Roadtrip to South Africa

[mistral]

I'm going to South Africa in a couple of weeks time for the winter. We'll be flying into Johannesburg & broadly spending a month in southern Kruger (Marloth Park), a month in the Kgalagadi & Augrabies National Parks (Northern Cape) & a month in the Cape Winelands (Paarl, Stellenbosch & Franschhoek), finishing off in Cape Town. It's been 4 years since we were last in South Africa, and I was wondering if anyone has been there more recently?

We'll be driving the entire route, and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what's what (roads or otherwise) in South Africa, in particular in Mpumalanga, Northern Cape & Western Cape.

[Vierwielen]

I'm going to South Africa in a couple of weeks time for the winter.
... snip ...

I don't believe you. You might be going there to get away from the winter. It is summer out there.

[mistral]

I'm going to South Africa in a couple of weeks time for the winter ...

I don't believe you. You might be going there to get away from the winter. It is summer out there.

We'll be in Kgalagadi from the end of January, and 45°C, dust & sun easily beats the -10°C, storms & snow that one gets in this part (between Nancy & Dijon) of France at that time of year. I mean, it's rained every single day here since October 8th ... it's been just relentlessly miserable weather, and the weather forecast for this part of the world isn't looking too promising!

[RichardA35]

My relatives in Joburg have just sold up and are moving to Cape Town before onto Australia as a result of a climate of increasing violence. Good Luck with the road trip.

[mistral]

... a climate of increasing violence ...

Quite!

For me, the 'Golden Rule' to remember is to never (getting to/from airports excepted) drive on the city streets in the conurbations of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth or East London. In the rare event that one has to pass through these areas, stay on the motorways at all times!

My secondary 'rules' include;

1 : Never drive in the dark. Whilst in urban areas, the key issue may be crime, in rural areas the primary concern is still the risk of hitting a large animal, or encountering a very large pothole.

2 : Pre-plan as much of the route as possible, to try and avoid e.g. 'dodgy' areas or seriously bad bits of road. Streetwiewing & good scale maps help a lot in that regard.

3 : Defensive driving at all times ... never drive in such a way that one makes it easier for someone to carjack you e.g. always leave some wriggle room when you're waiting at lights or a roundabout.

Despite all of that, there's always an element of 'fingers crossed'!

[Vierwielen]

My relatives in Joburg have just sold up and are moving to Cape Town before onto Australia as a result of a climate of increasing violence. Good Luck with the road trip.

My nephew was brought up in South Africa. He met his wife on a trip to the UK and after they married he returned to South Africa with her where their two boys were born. When I stayed with them a few years ago, one drove past a barrier at the entrance to their suburb and on reaching their house pressed a remote control to open the gate to the property. After entering the property, one closed the gate behind oneself and one was then in a "cage" surroundedby iron bars with a carport, entrance to the garage and a locked gate to the garden. One would unlock that gate, lock it behind oneself and then go to the front door where one would unlock the grille across the door before opening the door itself. Inside the house was a lockable gate between the sleeping and the living quarters which was called the "rape gate". By the time they were four, both boys had been trained on what to do should they be involved in a car-jacking.

When they rturned to the UK, they stayed in the "granny cottage" on my nephew's in-law's property which was located in an expensive part of the English country side. Mother-in-law kept horses in the paddock. Shortly after they arrived in the UK, the elder of the two, who was about nine or ten said that he did not feel safe at Grandad's - he left the [only] gate open during the day!

[mistral]

As I get towards the end of my trip around South Africa, here's a few thoughts on how things have gone so far.

1 : Johannesburg Motorways : Unlike many of the other roads in South Africa, these roads seem to just get better & better. Every section that I travelled on was at least D4M, and there were some portions that were D6M. Really not bad at all, but when the motorways run out, you're back to reality in a hurry ... at the western end of the N12 motorway, you go from D4M to a rather dodgy S4 in less than a kilometre!

2 : Gravel Roads : Corrugations ... the thing that you feel on pretty much every inch of the dirt & gravel roads here. The combination of people driving too fast, tyre pressures that are too high & the lack of proper grading & maintenance really contribute to some really bad roads. The worst one that I've been on on this trip has been the 50 kms or so between Dendron (Limpopo) & Capricorn Services (N1), which rattled my bones for well over an hour. That's closely followed by some of the roads in Marloth Park, a housing development just south of Kruger. Some of the laughably named 'roads' didn't look as if they'd seen any maintenance for years ... thank goodness for my driving cushion, and some proper suspension on the Hilux!

3 : Sandy Roads : Some of the sandy roads in Kgalagadi and Augrabies Falls National Parks were absolutely treacherous after it rained, but on the hot (40°+), dry days, they offered some of the most fun that I've ever had driving a car. Surging up a big sandy dune road, at full chat, is definitely something that I want to do again soon!

4 : N4 Traffic & Checkpoints : In the week before Christmas, the eastern section of the N4 between Nelspruit & Komatipoort was infested with police & military checkpoints. The general idea seemed to be to control overladen vehicles from causing any accidents, as well as controls on drug & people trafficking. Unfortunately, one of these checkpoints (in Hectorspruit) was so badly set up (at the bottom of a hill) that a truck couldn't stop in time, and killed two policemen & the driver of the car at the back of the queue.

5 : Loadshedding & Traffic Lights : One of the more unusual effects of the continual loadshedding (power cuts), in South Africa, is the effect on the traffic lights. At various times, the lights in Polokwane, Nelspruit, Potchefstroom & Upington all went off, and lead to different degrees of traffic chaos. Notably, in Upington, the scene outside the Checkers supermarket resembled a comedy film, with cars inching across the junction, desperately trying not to hit each other.

6 : (Timber) Slash on Roads : As in New Zealand & France (and probably elsewhere), the logging industry is incredibly poor at cleaning up after itself. When I was driving around in the rain, in the hills, near Graskop, there was a significant amount of wood related debris finishing up in the roads. This was a particular problem on the R532 & R533, where a large number of trees had been cut down pretty recently.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... evastation

If they're not careful, the South Africans will be facing similar problems to the New Zealanders the next time that they get three or four days of steady rain.

7 : Coal & Salt Trucks : The coal trucks in Mpumalanga & the salt trucks in the Northern Cape are a big problem when you're driving. They're double length artics, and they require an awful lot of concentration when you're trying to overtake them. Added to that, their sheer weight when they're fully laden absolutely trashes the roads, which leads onto ...

8 : Potholes & Sinkholes : This issue never seems to improve much in South Africa. As the railways here have pretty much closed down, the number of big trucks has mushroomed, and they're wrecking the roads. In the past two months, the only decent length of road that I've travelled on was the R27 in the Northern Cape. The 350 kilometre stretch between Keimoes & Calvinia gave me the unexpected bliss of being able to drive at the speed limit of 120 km/h without the risk of getting involved with the dreaded potholes!

Elsewhere in the country, they're a regular hazard, and one has to drive in a very restrained fashion. Sadly, in parts of Limpopo, North West & Mpumalanga, the holes in the road are so big that one really has to call them sinkholes or trenches. One just has to engage 1st gear & hope for the best!

A few other bits & bobs.

9 : Afrikaans : I've been very surprised at the surge in the number of people speaking Afrikaans, especially in the western half of the country. Ten years ago, it was a rarity to see shops signed exclusively in Afrikaans, but it's pretty commonplace now in Western Cape & Northern Cape. After a month or two of hearing people speaking English, it came as a bit of a shock to arrive in the Northern Cape, and hear Afrikaans as the standard language for everyone!

10 : National Parks : Over the past 8 years, I've now been to every South African national park, with the exception of Richtersveld (which just seems far too much like hard work). My top three are Kruger, Mountain Zebra & Augrabies Falls, with an honourable mention to * Hluhluwe-Imfolozi (in Kwazulu-Natal). On the other hand, my worst three would have to be Marakele, Table Mountain (sorry, but it's seriously disappointing & overrated IMO) & Bontebok, all of which are eminently forgettable.

* The game reserves in Kwazulu-Natal, have for one reason or another, never joined the national Sanparks system.

11 : Loadshedding : Of all the things that screw up South Africa, loadshedding has to be at the top of the list. It's been going on for 9 years now, and it's hard to describe just how disruptive continuous & lengthy power cuts can be. The modern world just disappears in an instant, with no lights, no fans, no fridge, no freezer, no power points, no WiFi, no mobile signal & no aircon. Not only that, (depending on the time of day) you need to pay cash in the shops, you can't post a letter in the Post Office & the streetlights all go phut. Yes, generators can help the cause, but they never replace all the things that have lost power!

The two longest power cuts that I've had to put up with were 27 hours (in December), and 14 hours (3 weeks ago) ... and both times, all the food in the fridges & freezers almost bit the dust! Both times, we were lucky enough to save the food. Most of the time, the loadshedding is between 6 to 12 hours per day, and it just never seems to get any better ...

12 : I saw my first proper leopard sightings in Kruger, as well as seeing a road fully blocked by a full size (6 metre) Nile Crocodile ... not bad!

[Vierwielen]

As I get towards the end of my trip around South Africa, here's a few thoughts on how things have gone so far.

... snip

9 : Afrikaans : I've been very surprised at the surge in the number of people speaking Afrikaans, especially in the western half of the country. Ten years ago, it was a rarity to see shops signed exclusively in Afrikaans, but it's pretty commonplace now in Western Cape & Northern Cape. After a month or two of hearing people speaking English, it came as a bit of a shock to arrive in the Northern Cape, and hear Afrikaans as the standard language for everyone!

10 : National Parks : Over the past 8 years, I've now been to every South African national park, with the exception of Richtersveld (which just seems far too much like hard work). My top three are Kruger, Mountain Zebra & Augrabies Falls, with an honourable mention to * Hluhluwe-Imfolozi (in Kwazulu-Natal). On the other hand, my worst three would have to be Marakele, Table Mountain (sorry, but it's seriously disappointing & overrated IMO) & Bontebok, all of which are eminently forgettable.

* The game reserves in Kwazulu-Natal, have for one reason or another, never joined the national Sanparks system.

... snip ...

An interesting post, especially as I was brought up in South Africa and was last there in 2016. A few points:

According to Wikipedia, Afrikaans is the most common language in the areas that you mentioned. The reason is that Afrikaans is not only the mother tounge of about 60% od the white population, but is also the mother tounge of the majority of the "coloured" (ie descendants of slaves brought in from the East Indies, people of mixed race etc) peoples and these groups of people are the dominant inhabitants of the two provinces mentioned. Historically those provinces were never inhabited by the Bantu people which is why the Bantu languages are hardly ever used there.

During the Apartheid era, the Natal Provincial Administration viewed the handling of the national parks outside Natal as being inferior to their own (and there were probably political problems as well) which is why the KZN parks are separate from the SanParks.

I understand that there is one housing estate in South Africa that has its own power generator and never suffers from load-shedding. The goverment, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the role played by the ministers was so important, that they deserved their own housing estate with 100% continuous power.

[mistral]

An interesting post, especially as I was brought up in South Africa and was last there in 2016. A few points:

According to Wikipedia, Afrikaans is the most common language in the areas that you mentioned. The reason is that Afrikaans is not only the mother tounge of about 60% of the white population, but is also the mother tongue of the majority of the "coloured" (ie descendants of slaves brought in from the East Indies, people of mixed race etc) peoples and these groups of people are the dominant inhabitants of the two provinces mentioned. Historically those provinces were never inhabited by the Bantu people which is why the Bantu languages are hardly ever used there.

The statistics for the Northern & Western Capes, used by Wiki (shown in the first link), are below.

Current Status (Use of Afrikaans as a first language by province)

Province : 1996 : 2001 : 2011 : 2022

Western Cape : 58.5% 55.3% 49.7% 41.2%
Northern Cape : 57.2% 56.6% 53.8% 54.6%

Having spent the last month or so in the Northern Cape, it really felt more like 95% had Afrikaans as their first language, rather than the 55% number quoted by Wiki. What I found really unusual was seeing groups of young, black (not 'coloured') kids in Upington speaking Afrikaans to each other. I really can't recall seeing that anywhere else in South Africa.

During the Apartheid era, the Natal Provincial Administration viewed the handling of the national parks outside Natal as being inferior to their own (and there were probably political problems as well) which is why the KZN parks are separate from the SanParks.

Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a tremendous park. I had my best ever elephant (500+ at one time) & giraffe (50+ at one time) sightings there, as well as some great rhino moments too.

On the other hand, Ithala (near Vryheid) is best forgotten. It was very much a park that had seen better days, with some very skittish animals. In the case of the elephants there, it was positively dangerous driving around the park, as they would just emerge from the undergrowth with no warning whatsoever.

I understand that there is one housing estate in South Africa that has its own power generator and never suffers from load-shedding. The government, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the role played by the ministers was so important, that they deserved their own housing estate with 100% continuous power.

All that driving around in high speed motorcades must really take it out of the poor dears ... they've got to keep those swimming pools heated!!

[Vierwielen]

Hluhluwe-Imfolozi is a tremendous park. I had my best ever elephant (500+ at one time) & giraffe (50+ at one time) sightings there, as well as some great rhino moments too.

I have visited the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game park three times (in the 1970's). On one of them, I went on a 4-night guided hike. Arrive day 1 and spend the night at the base camp; Day 2 - trample 10 km through the bush with an armed ranger, spend the night in tents in the bush, Day 3 - a 10 km walk before lunch and a 10 km walk after lunch and spend the night in the bush again and Day 4 a 10 km hike back to base camp to spend the night there before departing the following day. In order to wash, one had to go down to the Umfolozi River.
At the time there was a small herd of giraffe, no elephants and I believe tht a pride of lions had re-introduced themselves to the park, having migrated from Mocambique. The main thing that we saw were white rhino and the guide gave us a detailed account of their social structure and in particular we could see how the dominant bulls marked their territory by defacating and spinning their tails to create a patch 3-4 metres in diameter - certainly a case of the the "sh*t flying".