July 2004 Tour

Itinerary July 2004 Tour

SUNSET VIEW B&B :
We’ll arrive in Johannesburg at 5.50 pm and will probably need an hour or two to clear customs and collect baggage. We’ll be met by my wife Bridget with our minibus and skirt Johannesburg city on the motorway to Pretoria , about 40 minutes to the North east.Dinner will be enjoyed at a local restaurant and then we can get a good rest. Weather should be clear and sunny with a frost and midday temp up to about 20 deg.
The morning will see us having breakfast and packing up to head for the Kruger park. We could have a quick look around Pretoria, which is an historic city and the administrative capital of SA . Doug did some of his compulsory military training here in the late 1980’s. We’ll need to keep going , however , as we have a trip of about 500km to our lodgings at the Northern tip of the Kruger Park . We’ll travel NE into the drier warmer bush country of the North and stop for lunch ,before descending into the Lowveld . We’ll cross the tropic of Capricorn and might pass tropical fruit farms and plenty of private game farms and cattle ranches . Perhaps a few big stringless mango’s might be found!
Weather should be clear and sunny with warm days up to about 35 deg and nights cooling to about 10 deg.

PAFURI RIVERCAMP :
We’ll arrive at this beautiful camp set in unspoiled African bush ,just minutes outside the Kruger park and a short distance from both the Zimbabwe and Mocambique borders. Accommodation will be in luxury tented treehouses with a bar , pool and views over the Mutale river ( a tributary of the nearby Limpopo).Dinner will be served ‘bushcamp style’ with a fire of hardwood logs and the hundreds of night sounds of the bush. The following day , after breakfast, is open to choice and I’d like to see the holiday feeling start to creep in , options are:
-Head straight into the park and work our way south, while gameviewing
toward our next stop about 200km away.
- African village tour 3km away
- See the “biggest Baobab tree in Africa “ 55km away
- Get in some fishing (tigerfish , tilapia bream or Barbel catfish), birding or a walk before heading out.
We’ll take a packed lunch and drinks with us as we wander through the park and sift through Africa’s most diverse selection of game and natural birdlife. The park roads are tarred and there are fairly regular picnic spots and ablution facilities. I’ll eat my hat if we havn’t seen several different creatures within a half hour of entering the Kruger.

STEYNS COTTAGE –PHALABORWA
We must leave the park by 6pm gate closing time. Only tours supervised by the Parks department can be out in the park after dark.We only have 1km to drive to the gracious guesthouse of Marlene and Steyn . Accommodation will be in double rooms with airconditioning and television. We’ll go out to La Werna restaurant for dinners and breakfasts and lunches will be provided by our hosts. There is a range of activities and visits available during the two days we will be spending here:
- Visits to the white lion and cheetah breeding projects 80km away.
- A night drive into the park with snack ( we’ve booked one already)
- Selati river boat trip 15km away
- Visit the Maholoholo wildlife rehab centre 100km away
- A bush walk of 4 hours ,either morning or afternoon.
- An early morning drive in the park
The little town of Phalaborwa also boasts the biggest open cast mine in Southern Africa and the SA Airforce base at nearby Hoedspruit (about 70km).
After our second night at Steyns and breakfast we will make our way south to the bottom end of the park about 200km before the gates close at 6pm .

ELEPHANT WALK RETREAT –Tuesday 13th
5 minutes out of the park we will get us to the retreat where we’ll be staying in an elevated lodge overlooking the Komati river. Meals will be provided by our hosts Mike and Stephanie.
After breakfast we’ll make our way through the intensively farmed ,sugar and fruit areas of the lowveld. Driving south will take us to the border of Swaziland and we’ll make our way through this little kingdom to the game country of Zululand.This eastern corner of South Africa is the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal , the kingdom of the Zulu people, and the most populous of the nine SA provinces.
After a trip of about 450km through some “real Africa “ we’ll arrive at the little village of Hluhluwe.

THE HORN AND THORN –Wednesday 14th to Friday 16th
Now to a chalet on the farm of our friends James and Jill Domleo . With double rooms set around the swimming pool and a communal kitchen and lounge. The Domleo’s farm sisal ( used for ropes and mats) , irrigated sugar cane and game for the hunting fraternity. Their house is situated about 7km from Hluhluwe village and a 15 minute drive from the gate to the Hluhluwe /Umfolosi game reserve , made famous by it’s “operation Rhino” which brought the white Rhino back from the brink of extinction.
Activities here include:
- Hluhluwe river boat trip
- Visit to st Lucia estuary a world heritage site and waterbird paradise.(50 to 100km )
- Visit game viewing, fishing at Pongola dam.(40km)
- Visit Zulu woodcarvers and basket weavers ( 15 to 50km)
- Get to the Indian ocean and sunbathe or perhaps dive/fish (80km)
- See lake Sibaya a coastal freshwater lake .
On Saturday morning we’ll head Southwest about 120km and see the old capital of Zululand at Eshowe and do a walk on a raised boardwalk through the mist-forest canopy . We’ll get lunch at a local establishment and try to catch up with old Zulu acquaintances of the Mackenzie family nearby.Then we’ll travel 120km to Ballito on the Indian ocean about 40km up the coast from Durban.

BROADSANDS COTTAGE – Saturday 17th to Monday the 19th 3 nights
This is the old family cottage of Bridgets family , owned by her aunt Ishbel Wakeman. It is a comfortable house with double rooms and sits among the mansions of the millionaires ( including Louis Luyt !! ).
Overlooking the Indian Ocean, the lounge and verandah have beautiful uninterrupted views and the beach is about 40 paces away. Ballito is a thriving little town with plenty of restaurants , golf courses , art and craft outlets and adventure tourism places, and only 45 minutes from the centre of Durban. Here’s the list:
- at least 5 golf courses ranging from local club to international championship level within 40km
- A horde of top class restaurants and resorts
- Umgeni river bird park ( sort of exotic bird zoo )
- Microlight flights over the ocean
- Croc and snake farm (might catch the feeding!)
- Fitzimmons snake park in Durban
- Swimming ,surfing , paddleskiing
- Possible to arrange a deep sea charter for fishing
We’ll be in a big sugar growing area and could arrange to visit one of Bridgets relatives for a farm visit. This is also the centre of a very Indian area of SA ( the biggest population of Indian people outside of India) and there is no end to the range of Indian foods and snacks available. We’ll pick (black)mussels off the rocks and arrange a genuine Fishbraai ( BBQ’d whole linefish) . On Tuesday we’ll pack up and travel through Durban and Pietermaritzburg to the Natal midlands , a trip of 150km.

THISTLEDOWN COUNTRY HOUSE – Tuesday 20th
We might have a look around the cities / towns of Pietermaritzburg and Howick and get a look at the 110m Howick falls on our way through to the gentle Karkloof valley. This is the “home turf “ of the Mackenzie family and we’ll stay in double rooms at Thistledown on the edge of the indigineous mist forest . Weather here will be back to near freezing at night and mostly clear sunny days getting up to 25 deg C. We can try to get a look at a giant Yellowwood tree ( SA’s version of the Kauri ) and visit the Benson family , to have a look around their mixed farming operation including a world class piggery and stud , maize and soya operation , horse feed plant and thoroughbred stud.
We’ll then travel 120km on through the midlands to the village of Underberg in the Drakensberg mountains, and have a choice of visits on the way to:

- Handmade shoe and boot operation.
- Or Game hide tannery
- Or Home bakery and handworks and more on the Midlands Meander.

TAYLORS GUESTHOUSE – Wednesday the 21st to Friday the 23rd
In Underberg, (pop about 1000 normally and many more at weekends and holidays), we will be guests of Bridget’s parents , John and Edith Taylor , on their mixed and dairy farm “the Banks”. Weather here will be as cold as -15 deg C at night with plenty of frost , the days should be clear and sunny with temperatures up to about 20 deg. Accommodation will be in double rooms in the house and meals will be served in the house or taken at local restaurants as we choose.We’ll spend some time chatting around the fireplace with the Taylors about farming , John’s NZ roots and rugby (John is an ex provincial representative ) , before retiring to heated , fully serviced rooms.
We’ve made a booking for a 4×4 trip up the Sani pass to Lesotho with Jonathan Aldous to have a drink and lunch in the highest pub in Southern Africa at about 9000 ft. I’ve also made a tentative booking with Bruce and Peta Parker to visit their game farm and lodge and to take any enthusiasts wingshooting with them . Other activities:
- See San ( bushman) rock art
- Visit farms in the area to see “the Banks “ dairy , Nguni beef cattle operation , Apple and cherry orchards ,
- Sightseeing in the mountainous country crisscrossed with clear trout streams.
- Perhaps take a night drive to see the wildlife that uses the farms after hours .
On Saturday morning we’ll pack up and head through a little known back road travelling through some spectacular sandstone mountain farms to Nottingham rd and Mooi river , where we might have lunch and catch up with my brother Rod before moving on to Ladysmith . A total of about 200km travelling.

BLANERNE FARM B&B – Saturday the 24th and Sunday the 25th
We’ll be the guests of Ian and Pam Mitchell-Innes on their beef farm . Run on the Holistic resource management principle near Elandslaagte between Ladysmith and Dundee.Set in the heart of the battlefields from the Zulu wars of the late 1800’s and the Boer war at the turn of the last century. We’ll have breakfast and set-off with Neville Worthington to share with him his passion for the history of the Zulu war , and visit sites of the great battles fought between this proud African nation and the might of the Victorian British empire.
We might have time for a bit of a look at Ian’s beef operation before Dinner and another night at Blanerne. After an early breakfast we’ll head up the national road N3 through van Reenens pass and into the Orange freestate province and the highveld. We’ll travel about 250km through the mountains and out onto the plains to the Sparta beef feedlot near Marquard. Here we’ll do a tour of the feedlot and have a traditional Braai ( BBQ) dinner as guests of Lou van Reenen , director of Sparta Beef.We’ll spend the night at the nearby Arizona hunting lodge in comfortable double rooms.

ARIZONA LODGE-Monday 26th
After breakfast at the lodge we’ll make our way west toward Kimberley through the drier grassland plains of the Freestate and into the acacia thornscrub and semi-desert of the northern Karroo and eventually the Northern Cape province and Kimberley after about 250km of travelling.

CARRINGTON LODGE –Tuesday 27th and Wednesday 28th
We’ll spend 2 nights in luxurious ,heated ,double rooms and enjoy meals provided by our hosts or taken at restaurants in the ‘Diamond city’ a range of activities is available, from:
- Diamond mine tour ( booked for Wednesday morning) of 3hrs
- Visit to the Boer war battlefield of Magersfontein 32km
- View the “Big Hole” and museum of the original diamond rush diggings
- Take a drive through the Northern Cape farmland and try to see Springbok and other highveld game and perhaps the Orange river or nearby Vaalbos game reserve.
We’ll need to leave by about 10am at the latest on Thursday the 29th to drive the 500 odd km to Johannesburg, in order to check in for flights departing at 6pm for Sydney or Cape Town.We’ll travel through the Maize basket of SA and several mining towns in the North West province. Perhaps there’ll be some time for duty free shopping in Jo’burg before the plane goes.