Hello everybody, Nick here. I wrote most of this while Kat was away having fun with monkeys but have been so busy I didn't quite manage to get round to finishing it and posting it - sorry! I will post on what kept me so busy soon...
A few weeks ago Kat and I made our first decent trip away, and went to KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). As it’s me I’m going to now make you all suffer a bit of history and politics, which hopefully you’ll find interesting!
KwaZulu means ‘land of sky’ and was a group of areas inside the province of Natal which was set aside by the apartheid government as a semi-autonomous homeland for the Zulus (post-apartheid the regions formally joined to be called KZN). This was to try to perpetuate tribal divides and since the dominant Zulu party, the Inkatha Freedom Party, had a strong leader, Chief Buthalezi. KZN was very violent during apartheid and has been in democratic elections since 1994. This is when I tell Mum that on local elections day here I toured KZN and visited some real Zulu heartlands (sorry Mum!). The recent elections were the first totally peaceful ones in KZN on record but violence since 1994 has never been anything like the levels during apartheid. Mandela made a big point of supposed apartheid government funding of Inkatha Freedom Party violence towards the African National Congress (his party) to try to disrupt the peace process and test his negotiating resilience. Anyway, I have probably wittered on too much about the background to KZN but I guess I just wanted to give you a feel for how complicated and fascinating the region is: it’s the Zulu homelands, its history is complicated, but it’s also absolutely beautiful. When I went there for the elections I started in Durban and did a road trip through the Valley of a Thousand Hills, stopping and talking at locals in cities, townships and raw rural areas. It was an amazing privilege to hear real people’s stories and they were (generally) really friendly. But that is a story for another time.
So, the Friday before the late May bank holiday weekend, Kat and I set off on a road trip, driving through Jo’burg and passing through the provinces of Free State and Mpumalanga (for about 5km only) before hitting KZN. It took about 5 hours and much of it was driving in a long straight line! Free State was barren and very flat, and it was very clear when KZN was in site as we could see the mountains start to appear out of the distance. We were heading towards the Drakensburg mountains for the first part of our 2 part trip, and they were such a beautiful sight, quite majestic with their flattened tops – the like of which we’d never seen before.
We had driven 300 kilometers and had another 50 to go when we suddenly turned onto a road which had roadworks, wiping out the whole left-hand side of the road. We joined the back of the queue and waited for oncoming traffic to pass. It took ages and we felt a bit uneasy as lots of people walking near our car trying to sell things (sometimes the security situation here makes you feel uneasy with anything near your car when you are trapped). Anyway we had been planning on filling up the car with petrol before we entered the park. Only now we were driving on this road everything started looking very desolate and it didn’t feel like a petrol station was about to pop out of anywhere. The petrol gauge was entering its last quadrant, and we started to get worried – we didn’t want to get stuck in the mountains. Asking a local if there was a petrol station ahead didn’t help either, as she said “yes” but we know that sometimes South Africans just tell you what you want to hear for fear of being rude! So after 30 minutes on this lumpy, bumpy road we turned round at the first opportunity and did it all again! About an hour later we were back there again with a full tank of petrol, and about 20 minutes drive further there was....of course....a petrol station!
Anyway we weaved and winded round the mountains on our way to Royal Natal National Park. We drove through Zulu rural areas, with lots of people walking along the sides of the road. There were a lot of schoolkids as it was the end of the day. Houses were a mixture of traditional round Zulu hut type houses and the pretty standard houses with brick structures and corrugated iron roofs. We made it into the park and got to our campsite, which was right next to the Mahai river set amongst a few tall trees with a glorious mountainous background. We set up camp with our brand new tent – it was a bit of a challenge but we got it up ok. We had some friendly guinea fowl watching us struggle. It got dark really quickly so we lit a fire and had a braai – mostly nicely burnt sausages!
The night was cold – 4 layers and still cold sort of cold – but worth putting up with (I won’t mention the cold again now as I probably got a little overly miserable about it – sorry Kat!). Anyway we got up and had a wonderful walk that took most of the day. It was the most amazing walk I’ve ever done (I think Kat agrees but I don’t want to speak for her given all of her amazing rainforest experiences!). Starting off it was a hot and dry terrain, with a winding climb up the sides of hills. It’s amazing how when the sun comes out you start feeling very warm only a couple of hours after it’s been freezing. The views were amazing and we saw the park’s famous amphitheatre, a raw rock face cut into mountains which continues round the whole park. We entered small patches of woodlands that were cool, refreshing and green. The third patch of woodland we entered we suddenly noticed a family of Baboons! They were only 50 metres or so away, sat high in trees that were down the edge of the mountain, and they were feeding. We watched in awe for a while (and they watched us too, but probably not in awe!). We continued the walk and hit a boulder filled gorge. Not only was the sight amazing but it meant we got to go boulder hopping for the next half an hour! At the end we knew it wasn’t far to the base of the second tallest waterfall in the world, Tukela Falls. The only problem was we went the wrong way. Twice. We did find a spot with a good view of the falls in the end but we couldn’t see the water flowing because it is winter and the volume of water falling is much lower. But we could still see the snow at its peak and the shape of the falls. It was fantastic. We decided we would walk back rather than climb the dodgy looking chain ladder to the base of the falls as it was getting late, and getting stranded didn’t seem like a good idea! Perhaps next time, we thought, which made us realise we are very lucky to have that sort of opportunity not just once but for a few years.
The second day, before we headed off, we did the short “Otto’s walk” which went through woodlands. We were lucky again to see a whole mass of Baboons as we walked back along a road, including several baby baboons playing and feeding. We bought a colourful fruit bowl/basket, weaved by local women who we having a good gossip in Zulu, before we left.
We headed to the Midlands, still in KZN. The Midlands is famous for its English feel, in countryside and culture. We joined the Midlands Meander, a well known route of windy roads linking coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, arts and craft shops. We drove to the Mount Park Farm, a working farm which was also our new campsite. What we had thought was close to the meander actually turned out to be 25km down a dirt road! Still, it was a lovely campsite up in the hills and we were the only guests. Plus the town was called ‘Dargle’! Now who wouldn’t love that? We pitched our tent and headed out again, to sample the culture and some finer living than in the Drakensburg Mountains.
Over the next day and a half we ended up enjoying ourselves eating out, chilling in a cool Austrian bar, browsing lots of shops full of crafts and gifts. We even got to dip our own candles (colouring candles)! We went to a pottery shop, which not only had amazing pottery but a cool guy who ran it. He noticed our accents and the diplomatic plates and realised we were from the UK. He told us all about how the High Commission had helped him towards the end of apartheid by giving him sewing machines and desks, which enabled him to set up classes to educate locals on how to sew. It’s amazing how much impact these projects have sometimes and it’s great to hear what they have achieved and their lasting impact, even if it’s not on a grand scale. He was about to leave South Africa for Mozambique and wanted to start a 'mariculture' project now – teaching the local community how to farm land animals while sustainably interacting with the sea (I think it was by teaching them to grow mussels as feed – not sure though). Anyway we bought a lovely jug and Kat used her cheeky grin to get him to throw in a small bowl for free!
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