage. Louise had a little cold but we went wine tasting anyway, discovered that La Motte was rubbish, Grande Provence is not too bad and Boekenhoutskloof was the winner of the day. At the end of the day we headed to the wine shop in town to send a selection of wines to our friends in Mtunzini. We drove back to Cape Town and stayed in Kalk Bay. The following day I went down to see Jim again, we had the parts and now it was time to replace one of the front hubs, thanks to the mechanics in Windhoek for over tightening two of the three bolts and stripping the thread the whole hub had to be replaced while Jim replaced that. I swapped out the rear half shafts and driving members, and ‘bush mechaniced’ the rear shocks as I can’t find the right bushes for them. A quick oil and filter change and we were away.
We headed out to the peninsula again this time to the other side Nordhoek, where we had heard there was a good campsite. We discovered a couple of other overlanders, Isabella and Thomas from Switzerland, who have been on the road for a year and will spend at least another 2 years travelling around Africa in their giant Man truck, equipped with garage to store the BMW motorbike in the back. Also there where Sean and Lucy, an English couple from Henley who have spent the last couple of months coming down the east coast, their website www.bigafricanadventure.co.uk made me want to drive back up the east coast now, they also introduced us to the phrase “monkey Africa”.
Now on Wednesday the 4th of March it was time to see some more fellow travellers, we went to Hout Bay to have dinner at Annaliese and Stewart’s, the South African couple that we met at Big Millys in Ghana. They had another couple staying with them for the weekends cycle tour the Argus. At about 10 at night in the quiet neighbourhood in Hout Bay we heard the neighbours shouting that someone was trying to break into a van. Though Edmund would not approve of being called a van sure enough it was his window that was smashed, and a backpack was taken. We didn’t lose much, a few camera items, nothing that is irreplaceable and no one was hurt. Little shits.
The next morning we started early ringing places for a new window, no one had one but it’s amazing how helpful people in this country are. Telling you to try this person or that person, telling us how sorry they are to hear our car was broken into. Eventually PG Glass down by the waterfront could organise one for us for the following Monday though it was only fitted on Tuesday. We also headed out to the police station to get a copy of the police report, which was not possible as the constable was in court. Seems he was in court for the entire week as we finally only got a copy the following week as we were leaving Cape Town, more signs that South Africa is becoming more like Monkey Africa.
The broken window meant that we were campsite bound for the whole weekend in particular since the Argus we right outside the campsite and they shut the road for the whole day. (Unfortunately we didn’t manage to spot Matt Damon on his bicycle though, whilst sipping wine with Sean and Lucy at the nearby pub). We did manage to go to the Cape of Good Hope national park, after having our first McDonalds since we left Switzerland, though were duly chased away by baboons, I did get revenge as I chased them away with the help of Edmund as they were trying to destroy another vehicle.
Finally it’s Wednesday the 11th and we are leaving Cape Town, no offence meant but after first waiting for the visa, then the mechanic and finally the window replacement we were well overdue to be on the move again. We headed towards the southern most tip of Africa, after a quick lunch stop in Hermanus we headed just past Gansbaai, where we found yet another one of these caravan parks from the 80’s. The following day we headed to L’agulhas to take the necessary photos of the most southern point in Africa. For the night we ended up in De Hoop nature reserve where we would have liked to stay longer but at 275 Rand for camping, nearly 30 USD, we decided one night was enough. Next was Knysna, Trevor’s hometown. Spent a couple of nights there taking the necessary photos for Trevor, and enjoying the area before heading to Nature’s Valley for the next day. Then it was back to Storms River Mouth, where storm is the operative word, it blew gail force winds and rained all night. We had dinner in the car and went to bed in our ground tent at 19.30! Needless to say the next day looking much the same as before we headed out of there and tried to get back into Addo Elephant Park, it was full. We ended the day in Port Alfred a quaint little coastal resort.
We are now in Coffee Bay sitting in a campsite on top of some cliffs overlooking the turquoise blue ocean, listening to it crash into the rocks and generally enjoying the sunshine. We will spend a few more days on the coast before we head to Sodwana Bay for more diving with friends Chris and Dudley.
Milan
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