Surf & Turf Holiday 2011 - Part 1

The original plan was to go down to the Drakensberg for 10 days, and be back before New Year.  I have always avoided going down to the coast during December, mainly because it's peak summer holiday season, and that means crowds and traffic and other things I'd rather avoid.  The resort we go to in the mountains is very out of the way, and if we go early enough, not very full.  Malcolm had suggested going down to my parents in Port Elizabeth, but I was keen, instead, to visit them in about February (maybe for my birthday??) when all the holiday makers would be back at work and school and everything would be nice and quiet.

Our booking at Silverstreams was from the 17th till the 27th.  The caravan park fills up after the 26th, and becomes a little unpleasant, so we thought we'd rather not stay too long after Christmas Day.

Unfortunately, we sent my car (which is the family vehicle as well as the tow car) in for a service a few days before we planned to leave, and the garage told Malcolm that the turbo was not functioning properly and had to be repaired.  He duly took it to a place that specialises in turbos, who found nothing wrong with it...!  However, they had taken it apart and not put it back together by the afternoon of Thursday the 15th.  We had planned to leave on Saturday the 17th, and Friday the 16th was a public holiday..!!!

So we had to change our dates.

We got the car back on Monday afternoon, spent Tuesday packing and left Wednesday morning at 4am.

We stopped for breakfast at our usual One-Stop just past Harrismith. One of our family's favourite things about holiday is all the eating out..!  Maybe not the healthiest thing always, but, hey - we're on holiday!!  It was here that we had our first disaster.  Jordan had a strawberry milkshake and managed to tip his glass over!  (Not too difficult when you're only 2!)  I grabbed at it, and caught it before it fell right over, but in the process got a good shower of pink strawberry milkshake all over me!

I was wearing a white shirt....

And it looked dreadful!!

I managed to keep a smile on my face though, and was so glad we have a caravan!  I could easily get some clean clothes as well as change quickly inside the van. The milkshake didn't stain either, even though it was quite a violent pink...

A while after Harrismith you enter KwaZulu Natal and the scenery changes.  It becomes much more green and lush, and is so beautiful!  It's hard to capture it all with a camera though, and I apologize for taking these photos out of the car window or windscreen.  Stopping to take photos is impossible on a main route, and I don't really like opening the window either because of the wind.

After Howick we turned off and drove towards Underberg.  We were now off the main highway, and on a small rural road.  You cannot drive fast here, firstly because of the animals on the side of the road, and secondly because of the potholes.

In these parts, animals graze all over, and there aren't fences to keep them in a pasture or anything.  If they take it into their heads to cross the road, well, that's what they do...

 

You can't brake quickly while towing a heavy caravan behind you, so we had to drive slowly on these roads. The scenery is still nice, although a lot of it is pine tree plantations belonging to Sappi (who make paper).  There are lots of rural settlements too:

This is the Midmar Dam just outside of Howick:

To be continued...