Trip report: Southern Africa
OK, so I've had my takeaway and a bottle of Belgian beer. The cats have stopped attention-seeking and the house is quiet because Sally is 20 miles away with an IV antibiotic drip in her arm failing to...
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Day 9: Sunday - Down the coast
Sally acquired a new friend:
Meanwhile I went for a walk down by the river:
Despite the Silence of the Lambs style shower, I was very impressed with the hot water geyser that ran it. It was labelled as a model specifically designed for campgrounds and appeared to take only a water and propane supply. It didn't appear to have an electricity supply. However, a few seconds after turning on the shower taps the little LED display lit up and the ignitor started. It worked very well.
We said goodbye and thank-you to the couple running the campground and slogged our way back up the dirt track.
On our way up the track Sally shouted "Oh my god, what is that" - and quickly wound her window up - this was dangling off the drip rail, threatening to come into the vehicle and land on her lap:
Further down the coast we passed this - not your usual location for a jet airliner:
Again, we are the dirtiest vehicle on the road:
Today was really just a day of driving, so not a huge amount to see. More road construction on the N2, so more time spent waiting for someone with a stop / go sign.
I knew there was a campground at the top of Addo elephant park. But when we went in we found it was fully booked. They suggested a private campground called Aardvark 15 minutes down the road. It was run by a Dutch guy called Daniel and his wife.
The campground was fairly busy so we found a spot in the corner - again, we don't need hook-up. The owner comes around and tells us there will be "load shedding" between 6 and 8pm. Load shedding is the South African power companies term for shutting down electricity to different districts at different points in time to reduce load on the national grid and help cope with their lack of generating capacity. We rush into the showers to make use of them before losing electricity.
We shared the campground with a very nice camper based on a similar 78 series to ours. I hope it had a more powerful engine.
We filled a bottle of water from their kitchen tap, but it didn't appear very clean, even for making tea. I tasted a bit - it had a rather biological taste. I had brought my water filter with me - we had not got a chance to use this since buying it before the Sahara trip. It worked very well and the resulting water was tasteless:
Stay tuned for elephants...
Sally acquired a new friend:
Meanwhile I went for a walk down by the river:
Despite the Silence of the Lambs style shower, I was very impressed with the hot water geyser that ran it. It was labelled as a model specifically designed for campgrounds and appeared to take only a water and propane supply. It didn't appear to have an electricity supply. However, a few seconds after turning on the shower taps the little LED display lit up and the ignitor started. It worked very well.
We said goodbye and thank-you to the couple running the campground and slogged our way back up the dirt track.
On our way up the track Sally shouted "Oh my god, what is that" - and quickly wound her window up - this was dangling off the drip rail, threatening to come into the vehicle and land on her lap:
Further down the coast we passed this - not your usual location for a jet airliner:
Again, we are the dirtiest vehicle on the road:
Today was really just a day of driving, so not a huge amount to see. More road construction on the N2, so more time spent waiting for someone with a stop / go sign.
I knew there was a campground at the top of Addo elephant park. But when we went in we found it was fully booked. They suggested a private campground called Aardvark 15 minutes down the road. It was run by a Dutch guy called Daniel and his wife.
The campground was fairly busy so we found a spot in the corner - again, we don't need hook-up. The owner comes around and tells us there will be "load shedding" between 6 and 8pm. Load shedding is the South African power companies term for shutting down electricity to different districts at different points in time to reduce load on the national grid and help cope with their lack of generating capacity. We rush into the showers to make use of them before losing electricity.
We shared the campground with a very nice camper based on a similar 78 series to ours. I hope it had a more powerful engine.
We filled a bottle of water from their kitchen tap, but it didn't appear very clean, even for making tea. I tasted a bit - it had a rather biological taste. I had brought my water filter with me - we had not got a chance to use this since buying it before the Sahara trip. It worked very well and the resulting water was tasteless:
Stay tuned for elephants...
