South Africa - Travels with Verne and Roy

Big 5 Nambiti Game Reserve, 18-21 November 2018

Going to “the bush” – meaning a game reserve or something similar – is a popular pastime for South Africans. How did Roy and I get so lucky as to crack the nod to Idwala Private Lodge in the Big 5 Nambiti Game Reserve?

Well, our friends Brigid and Clive have been coming here for more than ten years. They own a fractional share of the lodge, which they generally use to host family and close friends.

This time, when one of the five villas became available for the last few nights of their stay, they invited us to join them there.

Verne and Roy on Idwala Lodge’s viewing platform

Cape Road Trip: Part Four – The Garden Route, 31 October to 3 November 2018

Extreme hosting in Hermanus; kind cosseting in Knysna; hanging out in Uitenhage, Morgans Bay and Kokstad

From Cape Town it was a quick 120km drive to the lovely coastal town of Hermanus, famous for whale-spotting and for being the home of old friends Paddy and Zoe Probert.

Cape Trip Part Three: Cape Town and Franschhoek, 29-31 October 2018

Ghosts of Cape Town past and present; catching up with friends; side trip to Franschhoek

Within a couple of hours of our arrival in Cape Town from the scorching Karoo semi-desert, the wind came up, the weather turned cold and a foggy blanket covered Table Mountain. On cue, I developed a snotty head-cold.

To cheer things up, here are some memories of past trips to Cape Town, some even featuring sunshine.

Ghosts of Cape Town past

The classic view of Table Mountain from Bloubergstrand – Roy, 1992

Cape Road Trip Part Two: Prince Albert, 26-27 October 2018

It’s a 335km drive from Graaff-Reinet to Prince Albert in the Central Karoo, where we were to stay for two nights. Apart from it being famously karaktervol (full of character), the main attraction for us was my old school friend Linda and her husband André, who 14 years ago retired to a smallholding on the edge of Prince Albert.

“Do stop for lunch or tea at Sophie’s Choice in Willowmore,” Linda texted me, so we did. Below is Sophia with Roy, in the gorgeously eclectic antiques store and restaurant she’s been running for 13 years.

Sophia says the Karoo has been good to her

Cape Road Trip – Part One: Durban to Graaff-Reinet, 23-25 October 2018

For a Durbanite like me, the “Cape trip” is probably part of your travel history – something you feel called to do every few years or so. Mostly, you drive the roughly 1,800km each way, because – magical as Cape Town is – it’s as much about the journey as it is about the destination.

Durban to Cape Town via the Free State; we’ll be driving home via the coastal Garden Route, Port Elizabeth, East London and the former Transkei

Midlands Meandering, 21-24 May

A week before heading to France for the summer, I surprised Roy on his birthday with a three-night getaway to the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, just a 90-minute drive from Umhlanga Rocks and Durban.

Just between you and me, I wasn’t sure how welcome it was – to start with, anyway.

My man seems quite content to while away the days on our balcony, occasionally lifting his eyes from his Kindle to survey the Indian Ocean, assess the shipping situation, contemplate the lighthouse, or call me from one of my various pursuits to admire a pod of passing dolphins.

Decaying Durban?

No one we know goes into Durban’s rundown CBD by choice anymore. Except, that is, for my 85-year-old mother who still takes a combi taxi into town from her home in Musgrave Road once a month to have her hair done. (Cue horrified gasps.) She’s made of sterner stuff than I.

The featured image above is of the Playhouse theatre in Smith Street.

Back in the seventies and eighties, a favourite Friday night outing for the family would be “window-shopping” down West and Smith Streets – especially in the weeks before Christmas, but not only then. The shops closed at 5pm, but you could buy an ice-cream cone and stroll past the brightly lit window displays of department stores like Greenacres and Stuttafords (later Garlicks), Durban Wholesale Jewellers and other flourishing retailers.

Heading up Smith Street to Broad Walk – in the distance you can just see the tower of the University of KZN’s Howard College, my alma mater, if you know where to look

Ode to Autumn – in Durban

Weather-wise, May has to be the month to visit Durban. It’s not necessarily the best time to see the rest of the country, though: in the artistic KZN Midlands, they’re already wearing crocheted garments and huddling around artisanal log fires.

In the Cape, they’re opening yet another vyf-man-kan (five-litre box) of red, battening down the hatches against the wintry storms and praying for more of that cold rain to fill their direly depleted dams.

Gym Bunnies: Virgin Active Gym, La Lucia, KZN, South Africa

We’ve never been gym bunnies, Roy and I. Neither of us has belonged a gym for the past 10 years at least. Yet here we are at Virgin Active La Lucia, notching up a creditable three or four visits a week.

Virgin Active La Lucia has just about everything you could wish for in a gym

Brookdale Hydro in the KZN Midlands

Can 1,200 kcals a day be part of a luxury getaway? If you can go without alcohol and coffee for a week, then the answer is a resounding “Yes!” – and you’ll find it at the outstanding Brookdale Hydro.

Brookdale is located in a lovely part of South Africa’s rural KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Not only was it just what the doctor ordered for a barging couple who’d spent the past four months bingeing on baguettes and butter – it was pure bliss.