holiday and beach (J1)

We are back in Gabs again, after a really nice holiday in South Africa. We started our trip on Friday morning, and took a scenic drive through Free State, going south of Joburg and Pretoria towards the east coast, with as final destination St. Lucia. J2 has drawn this little map to show our route.

Even with real maps, the route was not always clear to us, since we were not following the main motorways as usual. We even encountered some gravel roads, our poor Honda went places where it was not supposed to go. To break the nearly 1200km drive we stopped overnight in a small place in Free State, called Memel. A small village with approx 200 people, but a really nice B&B.

During the drive through Free State we saw loads of big empty spaces, big distances between small (agricultural) towns, and very dry and brown fields. The next day there were about 4 hours driving left, and upon arrival we spoiled ourselves with the Neptune Platter in the local restaurant and bar. How is that for some seafood?

St. Lucia is a very unique area and is a heritage site. The river is joining the Indian Ocean through enormous wetland areas, which host all sorts of wildlife, including most of the big 5 animals. The hippos and crocodiles are right at the edge of town, and enjoy their sunbathing just as much as the people! More about this a little later.
The town has a great selection of bars and restaurants, where we enjoyed Greek food, Italian, Portuguese, and loads of seafood. Of course also the necessary alcoholic refreshment.
On the nice days we enjoyed the beautiful beaches, this picture is of the beach in Cape Vidal, 25km from St. Lucia in a national park. We encountered Rhinos on our drive to the beach.
Two days were less sunny, which gave us a nice opportunity for some shopping, reading, and mountain biking.

Besides the hippos and crocodiles, there were of course many many monkeys everywhere.

Our lodge was called Amazulu lodge and was a really amazing place, nice rooms, beautiful setting, thatch roofs, great breakfast, on the edge of town, and walking distance to the beach.

The rooms are all located around this 'inside' area with pool, jacuzzi and a 'boma' at the top, complete with bar.

To help us not miss our own dogs too much, a very sweet 'resident' cat kept us company nearly our whole stay. J2 named him Pufpuf.

As I mentioned before, the hippos and crocodiles were on the edge of town. Hippos normally come out of the water at nighttime to graze, and go back to the water when the sun comes up. The can walk over 3 kilometers away from the water, and back. In St. Lucia that means town is within reach easily. The hippos have discovered that the green areas in town provide nice fresh grass, and the come INTO town at night. On one of our night when we walked back to the lodge from a restaurant, there was one right along the road, and on our last night this one was right outside our bedroom! Remember: Hippos kill more people in Africa then any other animal.

After our week in St. Lucia we were nice and rested, finally had a chance to read some books again, and were totally ready for some action.....RUGBY ACTION. More about that in the next post.

J1