Second part of our road trip in South Africa!

We have a "good" internet connection, and that’s why we can - finally - update you again about our travels!  At the moment, we are in Namibia and we are really having a great time. What a beautiful country, with amazing landscapes and the people are so friendly.

When we wrote our last blog post, we were in Hogsback (a beautiful village in the mountains of Amathole) in South Africa. In this blog post, we’ll update you about the second part of our adventure in South Africa. In our next blog post we will tell you all about our experiences in Namibia.

Below you’ll find an overview of the second part our road trip in South Africa, all the way to the border with Namibia. We calculated the kilometers that we drove in about 2.5 weeks in South Africa, and we came to 2.900 km!

In the mean time we are driving in another car, since the vehicle registration of our previous car expired the 30th of April. Our rental company didn’t make it to send us the new registration in time, so that’s why they send us a new car all the way from Johannesburg (which was 1000 km from where we were). We are very happy with our new Nissan double cap (an upgrade!), especially in Namibia where most roads are gravel. It is so much more comfortable! :-)

We stayed in Hogsback for three nights, and the last day we decided to make a hike to the Madonna & Child Waterfall and a big tree with Arik, Gabri and Kiki (and a sweet black little dog that followed us all the way). As the pictures will show, we really had a lot of fun, and the waterfall was beautiful! Since it was Pesach and our last night together, we decided to celebrate this and go out for dinner. After a quick search on Tripadvisor, we went to ‘The Edge’, a lovely restaurant 3 km’s from our campsite.

Hike with the little black dog that guided us :-)

Tarzan

Kiki, Gabri and me at the waterfall

Group picture! 

Big tree

One more selfie

Goodbye / Pesach dinner

The next morning, we said goodbye to our Israeli friends. They drove back to Cape Town for Africa Burn, while we headed further north in the direction of Upington. We still find it a miracle that we met each other at a campsite in Onrus! We really had a great time and it was an unforgettable experience to travel together for 10 days. We drove via Fort Beaufort where we did our shopping, Somerset Eeast to Graaff-Reinet. When we arrived at our destination, we first stopped at the Nqeba dam, after which we did a game drive in the afternoon in Camdeboo National Park. When the sun was setting, we drove to the western side of the National Park, to the Valley of Desolation. Described in the lonely planet as “a hauntingly beautiful valley with an outstanding view.” It was indeed beautiful. At the summit of the mountain, we made a short 1.5 km circuit walk and watched the sunset.

Having a picnic along the road

Roadworks: "stop - wagperiode 10 minutes"

Nqeba Dam

Monkeys

Ostrich

Game drive in Camdeboo NP

Wildebeast

Springbok

Entrance gate to the National Park

View at Graaff-Reinet from Toposcope viewpoint

Beautiful views

Valley of Desolation

Enjoy watching the sunset

Nice colors

Sunset

Kudu passing us while walking down

The nights in South Africa were very cold, so we often went to bed early to stay warm in our sleeping bags and extra blanket. :-) The next day we stayed in Camdeboo National Park, and decided to drive a 4x4 track at the eastern side of the park to Waaihoek. We paid for the permit at the Information Office, received a key of the gate and off we go! It was a quite exciting path that we followed, but also a lot of fun! At the end of the road we made a picnic, enjoyed the view, and drove back to the gate. In the afternoon we made ourselves a nice bbq.

4x4 track

Rough terrain

The track we followed

Our car did great!

A lot of hard work for the car

On our way back to our campsite

Our camp: Erik making the fire for the braai

Another nice sunset!

The next day we had a long drive ahead, but it was a beautiful drive. Especially the road between Graaff-Reinet and Middelburg (yes, no joke!) was amazingly beautiful. We had a picnic along the way and we stopped in Prieska, just before the sun was setting. We found a lovely deserted campsite (but friendly people and a great view), we cooked dinner (pasta this time - not a bbq every day!) and went to bed early. 

Planning our road in the Lonely Planet

Roads in South Africa are beautiful!

Picnic stop!

Tadaa: hamburger for lunch!

No joke: feeling at home

We arrived in Middelburg!

Our campsite just before sunset

Having pasta for dinner

The following day we drove to Upington, where we did our shopping, and we went to Augrabies Falls National Park. This National Park is famous for its waterfall (6th biggest in Africa), which is truly impressive, but we enjoyed the game drive (Hartmann’s Loop) even better! We stayed in this NP for three nights. This was not really planned, but we had to wait for our new car to arrive. However, as you will see with the pictures below, we made the most out of it! During the nights, we made a nice ‘braai’/bbq at the campsite.

Waterfall at Augrabies!

Do you see Erik? ;-)

Love!

Check the rainbow :-)

One more selfie

Klipspringer

Moon rock

Bird: eagle (maybe?)

Beautiful landscapes

Making a coffee at Oranjekom viewpoint

Oranjekom Canyon

Enjoying the views

The landscape was so beautiful

We are happy!

View at Echo Corner

Running mountain zebra's 

Springbok

Do you see the giraffe?

Nice one! 

Just love these trees

Gemsbok (oryx)

Hartebeast

Eland (biggest antilope and we were really lucky to spot one!)

Landscape

Carwash :-)

Making a braai at our camp site

Patato in the fire

Braai! Lamb and grilled corn 

Our new car arrived the 29^th of April early morning. We were so happy that we could continue our trip and cross the border with Namibia with our new car!

Our new car is the double cab on the right

That way! ;-)

All in all, we really enjoyed our road trip in South Africa. We are so happy we made this decision to go and travel in Africa! In our next blog we’ll update you about our adventures in Namibia.

Big hugs and kisses,

Erik & Annemarie