We have made it to South Africa, home of the friendliest people in the world!
On our way south from Windhoek we visited Fish River Canyon, one of the largest canyons in the world. On the way in we met a group of bikers, all South African fathers and farmers all out for a long weekend ride. We stayed at the same campsite as them on the Orange River and had a great time with them. They all invited us to visit their farms and families all over South Africa! We are now in the process of doing that! One of them has offered to store our bike for 6 months, just out of Johannesburg. Fantastic!
We have visited people on winery farms, Ostrich farms and in the cities! Pat turned the big 60 in the last few weeks and we celebrated that in style at H/U members, Johan and Nicky Naudes wine farm outside of Capetown. We danced to music videos in front of an open fire and drank South African Chardonnay and ate Bins Red Thai chicken and vegie curry with noodles.
We have slowly worked our way along the coast and in the winegrowing region around Capetown..stunning! Capetown has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world..gorgeous setting and the weather was fantastic while we were there.
We revisited Jeffreys Bay, one of the best surfing breaks in the world and stayed at www.africanperfection.co.za with our room having the best view of Supertubes available! Yes, it was expensive, but worth it. There were hundreds of dolphins surfing the waves, as well as some of South Africas best surfers! We couldnt watch them enough!
We are now in Port Elizabeth, staying with HU members,Terry and Dorrienne Bakers lovely home with Bins turkish lentil soup cooking now for dinner!
From here we will travel up the coast via Durban and the Drakensberg Mountains towards Dries's place near Johanesburg to store Miss Adventure II again, while we go to Europe for 6 months of summer! Then back to Africa in October when our children Kate and Johnathan will join us and travel on a motorbike behind us! This will fullfill a lifelong dream of ours!
We have had an absolutely superb time in Africa, though its cost us a lot more than we thought! There are 2 ways to travel here...camp for next to nothing or stay in beautiful lodges and pay a fortune! Luckily it was always low season, so we could negotiate with the lodges. B&Bs in South Africa are very nice, plentiful and about US$50 per night..great value!
As usual we cant wait for the next step and see all our great friends. We have a saying that "the world is full of friends we havent met yet!" Bring it on!