Some Real-time, Short Updates From the Road – September 2023, South Africa
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Some Real-time, Short Updates From the Road – September 2023, South Africa
It's time for some real-time updates from the road in South Africa. What we've been up to and where? And what's next in the plans?
We are writing this from the road. So bear with us if this feels non-chronological or “out of balance” from the normal storytelling. ;)
We recently spent about a week in Muizenberg, near Cape Town, South Africa. It was cold there! 🥶 The weather was around +13-16C daily, and temperatures dropped way below +10C during the nights.
Why we came to Cape Town was to visit the factory of Alu-Cab (the manufacturer of our roof conversion).
As you may remember, the Game Counts are waiting for us in Zimbabwe at the end of September, so we no longer have so much time to spend here in South Africa.
Summary From Cape Town
We had to make this big detour (more than 1000 km!) to Cape Town because we needed to go to the factory of Alu-Cab – the manufacturer of our car’s Icarus roof conversion.
As we’ve told in some previous posts, we had so many problems with it in Namibia, where it was installed. The installer was an official Alu-Cab retailer, but we wanted to ensure everything was correct. It was a big investment for us, so ensuring everything works as it should is essential.
It took two visits to Alu-Cab, and in the end, they did fix a small water ingress in the front of the roof and changed the back struts. They also changed the “hats” of the back struts to their brand-new designs, which should now work flawlessly.
Overall, everything should now work perfectly, as the manufacturer inspected everything.
We got absolutely great and professional service from the Alu-Cab team at their factory, and we also got a new gadget that’ll make our life much comfier on the road in the future: the Alu-Cab Shower Cube! Thank you, Alu-Cab! 🙏😊
Stopping by to see the African Penguins in Simon’s Town
This was a reunion with the lovely African penguins in the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony. We first visited here in 2018, when we were in South Africa for the first time, to do a housesitting in Simon’s Town, caring for a cool, malamute dog (named “Storm”).
We wanted to pop here on our last day in the area because we have the Wild Card, and it was only a 30-minute drive from Muizenberg.
This time, there were much fewer penguins but quite a lot of people. The penguins are always there, though, and we spent a fun afternoon observing them. The light was harsh even in the late afternoon, but here’s a snap-shot from a short video-in-the-making.
Back Towards North via the Garden Route
Our route has gone roughly like this: Hermanus - Wilderness - Knysna - Addo Elephant National Park - Mountain Zebra National Park, and then to Marloth Park near Kruger. There we’ll meet one of our friends.
We’ll then drive together through Kruger to Zimbabwe to help with the Hwange and Gonarezhou National Parks’ game counts.
We weren’t supposed to spend a night in Hermanus lately, but we then quickly changed plans and met our old friends Elke and Evert, whom we got to know in 2018. Back then, they owned a beautiful safari lodge in Greater Kruger but have retired since to Hermanus.
After all these years, it was a nice reunion, and we spent a wonderful evening together. Thank you Elke & Evert, for all your hospitality! 🙏 We had a great time.
And – in the morning, we even spotted some Southern Right Whales on the coast! 😄 Check out the video below!
“The Chilly Tour of South Africa”
In the last few weeks, we’ve been driving on the South African coast on the famous Garden Route. It’s been pretty cold with some extremely stormy days. It's been too cold and windy for camping, so we’ve been in small hotels most of the time.
On our way to Cape Town, we did a few freezing camping nights in the Karoo National Park. The night temperatures went below 0 C, and we had all the warm clothes, blankets, and hot water bottles with us. Couldn’t have taken it any colder. 🥶
The scenery was great in the Karoo, but two very cold nights and chilly days were enough for now. We’ll tell you more about Karoo later.
Back to North
Since we started heading back north, we’ve spent a few nights in Addo Elephant National Park and Mountain Zebra National Park, too.
These were our first visits to both Parks, and both were beautiful and different in their own ways. We love elephants, so Addo was a sure way to see many ellies! :)
And in Mountain Zebra National Park, we did a nice 14 km 4x4 track, “Sonnenrust,” too. 😃 It was fun and easy to drive (Grade 2 4x4 trail), and great sceneries were granted.
Will recap our times in both of these beautiful National Parks later, too.
And when we head further north towards Kruger National Park again, we’ll finally start getting the warm weather we love!
…And Zimbabwe is waiting, too! 🇿🇼
But that’s about it for this short “real-time” update.
Would you like to get these kinds of real-time updates here sometimes? Tell us below!
Meanwhile,
Stay Wild,
