Travel Guides: All Countries / Africa / South Africa
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| | | | The land of hope that bowls a blinder
The Cricket World Cup will be held in South Africa for the first time in February and March next year.
With a total of 14 countries competing, it is a competition which is bound to attract an enormous number of supporters.
And while cricket is the main item on the menu, the competition will also provide a great chance for visitors to explore the many other delights of this fascinating country.
My wife and I have just come back from a two-week whistle-stop tour of the country and, against expectations, it turned out to be one of the most exciting experiences of my life.
We started off in Natal with a guided tour of the Boer War and Zulu War battlefields.
It was a four-hour drive from Durban (where Kingsmead will host a number of World Cup fixtures) to the epicentre of the Boer War, Spion Kop, where the Boers gave the British a drubbing in a crucial early battle.
The discomfort suffered by the British troops at Spion was in stark contrast to our own conditions.
We stayed at first-class lodges throughout our trip, proving how the South African tourist industry has made galloping progress in recent years.
The accommodation was among the best I have experienced. And the country represents excellent value for money.
The Spion Kop Lodge, for instance, produced great comfort at absurdly cheap prices for Brits, who collect 17 Rands or more for every pound.
Kruger land
The elephant exodus
From the Daily Mail
One battered British passport, one suitcase of clothes and a herd of elephants are all that is left of the privileged world of Rory Hensman since he and his wife Lindie were forced to flee across the South African border in March.
For the man who used to play polo at Windsor Great Park with the Prince of Wales, and whose house guests once included Andrew and Camilla Parker Bowles and the then Rhodesian governor, Lord Soames, it has been a vertiginous fall from grace.
Yet, this 56-year-old farmer counts himself lucky.
At least he and his wife are still alive - unlike many white farmers driven from their lands under Robert Mugabe's regime.
'Mugabe's "war veterans" invaded my farm and slaughtered my herd of 600 impala, killed all the kudu and sable antelopes,' says Hensman.
'They butchered my warthogs and were using my polo ponies for spear practice.
'What took me and my father 50 years to build up, they have destroyed in two,' he says.
Rory's grandfather was cited for a VC during World War I, before being appointed British Military Attache to Washington and moving to Rhodesia in the 1920s.
Now, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of a game-reserve owner in neighbouring South Africa, Rory is rebuilding his life.
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Sleeping with the lions
With about 20 years' experience as a game ranger in the African bush, Les Brett is South Africa's answer to Crocodile Dundee. He is about as qualified as they come.
He has passed all the exams (such as the one where they stick trainees in front of a charging buffalo to see how they react).
For me, being a game ranger was always something of a childhood dream.
But to do it for real would take at least five years of lectures, training and endless exams. I had 10 days.
So I joined a crash course in a wilderness reserve called Timbavati, next to Kruger National Park in South Africa - with Les the senior instructor.
A reserve of flat grass and bush-covered plains, Timbavati is home to three main categories of animals: dangerous, invisible and endearing.
The dangerous ones are the snakes, scorpions and spiders.
The invisible ones, such as aardvarks and honey badgers, prefer to keep themselves to themselves.
The endearing ones, such as elephants, are the animals most people visit Timbavati to see.
On the training course, we learned how to handle venomous snakes and how to stitch a wound using termites that can bite through leather.
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It's not just cricket
Don't worry, you'll be fine. This was the advice given to us by a South African friend when we mentioned our holiday plans.
They were words we wanted to hear, as our nine-day whirlwind tour of the (hopefully) hot and sunny north-eastern corner of the country involved an awful lot of driving through very remote areas.
Doomsayers warn that South Africa is a land of murder, mayhem and strife, and it is certainly true that the Rainbow Nation has a crime problem almost unrivalled in the world.
But anyone contemplating a visit to this phenomenally attractive country should keep this in perspective. Violent crime is concentrated in the townships, the vast, depressing urban sprawls that are the legacy of apartheid.
Our goal was somewhere rather different, which I had heard about from friends and seen on the internet, a magical-sounding place nestling among the sand dunes on the vast, open beaches that fringe the coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal on the Indian Ocean.
It is miles from anywhere and, we were told, offers unparalleled luxury. Its name? Rocktail Bay. Our trip started in Johannesburg, the gateway to the northern provinces. A monster of a place, the richest, brashest city in Africa and has better restaurants and bars than Cape Town its more photogenic rival in the south.
But we didn't fly 5,700 miles to take in city sights. We wanted sunshine, scenery and wildlife, so we headed east.
The route to the Natal coast takes in the Highveld of the Eastern Transvaal. Little visited by tourists, this is a land of lush, high, rolling grasslands, more like the South Downs than the archetypal image of hot and dusty Africa.
Skirting the border of Swaziland, the road soon veers south - and down. The border itself, a 10ft-high fence, runs alongside the road. On the other side are Swazi villages, and the inhabitants were using the fence as a washing line.
Is this the only place in the world where underpants fluttering in the wind mark an international boundary? Soon we were snaking down to the dusty rolling hills of Zululand as the temperature climbed ten degrees in as many miles.
First stop was the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi game reserve. This is a marvellous place, an arcadia compact enough to drive round in a day and with all the 'Big Five' present - elephant, hippo, buffalo, lion and rhino.
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All aboard the opulent express
From the Mail on Sunday
An entire holiday aboard a train? When you're used to ordeal by overcrowding on the delayed 7.32 to London Marylebone, you feel it's an offer you can refuse. Yet the leisured classes of South Africa think committing themselves to rails for weeks at a time is the height of self-indulgence.
Looking at their trains, you can see their point. Luxury trains like the Blue Train and Rovos Rail are hardly trains at all in the sense understood by London Underground and Connex South East. These are trains as our great-grandparents understood them, conceived, like the South African landscape, on the grandest of scales.
Step on board Rovos Rail's Pride of Africa and the first words that come into your head are likely to be - as they were for me - 'Orient Express'. In fact, Rovos Rail traces its pedigree back through a more African line, to such turn-of-the-century grand trains as the Zambezi Express and the Imperial Mail. But the general impression is correct. This is a train that aspires to opulence rather than punctuality.
We joined the Pretoria-bound train at Komatipoort, on the Mozambique border. Outside, an oven-hot sun was baking a long, empty platform, with the most African of frontier towns sprawled inertly behind and what looked like a vulture circling overhead.
Inside, we were instantly back in Europe. Hot light gave way to cool shadows. The station's nagging odours of sweat, dust and engine oil vanished in a fragrance of fresh furniture polish. Every compartment on the Pride of Africa is a suite, panelled, carpeted and cushioned like a miniature hotel room.
There is brass and mahogany on all sides, with pre-war period details - telephones, basins, shutters - that would do credit to a BBC mini-series. The dining-car at the front of the train is a miniature cathedral of mahogany arches and Victorian lamps. The observation car at the rear suggests the clubhouse of one of the stuffier Home Counties golf clubs: a plush bar-cum-lounge with monogrammed antimacassars, lots of big windows, and, remarkably, a wall made almost entirely of glass.
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A friendly destination
We recommend a flight to Port Elizabeth then hire a car and drive along the South coast.
Stay a few nights in Titsikama Lodge - very friendly and reasonably priced.
Use this as a base for exploring the area - Plettenburg Bay, Knysna etc. Finish the trip with a safari visit to Shamwari - East of Port Elizabeth where trips into the bush with an experienced ranger reveal the "big five".
Again, a friendly destination
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Roaming with Dumbo in Africa
From the Daily Mail
Well, I left my bikini on a hill in Johannesburg. Not any old hill, but the rose-pink village of the Westcliff Hotel which curves its way up opposite the zoo on the north side of the city.
From the terraces of our rooms we looked out not only on the spectacular pool, which hangs as if suspended in the sky, but also on the elephant enclosures across the way. Days later we would watch elephants again, whole herds of them, in the wild. But for now, here was the anticipation of a new adventure, and the bikini, put out to dry after a hurried swim, was forgotten in the rush.
For years I had longed to take our children, aged 12 and 10, to South Africa, but its very nature - vivid, colourful, turbulent - made it essential to get this kind of trip right. We went at Easter, encouraged by reports that the southern tip would just be dipping into autumn. After an 11-hour flight and an overnight stop in Jo'burg we left next morning on a small propeller plane headed for Sun City, tucked away on the edge of the Kalahari.
When Sun City opened in 1979, this fantastical resort was the only place in South Africa where gambling was legal. The casino was followed by golf courses and water parks, entertainment on lavish scale and a man-made rainforest.
It is aimed at children, or at least those who still believe in fairytales, its sell being that centuries ago people from the north of Africa travelling south settled in a green valley here until an earthquake forced them to abandon it.
Now, like Sleeping Beauty's castle, it has been rediscovered, its stairways, temple statues and sunken pools evoking an ancient but luxurious time, its hidden waterslides daringly modern and fun.
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African magic shines through the storms
From the Daily Mail
Lightening streaked against an inky sky, plunging us into darkness. As the evening drew to a close, the waiter, bearing candle and umbrella, escorted me to my room as the ground jumped with tiny frogs, hopping ecstatically in the downpour.
It was my most memorable night in South Africa. But it hadn't begun like this. The moment I announced my nine-day trip, friends immediately obliged with details of the South African murder rate (the highest in the world), tales of car-jackings and offers of money belts.
The major cities can be dangerous, especially after dark, so the best plan is to get out of Johannesburg as quickly as possible. But after an 11-hour flight, I wasn't too keen to go anywhere in a hurry. In my hardy student days I would doubtless have tumbled off the plane, strapped on my rucksack, and cheerfully climbed aboard the nearest bus for a nine-hour ride upcountry.
However, over the past decade my belief that 'real travel' demands intense personal discomfort has dwindled, and I collapsed onto my king-size bed at the Westcliff Hotel with heartfelt gratitude. Once the private home of the Oppenheimer family, the Westcliff comprises a series of low-rise terracotta buildings set into the steep hillside. My room was spacious; the ensuite bathroom huge. The last word in opulence, it was only marginally smaller than my London flat.
Mpumalanga Province, formerly Eastern Transvaal, lies in South Africa's north-eastern corner, close to the Mozambique border. The roads are good, but it's a long haul. Many holidaymakers opt for the one-hour flight from Johannesburg to Hoedspruit. An expensive but luxurious alternative is the overnight Blue Train from Pretoria to Hoedspruit.
Although a nondescript town, Hoedspruit is the gateway to the Kruger National Park and the numerous game lodges within. It's also an easy place to hire a car. We drove south, towards the looming Drakensburg Mountains and Long Tom Pass. Drakensburg means 'Dragon Mountains' in Afrikaans, and the menacing reptilian range is well named.
As the road climbs slowly up, the huge rock formations close in, revealing startling shades of orange, blue and gold, the result of age-long accretions of lichens and algae. Once the pass is breached, the road runs alongside Blyde River Canyon, where a number of stop-off points allow a view of the gorge and the endless savannah beyond. This has been called 'one of the most incredible sights in Africa'. For once the hyperbole is justified.
Thousands of feet below, the river winds into lakes and pools, while across the gorge stand the Three Rondavels, bizarre sandstone formations like huge African mud huts, their round walls each surmounted by a conical peaked roof of grass. Beyond the Drakensberg peaks, the empty plain stretches away further than the eye can follow.
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Post-Natal experience
From the Mail on Sunday
The hot road south from tiny Swaziland (the charming and cheap mountainous kingdom) enters South Africa in what is now called KwaZulu-Natal. As plain Natal it was a British colony, then one quarter of the new South Africa formed after the two Boer Wars.
That was an astonishing union of two of our colonies (the other was the Cape) with two Boer republics with whom we'd been at war. Natal remains very British. Scottish names abound. It had many white opponents of apartheid, who suffered in the cause.
The road is flat and speedy with the Indian Ocean to our left. Petrol stations appear rarely. They take neither credit cards, dollars nor Swazi money and there is a moment of Traveller's Flap.
We press on to Phinda (the 'h' is mute), most exclusive of the new private game reserves now burgeoning in what was often overgrazed cattle country. This is Maputoland on the ecologically varied border of tropical and subtropical climates. Phinda began only in 1990 as a conservation area in what has now become the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. Not only in Britain is declining agriculture having to make way for tourism.
First 17,000 acres, then two more purchases by Conservation Corporation Africa consolidated 42,000 acres. There are three discreet lodges, the last opened in 1997. Phinda Forest Lodge has tiny dwellings raised on stilts. All around there is glass so you and the apes outside can view each other naked with a wild surmise. The dwellings are set so deep in the dark, crackling forest that you can't even glimpse the one next door. Inside they are austerely elegant.
The grey colours match the bark of the trees outside where the forest is rustling, speckled, hooting and wild. They are still whispering about the lady tourist eaten by a lion on her way back from supper down the narrow track.
A frisson of fear sharpens awareness in Africa. I greatly prefer - so far - walking on safari as one may here and also in Zimbabwe and Botswana, and being alarmed by a twig crackling or a thorn bush rustling suddenly, mysteriously, behind you.
Most of the rarer game - lion, elephant, cheetah, rhino - in the immense Phinda reserves have been moved in from elsewhere. This knowledge irks because it implies artificiality. But nowadays game is regularly moved around Africa to replace stocks and to encourage tourism.
Only resident guests can get into Phinda. Security gates are closely guarded so you are not overwhelmed as you are in the more popular reserves like Kruger Park which, with its jams of other vehicles and tarmac roads, is almost like a 'resort'.
On Phinda's dirt tracks we saw only one other vehicle in two days, both of us signalling to each other what had been spotted where. Such a change from Kenya, spoilt for me now (after 25 years) not just by its crime and corruption, but by the rings of motorised hissing, clicking, shouting humans surrounding some wretched animal. One pestered leopard, say, up a solitary tree trying to rest with her kill. And being mobbed.
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From despair to Cape of good hope
From the Daily Mail
We pulled up on the street beside a young woman, hair bound in a bandana; she was pounding the family wash in a plastic dustbin. Behind her stood a shack, an ad hoc effort of rainbow-painted corrugated iron.
We squeezed through the door, blinking, into the dark back room, hung all around with cotton dresses: this was the local dressmaker's shop, where the street gathered to gossip. Corn cobs hung from the roof. The tailor's dummy in the corner was just a Guy Fawkes bundle of rags.
We were in Khayelitsha, one of South Africa's notorious black townships, on the outskirts of Cape Town - now making its first tentative steps to attract tourists. Up rickety stairs, the bedroom was papered with tinned-fruit labels; the men of the house mashed a tub of homebrew for a party and a beer-barrel was jammed in the bath. They looked up and said hello; but, the truth is, we felt like voyeurs.
And there's the rub. While a handful of tourists make day trips into townships such as Khayelitsha (the name means New Dawn) - and, by our experience, are made very welcome - you can't escape the fact that you are a sightseer of the appalling legacy of apartheid. You can't escape the poverty of the townships and squatter camps. You see them on the road to the airport.
Our mixed-race driver, Andy ('Everything in our history has been race-based,' he told us. 'Now we try to move away from it, but even for me it's hard to change my mindset') was a former police bodyguard and psychologist. He'd arranged to meet Maboyce, our guide, on the highway.
Tensions in the townships can flare suddenly; there have been violent vendettas between factions over lucrative minibus taxi routes. The surprise, though, was how safe our group felt. In the market, women sat chatting, their faces traditionally daubed with white, babies bundled on their backs. Someone was selling boiled sheep's heads from a wagon; a butcher's hut was selling tripe.
Then we pushed our way in to the deep, dark shack of a traditional herbal healer. On the shelves were bundles of tree bark and gnarled roots for making infusions. From the ceiling hung ingredients for a witch's stew: I spotted a snakeskin and a shrivelled mole. Our former police driver pulled a wry face as he noticed the wing of a dead jackass penguin, a protected species.
The shop was doing a roaring trade; every few minutes a customer came in for something mysterious, to ward off danger, keep a wife faithful, or just to cure everyday aches.
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South Africa: Spending a penny at Mandela's.
I was apprehensive about a trip to South Africa because of the crime problems and because I had never travelled with the same people for more than 10 days.
All these fears were unfounded as I proceeded to have what can only be described as the perfect holiday.
On the plane, I met two fellow travellers and we hit it off. Mary, Ken and another passenger Sue became my regular dinner companions on my trip to South Africa.
The hotels were top class and the service was top notch. There are still a lot of problems in the country and some "no-go" areas, but I would not hesitate to go back.
Another plus point was the food. My favorite dish was curry. The beer and the wine were top notch as well.
We saw some amazing scenery, from the blue oceans of Cape Town to the greens and brown colours of Natal and Mpumalanga provences.
The highlight of the first week was the trip to Robben Island. It was moving to listen to our guide, an ex prisoner. We saw where Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu used to work in the quarries.
Another highlight was seeing penguins on Boulders Beach.
The second week of my trip to South Africa was even better. The country was more rugged, not as barren as I expected.
We went to Blyde River Canyon and Bourke's Luck Potholes, which was breathtaking.
I also went to Soweto, in Johannesburg. It was a very moving to visit a place where so much history and needless killing has taken place. We stopped at the Hector Peterson memorial and Nelson Mandela's old house.
On a lighter note, I spent a penny in Mandela's bathroom. We were told we could use it and I couldn't resist. As with Robben Island, I couldn't believe I was there. It doesn't seem that long ago when these places filled the news for all the wrong reasons.
But the best part was the wildlife.
We visited Hluhluwe National Park, a private game reserve, where we saw rhinos, zebras, impalas, warthogs, giraffes and lots of birds.
The best part was our visit to Kruger National Park: words cannot do justice to this place.
On our first day, we came across a pond with baboons, monkeys, impalas, hippos, crocodiles and water bucks. It was an amazing sight.
After breakfast, things got better. We came across an elephant on the side of the road happily eating. I'm not ashamed to admit I had tears rolling down my cheeks.
We spotted a leopard on the ground, in all its glory. I felt blessed to have seen it.
Just as we were about to give up seeing one, we also saw a lion. He was beautiful.
It was such a great day and I shall never forget it. I was on a real high that night and did not sleep very much. I spent an hour at the lodge look-out point that night, listening to the hippos and reflecting on a wonderful day.
We did and saw so much in 17 days. I highly recommend a trip to South Africa to anyone who loves animals, beautiful scenery and excellent service. I feel so lucky to have been there and to have seen what I have seen.
Kruger land
Wake up to a Zulu sunrise
South Africans will drive five hours or more to spend a weekend in Durban and when I caught my first glimpse of it, I understood why.
The Golden Mile of beaches is Malibu, Marbella and Miami rolled into one and is lined with super-looking hotels such as the recently refurbished Balmoral.
My friend Michael von der Heyde had booked me a dayroom at the Durban Club and that was the first stop.
One lovely long shower later, we were heading up the Indian Ocean coast north to the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park and a little-used campsite miles from anywhere.
That evening we met Andy and Kim Lund, who run Banghazl Horse Safaris and who were making a barbecue for us, and Wayne Doben, who offers kayak safaris.
At 5pm - a truly tranquil time and where, back home, I'm usually preparing to go into the studio to read the Sky TV news - Wayne took me out on the lake, warning me that my posterior would get soaked as we edged out. But the reward for getting a wet bum was the sight of two enormous basking hippos.
The lake later provided a dark backdrop for another spectacular sight. We were standing just above its shores, gin and tonics in hand, when we saw a huge flash of green, mauve, red and yellow streak across the sky and explode. It was the remnants of a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Day two brought another learning curve for my backside. I was on horseback for the first time, riding out into the bush with Andy and Michael.
My horse, Streak, was, unnervingly, 15-hands high and the initial minutes were dodgy.
But within 20 minutes I had taken the reins from Andy, who led me, and managed not to catapult over Streak's head when he needed a snack (every 20 yards).
Disappointingly, there are no lions in the St Lucia park but elephants are about to be reintroduced - the last were shot by hunters in the Twenties.
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Short and sweet
Cape Town is the best city in the world, beautiful, sunny, cheap, friendly. Really, what more are you looking for?
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Shoppers' paradise
I spent one week at the Vineyard Hotel, Newlands in the suburbs of Cape Town. Excellent service, food and wine at a very reasonable cost.
Cape Town is a shoppers' paradise with good quality goods and particularly jewellery at keen prices. I recommend a visit to the waterfront and a trip to the winelands.
I advise you not stay in the city centre as this can be a no-go area at nights and weekends. I will return for sure.
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South Africa: The green and pleasant lands
Think of Africa and you think of desert plains, expanses of semi-arid land and a wild savannah stretching for miles. So perhaps it was somewhat of a surprise to see the lush green stretch of South Africa's Garden Route. The clue is obviously in the name.
It's one of the country's most heavily promoted attractions and consequently it can be a bit of a tourist trap. Still, there are plenty of gems to be had.
The best way to travel the route is to hire a car – but having had the fear of God instilled in us with tales of the high accident rate, car-jacking and mad drivers, the idea didn't greatly appeal. However, the tourist office said it was safe.
We set off from Cape Town, not greatly reassured by a sign proclaiming the fatality rate of that particular stretch of road. But once we'd got hang of the driving quirks (if an oncoming car is overtaking, the driver may just assume you'll swerve into the emergency lane out of its way) we were fine.
Our first stop was Mossel Bay, a perfect town to while away a few days. The town is not as postcard-pretty as many places along the Garden Route but there's no better place to watch the sun set and see the waves crashing along the huge rocks. And it's certainly less pretentious.
The area became a centre for ostrich farming, back when the feathers were a much-coveted fashion accessory. Today though, the birds make a tasty dish.
A particular treat was a platter of ostrich steak, wings and liver – and no, it doesn't taste like chicken.
The highlight of any trip to South Africa is a safari – and we decided to do ours by quad bike at a nearby private reserve.
Having never been on anything more powerful than an exercise bike, perhaps our wisdom on this was questionable – even more so after our practice session around the car park.
However, the sheer exhilaration of whizzing around the game reserve, along narrow cliff-top tracks, trying to spot the wildlife just can't be beaten.
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| | | | Most luxurious billet
We drove on to Ladysmith, where the British garrison was besieged by the Boers for 118 days, and we visited the Siege Museum.
That night we stayed in the sumptuous Isandlwana Lodge which overlooks the Isandlwana battlefield.
It was at Isandlwana that the Zulus defeated the British Army, having tricked its leader into first dividing the army into two.
Then we spent two days in Sabi Sabi, a game lodge on the edge of the Kruger Park, where you can get within 15 yards of wild animals from the safety of a four-wheel drive.
In Sandton, the prosperous and safe suburb of Johannesburg, the newly opened Saxon Hotel provided the most luxurious billet of all.
There was also time for a brief glimpse of the magnificent Wanderers Cricket Ground in Johannesburg, where the World Cup final will be played next March - still a distant dream for Nasser Hussain and his men.
After driving to Pretoria, we caught the famously luxurious Blue Train for a 27-hour journey to Cape Town, waited on by our very own butler. We woke to see the glorious mountainous country in the Cape.
The Mount Nelson Hotel was our home for the next four days.
Newlands in Cape Town is now a concrete jungle of a cricket ground.
But with Table Mountain presiding over the whole scene, it is still an inspiring place to both watch and play cricket.
Herd of orphaned elephants
Lente Roode, the woman who came to his rescue, owns and runs the Hoedspruit Centre for Endangered Species on the Kapama reserve near the border.
She heard through the bush telegraph that the Hensman elephants faced being killed for their ivory by the war veterans, and provided the three million rand (£214,300) bribe money needed to obtain export permits from the Zimbabwean authorities, plus the £17,000 transportation costs.
She has also lent the couple a house, as well as providing lodgings for the 18 keepers who were part of the exodus.
For the past five years, Lente had been rearing her own orphaned baby elephant, Jabulani, at her centre.
Several attempts to reintroduce him to the wild failed and he was becoming increasingly lonely.
She was duly prompted to look for some human-raised playmates, and so by chance found out about the herd of orphaned elephants owned by the Hensmans in Zimbabwe.
What is Zimbabwe's loss is South Africa's gain.
In early August, Rory and his elephants will provide South Africa's first elephant-back safaris.
They will take tourists around their benefactor's 30,000-acre reserve to see the Big Five - lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo and wild elephant.
It should allow unparalleled access to the wildlife on the Kapama reserve.
Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has been paying financial incentives to his thugs to force out white farmers.
Many spectacular birds
One day we were baiting lions and the next we were learning how to identify some of the local birds - by their calls.
The trick, Les explained, is to put words into their mouths.
The nocturnal fiery-necked nightjar, for example, has a particularly distinctive call that sounds as if it is saying: 'Good Lord, deliver us! Good Lord, deliver us!' to anyone who'll listen.
My personal favourite is the puffback shrike, a small black and white bird with crimson eyes, which makes an unforgettable sound just like a camera clicking and rewinding.
You might think that with so many spectacular birds, you'd spend most of your time looking up.
But, as trainee game rangers, we were taught to spend most of our time looking down.
We had to search for all the tracks, droppings and other clues dotted around Timbavati and learn how to identify and interpret these postcards from the wild.
When we hunted around a waterhole one morning, even I could tell that the enormous pile of droppings we found had been made by a creature much, much bigger than myself.
But Les could do more than merely identify its original owner.
Its size, and the fact that it occurred in just one pile, revealed that it was made by a lone bull elephant.
Plenty of rhinos
For anyone new to Africa, the thrill of seeing big game for the first time in the wild cannot be overstated. But after a couple of days, we became quite blase about warthogs and antelopes, and after a while only lion, rhino or hippo would really do.
There are plenty of rhinos - especially white, but we saw not a single lion. I thought I glimpsed a leopard, but it turned out to be a baboon. An easy mistake to make.
Our lodge in Hluhluwe organised an early-morning walk for us, accompanied by an armed guide. Walking through safari parks is a bit counter-intuitive.
Friends recently had a bad experience in this place, being charged by a truculent elephant, but the scariest moment we had was when three rhino came trotting down the hill to take a good look at us. They are enormous close up - even more so when you are on foot.
Our instructions for the drive to Rocktail Bay looked similar to the sort Stanley would have taken with him on his search for Livingstone. Lots of 'unmarked sand roads' and 'isolated forest tracks'.
You have to drive to a car park, which is remote enough, and then the Lodge will send a Land Rover to take you the final 10 miles, which is impassable in a two-wheel-drive.
But it was worth it. Rocktail Bay is paradise. A cluster of treehouses - 12 wooden cabins nestling in the mahogany trees - a bar and a restaurant, and about three staff per guest. Its beach is a wonder - mile after mile of pristine dunes, and a warm, clean Indian Ocean.
You can dive, snorkel, spot hippos or drive along the beach at midnight looking for turtles. The landscape is bizarre, with huge vegetated dunes covered with monkey-infested jungle. You can explore all this or just laze around.
The food is included, and there is a wine cellar. Best of all, there's no TV and mobile phones do not work.
Most nights we sat around the bar drinking pinotage with the staff while choosing between turtling or a midnight swim.
Rarely have we been so reluctant to leave anywhere. Our friend was right, we were fine. Just fine.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Rocktail Bay is run by Wilderness Safaris in Jo'burg (00 27 11 807 1800). Hilltop Lodge, Hluhluwe-Umfolozi National Park, overlooks the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal (00 27 35 562 0848).
Adventure on the high veld
It all creaks a bit when the train is moving, more like a ship than a real hotel - but that, I soon realised, is part of the appeal. Rovos Rail is supposed to be an adventure: not a frightening one, involving unpredictable animals and Africans in the wild, but a cosy, schoolboy adventure, like a yarn by Rider Haggard.
As your air-conditioned carriage trundles majestically through South Africa's wide open spaces, you are supposed to imagine yourself as a 19th-century pioneer, carving your way into the savage unknown before savouring the reassuring luxuries of uncomplicated days gone by.
In some ways this was rather irritating. The brochure promised 'the last word in comfort and style - an atmosphere of elegance and grandeur-' and there were repeated admonitions to dress 'in keeping with the dignified atmosphere of the train'. Yet the actual levels of grandeur and glamour had less in common with the grand hotels of Paris and Rome than with the Grand Hotel at Frinton-on-Sea.
There were plenty of censorious waiters, and most of the guests (mainly South Africans and Americans) dined in black tie. But the meals were hardly adventurous. There were some interesting South African wines, but the food drew from the solid, springbok-and-two-veg tradition rather than the more modern 'Pan-African' cuisine.
The customers - who enthused like schoolchildren when a real steam engine was attached to the train for a while - seemed to like the idea of getting a certificate showing they'd done the journey and genuinely excited by the atmosphere of shabby gentility. For me, this was a club to which I didn't want to belong. Yet only the most miserable of cynics could ride Rovos Rail and remain unexcited for long.
The South African landscape is one of the most spectacular in the world, and it is hard to imagine a better way of discovering it for the first time. Some customers spend 12 days (and more than £4,000 a head) travelling all the way from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Cape Town in the south, taking in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and the Victoria Falls.
On safari at Shamwari
For our taste of safari we flew south to Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape. Our visit to the Shamwari Game Reserve was to be the climax of the trip. During our three-night stay my daughter would celebrate a 13th birthday we hoped she'd never forget. From the moment our own private ranger, Warwick John, stepped forward to meet us at the airport, all in khaki like something out of the Sixties TV show Daktari, we guessed we were on to a winner.
Warwick had been hand-picked for the job. With a brother and sister the same age as our children, he could advise, explain and create a personalised plan for us to make the most of our time and adventure. His role was to seek out different game, taking us on early morning (5am) and evening drives. We had him to ourselves, making the Land Rover, which could seat twice as many, exceptionally spacious.
He sat at meals with us, poured sundowners on a night-time drive, provided tartan rugs when it got chilly, and got us up to speed on the facts: an elephant eats 50% bushes/50% grass, a giraffe has the same number of vertebrae in its neck as a human (seven), no two zebras share the same stripy pattern-
Shamwari is malaria-free - no need to take any pills - and has a happy-ever-after factor. Started by businessman Adrian Gardiner just over ten years ago, land is still being added to its 19,000 hectares along the Bushman's River. Adrian's dream was to see the wild game - which had long ago been poached and hunted out of the area - back, wild and free, on the Eastern Cape.
He began to buy fields and bush as farmers sold up, and gradually introduced a huge variety of game. Today Shamwari has elephants, zebras, hippos, leopards, giraffes, buffaloes, black and white rhinos and more varieties of antelope than you could name.
During our stay the lion was still confined to its own vast enclosure but in July, new prides were being brought in on both the north and south of the main reserve, neighbouring farmers - including Warwick's father - having been pacified by the electric fence which borders the whole of Shamwari.
Five original settlers' cottages around the estate have been beautifully restored and transformed as accommodation, as has Long Lee Manor, the Edwardian farmhouse, where we could watch the elephants and giraffes out on the plains while we rested between drives.
On the day of the big 13th birthday, we watched a month-old rhino kick and roll about in the grass like a puppy, and sat hushed on a pathway with just the vaguest crack suggesting some creature might be nearby. Then one tree tumbled, and another, and slowly 50 elephants emerged all around us. No one felt the slightest bit apprehensive until a baby, just weeks old, appeared, waving its ears Dumbo-style, and its aunts and mother trumpeted their decision it was time we leave.
The perfect Bloody Mary and a private pool
About an hour south-west of Blyde River lies the town of Hazyview and the Casa do Sol. The hotel stands in its own country park, amid landscaped gardens, and is possibly one of the nicest, and oddest, places I've ever stayed. Established in 1968, the entire complex is modelled on a traditional Portuguese whitewashed village. There are flowered courtyards with marbled fountains, cobbled streets and shaded arcades.
Your room is, in fact, a small house. Mine comprised an enormous sitting room, an equally large bedroom, bathroom and a private balcony large enough for a table and four chairs. The bath could have doubled as a swimming pool.
After changing for dinner, I got lost twice along the winding 'Portuguese' streets, but finally joined my companions in the colonial-style bar. Only just in time. We had barely ordered our first drink when a deafening roll of thunder was followed by sheet lightning and an almighty downpour.
The thunder boomed out across the surrounding hills a second time, and as if on cue, every light in the place went out and we were left in pitch darkness, illuminated only by the occasional flash of lightning. The storm continued for the next seven hours, which is how, much later, I found myself accompanied by a waiter and a candle. How the food was cooked that night I don't know, but somehow it arrived in perfect condition.
The next morning the sun shone, and guests relaxed around the spectacular 'jungle' pool. Offering tennis, rowing, fishing, horse riding and walking, plus evening babysitters, Casa do Sol seemed the perfect family holiday location. Within the grounds children can have fun without endless supervision. A small band of under-ten 'explorers' were having the time of their lives, and I last saw them arguing over whether to go 'up country' or 'down river'.
Less than 50km from Hazy View, Cybele Forest Lodge offers an entirely different kind of accommodation. Limited to just 30 guests, Cybele is included in the list of the '50 Best Small Hotels in the World', and after our one-night stay it was easy to see why.
Every suite has its own private pool. Each individually decorated sitting room has a log fire, a tempting array of books, a video recorder, CD player and the mini bar of your dreams. This last may seem a small thing, but the beautifully presented fresh lime, Tabasco, black pepper, sea salt and Worcestershire sauce made a Bloody Mary imperative, and convinced me I was sitting in the lap of luxury.
Soaring Drakensberg mountains
Phinda's bird checklist comprises 320 varieties. I am soon left behind in twitchy talk. Little duiker and the even tinier suni, smallest of deer, skip and leap while aloof giraffes languorously disdain us. Zebra galumph like clumsy horses and the mother white rhino (not white at all) luxuriates with her calf in a squelching pool.
By night we gloriously chance upon a mighty prowling leopard and follow him for 20 dark minutes lit occasionally in our soft red spotlight. The same beam, swivelled left, illustrates his target - a herd of impala. But only briefly. Too long would be unfair on the impala.
Next morning, by the landing strip for rich folks' light aircraft, five cuddly cheetah cubs loll, yawn and cuff each other in a sleek and spotted bundle. Two more top-class KwaZulu-Natal game reserves, less crowded, more natural than the Kruger, are Hluhluwe (pronounced something like Shush-looey!) and Umfolozi.
Except for Durban, an enormous seaside city with one top-class hotel, the Royal, Natal is barely visited by British tourists in comparison with the snowbirds who wing southwards every winter to the Cape. It has a popular sea coast from Mozambique down to the Eastern Cape and inland runs the soaring purple range of the Drakensberg Mountains - Giant's Castle is nearly 11,000ft.
The Drakensberg resort area is dotted with place names like Dundee, Glencoe and Howick. It contains famous battlefields, offering tours, like David Rattray's famous exposition of Isandhlwana (British defeat by Zulus) and Rorke's Drift (British victory).
Close to the swift M3 between Durban and Johannesburg are the Boer War sites such as Spion Kop, Ladysmith and Colenso. And between these and the Drakensberg is an area well served with small country hotels now ridiculously cheap for us due to the strong pound and very weak rand. In these Midlands, a group of 120 artists, hoteliers, craftsmen and sports folk have formed 'The Midlands Meander'.
So in this country of green hills and forests you follow well-marked routes - pick up the brown and white signs at Howick just north of Victorian Pietermaritzburg - and stop where you will at potteries, wood-turners, leathermakers, silk farmers, weavers, cheese-makers, boutiques and antiques shops. And all interspersed with decent restaurants, snug B&Bs and country house hotels.
This is the prettiest way of seeing real, non-trippery South Africa. Remember the climate differs from the temperateness of the Cape. December to March is warm (80-82F) but can be wet. Their spring, September and October (average temperature 73-75F), or winter, May to June (and the same temperatures but dry), are lovely times to meander in KwaZulu-Natal.
Enterprise and spirit
The enterprise and spirit of the people we met was unforgettable. Vikki is trying to launch her neat, wood-beamed home as a bed and breakfast. It is a simple house, but by township standards it is luxurious. So far Vikki doesn't seem to have had any visitors.
Maria has had more luck: since she opened her spotless bungalow last November, guests have visited from Ireland, Germany and New Zealand. They join her in the kitchen to cook traditional maize porridge, mutton stew and tripe (though Maria says she can do lasagne if they prefer).
She has printed leaflets: 'African flair - African food - African warm hostess - The place is so safe you will wonder whether you are still in the so-called township.' On leaving the township you feel humbled, stunned by the poverty and vast inequality left by apartheid, but astonished by the energy and optimism.
The contrast was all the greater because we were staying in Cape Town's most splendid colonial relic: the blush-pink Mount Nelson Hotel, recently voted the fourth-best hotel in the world. This was another world: of starched linen, home-made shortbread for tea, the tinkling piano and, behind it all, blue, blue sky and the backdrop of Table Mountain.
The 'Nellie' opened on March 1, 1899, not seven months before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War. The British campaign was conducted from its luxurious suites. Lord Kitchener, the young Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have been familiar figures here.
The Cape is achingly beautiful. In the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, on the flanks of Table Mountain, we walked an African sculpture trail through carpets of spring flowers, surely the most breathtaking garden in the world.
But what lingers is the new South Africa of Khayelitsha, the fragile hopes of its people and, more than anything, our visit to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years. We saw tiny solitary confinement cell No 5, with Mandela's thin, folded blankets, grass mat, bowl and cup, and the blinding white quarry where he ruined his eyes hacking rock in the blazing sun.
Elias Mzamo, our guide, was a political prisoner here for five years. For six years after his release, he couldn't find work. You can see how painful it must be to guide tourists round this island that devoured his youth.
'It was difficult when I started,' he said, softly. 'At night I can't sleep - all the nightmares. But I have a family to support. You have to forgive, though one cannot forget. 'Here I am. I can do it.' None of us doubted it.
Enormous white rhino
However, we came across warthogs, vervet monkeys, zebra, reedbuck and bush pigs. There was fresh spoor (or trails) of two leopards but, alas, we never saw them.
We went from a night under canvas to luxury - the Makakatana Bay Lodge on the shores of St Lucia, five individual suites connected by wooden walkways, each with an outside shower.
Guests sit at a big table for meals and the atmosphere is convivial. It was disconcerting seeing 'reedbuck roast' on the menu, however - watch 'em by day, eat 'em at night.
After taking in the beautiful unspoilt beaches of Cape Verde, we drove to Hluhluwe (pronounced 'shloo-shloo-wee') Park, where we saw an enormous male white rhino with a much smaller female wallowing in mud.
The evening was devoted to Zulu culture. It would be easy to shy away from commercialism but the working village of Shakaland near the town of Eshowe is fun, especially drinking Zulu beer with the chief and his wives and watching traditional dancing.
For the tourists, there are rooms styled like Zulu huts and a bar and dining room with wonderful views. The grub's not bad either.
From there it was on to Rorke's Drift and the lovely Fugitives' Drift Lodge run by David Rattray - a great storyteller and friend of Prince Charles.
David drove me and six other guests to the Rorke's Drift site and bewitched us with the tale of the 1879 battle when 4,000 Zulu warriors were seen off by 100 or so British soldiers, who won more Victoria Crosses than in any other battle in history.
That evening we made our way to the town of Dundee and Lennox Cottage, a guesthouse belonging to ex-Springbok Dirk Froneman and his wife Salome, an amazing cook.
It was a relatively short hop to another stop on the Anglo-Boer Battlefields route, Spion Kop.
Miles of unspoilt beaches
The thrill of rounding the corner in time to see bontebok springing across the plains, a herd of giraffe poking their necks out from around a bush and getting up close and personal with the rhino (apparently they're used to the bike engines – just don't get off) is amazing – more so because you've not just been taken there in a jeep. (OK, so we did have a guide – fortunate for when I drove the bike into the bushes and became completely wedged.)
Next stop was Knsyna (sounds like nice-na) and is not as nice at it sounds. Granted, it has a beautiful lagoon, but it does get swamped with tourists and has "quaint" shops to cater for them.
Early Portuguese explorers named Plettenberg Bay "Bahia Formosa", meaning beautiful bay, and rightly so.
There are miles of unspoilt beaches and a dramatic rocky peninsula so it's a must-see stop-off on the route.
Given that we visited during the worst storms for some years, the weather wasn't exactly on our side – and so perhaps it clouded our view of things.
Tsitsikamma is undoubtedly a beautiful national park but with the rain bucketing down, the main draw of walking didn't really appeal. Nearby is Storms River where you can try out a huge number of adventure sports, including the world's highest bungee jump. But in the rain, it's a gloomy place.
If you venture off the Garden Route, a little further on is Addo Elephant Park. And it's worth the detour.
We'd decided to stay overnight in a log cabin (fantastically equipped and cheap as chips) to make the most of the experience – so gutted was maybe an understatement when we were told there were no elephants around that day because of the rain – they had no incentive to go to the waterholes and were staked out deep in the trees.
However, the next day our patience had paid off. It was bright and sunny and a herd had been spotted heading to a waterhole – I wonder if they get as much amusement watching the million cars heading to the viewing areas as we do watching them?
We headed back to Cape Town via the Karoo, a rewarding trip, taking in fantastic little towns such as Prince Albert and hair-raising mountain passes.
It's not hard to get off the Garden Route, and I suggest you make the effort.
Yes, it's beautiful, but there's so much more to experience, you'd be foolish not to.
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| | | | Must be visited
The most memorable day of all came right at the end of our trip.
Robben Island is where Mandela was incarcerated in one tiny cell for 18 years.
It is an astonishing monument to the abject cruelty of the Afrikaaner regime as it fought to hold on to South Africa.
Humiliation was the name of the game for the brutal warders.
The prisoners were made to drag themselves in their chains from the harbour to the steps of the prison a few hundred yards away.
They were then led either to their solitary cells, like Mandela, or to communal cells, where as many as 90 were packed like sardines into a small room.
Their 'work' was to break rocks with hammers. Any prisoner found idling, even for a moment or two, was put into solitary confinement for at least three months.
Eventually the political prisoners in solitary confinement were allowed to work at a limestone quarry.
These prisoners, including Mandela, dug a tiny cave in one side of the quarry, partly as a latrine and partly as a meeting place where they were able to talk their ideas through when they had got their guards on their side.
This cave is often called the first parliament of the present new government in South Africa.
Our guide was a former inmate and his lack of any wish to get even with his old jailers was astonishing.
Some of the old warders are even now employed on Robben Island.
It is now regarded as the birthplace of modern South Africa and is a place of great hope for the future, whatever the turbulent times ahead.
This hell hole tells us as much about forgiveness as any passage in any religious book or any preaching from the pulpit.
It is a place which must be visited.
Rugged and spectacular
The collapse of law and order has brought the overnight disappearance of a booming trade in safaris.
Terrifying stories have killed off tourism, and now the once-prosperous and fertile nation faces the spectre of starvation and economic collapse.
But the Kapama reserve is just one of many to benefit in South Africa.
King's Camp, Ngala and Thornybush are all doing well, as is the spectacular Royal Melawane where I stayed.
Down south near Port Elizabeth, the Shamwari Reserve, a favourite of the late Princess of Wales, is prospering.
On my arrival at Melawane, which is just a few hours' drive from the Zimbabwe border, vervet monkeys were playing on the thatched roof of the lodge as the dappled sunlight flickered through the dense canopy of acacia and torchwood trees.
In the distance, the rugged and spectacular silhouette of the Drakensberg mountains formed a striking backdrop.
There was scarcely time for a dip in my patio plunge pool (each of the six rooms has its own pool and private terrace) before the ranger, Marc, was hustling us into the off-roader.
It was, apparently, the perfect time of day to catch the Big Five.
As the evening descends, the whole Lowveld savannah seems to seethe with wildlife. Piled high, looking like giant Christmas puddings are labyrinthine termite mounds, which can take more than a century to build.
The redundant ones provide new homes for warthogs or families of deadly black mambas.
Didn't sleep a wink
Les picked up a handful and pulled out thick, undigested pieces of bark - evidence, he said, of a middle-aged elephant with badly worn molars.
We also learned how to walk in lion country. Anyone can walk in lion country, of course, but the professionals do it without being eaten.
'If we stumble upon a lion,' explained Les, 'we'll get out of the area by moving slowly backwards. We will not run. If we run, we have a 100 per cent chance of being killed.'
Les then announced that we'd be spending the next night sleeping rough in a dried-up riverbed.
We set up camp next to a noisy roost of chacma baboons.
I say 'camp' but that's an exaggeration. We had gone back to basics, with no tents, no mats, no mosquito nets - just us, a campfire and enough food for 24 hours.
Les worked out a roster for keeping watch. He told us to wake him 'only if a lion is about to jump on everybody' and promptly fell into a deep sleep.
The rest of us didn't sleep a wink. There were lions roaring around us all night.
We were no longer tourists, we had become one of the attractions - and every time a twig snapped, we spun around expecting an attack.
An attack never came, of course. But by sunrise we looked as if we had just spent 24 hours in a labour ward.
Les awoke looking fully refreshed.
As we stumbled around the campsite, a little troop of baboons crossed in front of us.
Among them was a baby no bigger than my fist, with bright pink sticking-out ears and a puzzled look on its face.
Riding like a jockey on its mother's back, it was about to start another day of its own baboon-style training course: survival in the African bush.
Mark Carwardine presents Nature and other wildlife programmes on Radio 4 and is the author of more than 40 wildlife books.
TRAVEL FACTS:
Discovery Initiatives (www.discoveryinitiatives.com tel: 01285 643333) offers an 11-day 'Secrets of a Game Ranger Safari'.
A new perspective on South Africa
On the Blue Train, recently reopened by President Mandela, you can travel from Pretoria to Cape Town or, once a month, from Pretoria to Victoria Falls. But even our shorter journey was enough to take the breath away.
Whether you're peering backwards from the panoramic windows of the observation car, or gazing idly forwards from the narrower perspective of your suite, the sheer drama of this extraordinary country is irresistible. It looks as if it had been flung together by giants, and the steady pace of a slow train is ideal for appreciating its contrasts.
Travelling west, the train took us slowly from the malarial lowlands bordering Mozambique, past the great, green, dangerous spaces of Kruger National Park and up the Crocodile River Valley, past the Sudwala Caves (inspiration for King Solomon's Mines). Then we climbed up the steep escarpment of the Elands River Valley and on to the high veld, a mile further above sea level.
One moment we'd be absorbed by a little tableau - a group of workmen staring from a roadside or a herd of zebra starting away. The next we'd be awe-struck by the sheer scale of the contrasts - flat, scratchy low veld, vast, brutal mountains and the unimaginably empty spaces of the flat, shaggy high veld.
Each new scene was, in its own way, startling. And in every case it was impossible not to imagine the wonder these sights must have inspired in those who saw them for the first time. Watching all this from a train was a bit like gazing out of a classroom window.
Outside lay Africa, untamed, unknown, slouching roughly into an uncertain future. Our insulated perspective prevented us from engaging with it, but imagination made up the shortfall. From the purist's point of view this is perhaps not the ideal way to explore a new country, but it certainly has its advantages.
In fact, by the time we disembarked in Pretoria, I was a convert. I hadn't really got to know South Africa, but I felt that I'd come as near as it's possible to do in a few short days to getting a general sense of it.
If you're thinking of a holiday in South Africa for the first time, there are probably better ways of doing so - on safari, for example, or exploring the exquisite wine-growing country of the south-west. If you're thinking of spending a holiday on a train, on the other hand, South Africa is definitely the place to go.
A whale of a time
So successful was Shamwari, it didn't seem to matter that as we started off in our hired car along the Garden Route (Highway N2 that leads all the way to Cape Town), the rain was lashing down so thick and fast you could hardly see the road.
The views are said to be unparalleled - ocean to the left, mountains to the right - but we saw none of it, finally stopping at the town of Knysna on a lagoon. The welcome at Belvidere Manor helped. At our cottage a log fire burned, and cheerful colours lightened the gloom outside.
After an excellent dinner in the 150-year-old Belvidere House we went to bed, assured that next morning the sun would be shining. And incredibly, it was. Not only that, but the lagoon was mirror-calm, with clouds steaming down from the mountains around it as if in a Harry Potter spell.
From here you can catch the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe steam train, visit oyster farms or take a picnic to sandy Brenton-on-Sea. But for us there was only one thing: a boat trip from Plettenberg Bay to see the whales.
Accustomed by now to seeing such an abundance of wildlife, we were still overwhelmed by the thousands of seals, flippers up, along the coast of the Robberg Peninsular, and then by the sight of the whale. First the swell in the water ahead, then the tell-tale spurt from its blow-hole and finally the vast black body arcing so gracefully just a few yards from the boat.
Unfortunately, our own arrival back on land wasn't as fluid. The boat - a sort of 21st century landing craft - had to catch the waves and then run at speed at the beach, literally running itself aground.
'Hold on to the rail in front of you,' said the skipper, sending a burly crew member to hold on to my husband, who found himself in the front row without any rails. As we crashed on to the sand, children flying forward, my husband and his protector both spread-eagled on the deck, I thought the holiday's more risky elements were behind us.
Kingdom of the Zulu
Michael's historian wife Nicki had driven three hours from Durban to tell me the story of the mistake the British made when they climbed a hill in darkness to get one over the Boers as they tried to relieve the besieged town of Ladysmith.
At dawn they found they were sitting ducks for the Boers. The graves lie on the hilltop where the men fell.
Three Tree Hill Lodge nearby looks out over Spion Kop Nature Reserve and there are six guest cottages, each with a verandah and magnificent views.
I could lie in the bath and, with binoculars, watch the animals roaming the reserve.
The next day involved a lot of driving to position ourselves for an assault on the Sani Pass into Lesotho.
We drove into Mooi River, a delightful artists' town with lots of craft shops, past the town of Nottingham Road (where Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1962) and ended up for the night in Underberg and the Valemount Country Lodge to sample the hospitality of Gayelynn and Dave Marais.
The next morning we took the hairraising zigzag road known as the Sani Pass, which climbs the face of the Drakensberg mountains, from the kingdom of the Zulu to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho.
It's breathtaking, once you work up the nerve to open your eyes (the rusty remains of a truck, visible as we went round a particularly hairy bend, didn't help).
At the summit we had a drink in the Sani Top Chalet, 'the highest pub in Africa'.
Going down wasn't too bad - maybe a couple of glasses of wine had anaesthetised me - and the 'wow' factor of the scenery could be appreciated.
With a final night at Michael and Nicki's house in Durban, that was it - a breakneck 1,300 miles in eight days, an array of experiences, lots of welcoming people and a feeling that I have oodles of South Africa left to explore.
But Michael, more slowly next time, please.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Michael and Nicki von der Heyde arrange tailor-made trips to South Africa.
SAA (http://www.flysaa.com tel: 0870 747 1111) offers return flights from Heathrow to Durban via Johannesburg.
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| | | | Fabulous star formations
There are enough antelope to feed several hundred lions, not to mention the leopards and cheetahs that come out to feed at night.
As the light goes down, we encounter a white rhino, a herd of elephants and a sleepy male lion.
Melawane, like Kapama and the others, is roughly 30,000 acres, big enough to sustain the eco-chain.
This was, indeed, a good evening. We got to see four of the five (no leopard for now), plus a host of zebra, cheetah, giraffe and other assorted wildlife from the back of our open-top Land Rover.
We are ordered to stay absolutely still and in our seats as we encircle the lion; someone standing up suddenly might become a target.
Marc, who is reckoned by rangers on rival reserves to be the best in South Africa, also pointed out the flora and fauna, the bird life, and the fabulous star formations.
Back on my terrace, the 'sundowner' glass of Champagne was disturbed by an urgent rap on the window from Maxwell, the armed guard who patrols Melawane.
'Come over here and take a look,' he whispered with firm urgency.
Just 30 metres from the terrace, his torch illuminated a magnificent (if, in retrospect, rather terrifying) sight: a leopard in the undergrowth. Until then, I had assumed the gun was to deter unwelcome guests.
Maxwell stayed with the whole party throughout dinner, keeping one eye on our unexpected spectator, and the other - rather enviously, I thought - upon the five-course dinner cooked by resident chef John Jackson, recently voted one of South Africa's top 10. I dined there with the Hensmans and Lente Roode.
Riding the ostrich express
Up in the mountains we set off from our log cabin at Eight Bells Mountain Inn to explore on horseback. The views down the coast are breathtaking, the horses lively - but not quite as unpredictable as the ostriches the children would ride next day.
At Outshorrn you are in ostrich country. The heat intensifies as you go over the mountain pass, leaving the blue of the coast merging with the sky behind you. Everywhere ostriches strut the desert; at a farm we were offered first ostrich soup, then ostrich steak and a little ostrich omelette on the side. We could buy ostrich feather boas, ostrich leather handbags and painted ostrich eggs.
The living inhabitants can give a nasty kick and we were warned that if we wished to feed them, we should move any sparkling ring onto the other hand as a newly engaged visitor had just had hers pecked off and swallowed by a particularly intrepid bird. By the time we reached the enclosure where the brave could pick a mount, which immediately took off, kicking and pecking everything in its path, I chose to put my own head in the sand. I didn't miss much. 'Very bony wings,' reported our girls.
So imagine how sophisticated Cape Town felt after all this. Here we had a chance to shop and dine out, astonished at how cheap it was compared with London prices. Not being fond of heights, I forced myself on the family outing by cable car to the top of Table Mountain and will never regret it, although I wish I'd realised the floor revolved before I closed my eyes, clung to the central post and found myself stretched and everyone else convulsed in laughter.
We also managed a few refreshingly breezy moments at Cape Point, the furthest point south, and a trip to Boulder's Bay, where in heart-stoppingly cold water we actually swam with penguins.
Not in the bikini, however. Yet, as we made our way home via Johannesburg airport, I saw my name on a placard held by the beaming driver from the Westcliff Hotel where we had stayed. In his hand was an extravagant package, and there amid layers of tissue paper was my comfy old swimming costume wrapped like a precious jewel. What style.
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| | | | Very gentle pets
Rory talks of their miraculous escape.
They fled after one of their farmhands warned them that the veterans, having failed to frighten them away, were planning to murder them.
They immediately packed a bag, climbed into the car and ran the gauntlet as a jeering mob gathered on the farm track, hurling stones and abuse.
'We heard that they were planning to kill the elephants and managed to get them out, over a period of a few days, to a neighbouring farm before they were crated and moved over the border,' says Rory.
'The elephants were mostly orphans. We adopted our first two in 1988 and have hand-reared them all.'
'Some were used to carry tourists around Victoria Falls on the Zambian border, others to help us run the farm. They make excellent shepherds and are very gentle pets.'
Indeed, Lente Roode's little elephant Jabulani has settled in with them, and has been adopted as one of the family by the 11-year-old matriarch, Tokwe.
'We used to go for moonlit rides,' says Lindie.
'Our elephants would swim with the children, like giant dolphins. Rory and I would have put the herd down rather than leave them.
'But after setting up the elephant-back safaris, we will be working towards returning to Zimbabwe one day. I feel sure that there will be a good end to this nightmare.'
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Mark Porter travelled to South Africa with Africa Travel Centre and British Airways, which flies twice daily to Johannesburg and once daily to Cape Town.
Further details from Africa Travel Centre, http://www.africatravel.co.uk tel 020 7387 1211.
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| | Available rental properties in South Africa |
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| |  | | Squirrel & Vine Self-catering
Fully-equipped self-catering apartment in the historic core of Stellenbosch. Walk to shops, restaurants and numerous historic sites.
|  | | APARTMENT ON CANAL WATERFRONT
NEW LUXURY AIR CONDITIONED ONE BEDROOM 4 SLEEPER APARTMENT ON POINT WATERFRONT CANAL., WITH SWIMING POOL AND SECURE PARKING IN THE BUILDING. INCLUDES
|  | | Bougain Villa– Century City
Part of the luxurious community of Century City located in a secure gated complex of detached villas offering easy access to a multitude of attraction
|  | | Grace Cottage
This exquisitely renovated Victorian cottage has an upmarket, eclectic, high quality interior.
|  | | Blue Waters 402
Luxurious 2 bedroom apartment in Blaauwberg.
Stunning views of the whole of Table Mountain, Robben Island and Blouberg beaches.
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