Have had to contact the rental company to see if we can extend the time we want to rent our little car. We have had word that Lil's passport is on its way to Pretoria and the NZ High Commission so we will head in that direction to pick it up.
Headed south along the Drakensberg to Giant's Castle. Stopped in the picnic area for lunch along with a few other families and a mini bus full of boarding school kids. There was a sign warning us to cover our wipers as a local crow had a fetish for them. Only one person heeded the warning and wrapped them in a towel. We would liked to have done a walk here but we had a long drive in the dusty conditions that were quite slow so we headed off. There were kilometres and kilometres of dirty dusty roads with some of them being reduced to half their width because there were piles of rock and gravel waiting to be crushed and used to repair the road.
There was not much traffic on the road so that made the journey more bearable in the heat and the dust. Some of the places on our map never appeared where they should have while others appeared in their place and were not on our map.
A soccer game near Loteni.We drove into Loteni Camp and there was no one in the office so we pitched our tent and had a hot shower. There was no electricity but there were gas heated hot showers and toilets.The board with the chalet bookings was full of names and there was only one family of 4 in the camp site.
The father spoke English to the 2 boys while the mother spoke German and they lived not far away and regularly camped here with their boys. The boys had left clothes in the showers so John returned them and chatted away. The father complained about how hard he had to work to earn 9,000 Rand per week to enjoy a reasonable lifestyle. He had worked in Germany for 4 years and the UK in construction, also for 4 years. It was interesting that such a subject came up after such a short encounter.
There was a concrete pit for the ubiquitous braai so we used it to start our multi fuel cooker. Unfortunately the whole cooker caught on fire and now is useless. We had to work quickly to stop the grass around the fireplace catch on fire. Fortunately I had already cooked the meal and we were just reheating it else it would have been a cold night for us. Now we have to look for an alternative cooker somewhere. The good old optimus had been so faithful for so long!
Saw a few bucks and zebra but not much else. There were a few private lodges with exclusive rights to fish for trout in the river in the park and being a holiday weekend the lodges were full.
We had planned to do a small hike but the trails were covered in mist and not having maps and not knowing the area and not being able to see anything ,we decided to move on.
We met a lot of traffic as people were heading home from their holidays and we were covered with dust inside and out. The poor car is starting to rattle quite a bit now as the screws loosen from the bumpy roads.
Headed for Sani Lodge Backpackers near the Lesotho border.
