January 23 - February 5

A perfect on schedule flight with British Airways from Nice to Johannesburg via Heathrow with no baggage or car renting problems. Because of a lot of rain in Nice there was only one flight between Heathrow and Nice and that was ours :-).

  

We rented a Hyundai IX35 from Avis on a mini lease deal - big excess but that is covered by our credit card and max 100 km/day. Now after being in SA for 2 weeks we have found out that 100 pr day is not enough but we think it's still cheaper to rent the car on a mini lease. Until now we have been happy with the car.

We had decided that this trip should be a little different from our others South Africa trips. We would this time book accommodation from place to place and travel after the weather. Only one thing is sure and that is that we arrived in Johannesburg and we are leaving from Cape Town.

We bought our telephone simcards (MTN for our mobile and Vodacom for  the tablet to go on the internet via mobile system. That is cheap in S.A.).  We were arriving early at African Rock Hotel  (a small boutique hotel with 9 rooms) where we had booked their best room (No 1.) on a good last minute deal. All their rooms are a little dark like a lot of hotel rooms are here in South Africa, but no 1 has a least a window to the pool.

Our room is at left
    

The dining room and bar area

After being installed we took off to shop necessities like golf balls (in our favorite shop - , wine and water etc. We even bought (on sale) a 12 V electric cooler to cool water and food.

   

We stayed 5 nights at African Rock hotel  in Kempton Park  (west of Johannesburg) and it was golfing every day. We golfed, wined and dined - same cook as last year – very good food.

We started playing Serengeti, a Jack Nicklaus designed course,  which is a very good well maintained course, very difficult and also expensive - compared to other SA golf courses. Luckily we had a voucher from last year so we played incl. a cart for 850 Rand -    600 DKK. 

  

   Serengeti

  

The next day   Eye of Africa, a Greg Norman course, a very positive experience, beautiful layout, well kept, lack of course management = difficult. Reasonable price, hilly, generally wide fairways landing drives.
  

 

Eye of Africa

Sunday we played    Royal Johannesburg East Course, the famous old course in JoBurg.. We were out the last day before closing for preparation of this year  Joburg Open. It is a difficult old park course and long compared to courses we play in Europe. OK it lies in 1600 meter above sea level. The balls fly a little longer. You can walk this course with a pull cart which is quite unusually here in South Africa.
Next day we played the  Royal Johannesburg West Course, not so famous, but certainly worth a visit. It was the first time we played it, but not the last.
   

Niels on hole 10 on The east course

Our guru for golf courses in South Africa is the rating from Golf Digest may 2012:

 

Our original plan was to drive to Dragensberg  which  is the highest mountain range in Southern Africa, rising to 3,482 meters but the weather forecast was absolute not good so we changed plans and drove instead to The Battlefields.

415 km and 5 1/2 hours

We loved to get to play, but there are other things in life, so we entered a historic part of our tour.  We stayed at Penny Farthing CountryHouse , where the owner 74 years old Foy made a full day trip round the Anglo/Zulu batlefields.The Anglo - Zulu War rested 6 months. It started 22 January where 1,300 soldiers were massacred by the Zulu impi at the Battle of Isandlwana 
Foy explaines everything about the battles, showing – on place - how the Zulus massacred the British in the first battle (Isandlwana). There were more battles, and as we all know the British won in the end. The riffles were new but not really good, though good enough to win. In the Rorke`s Drift  battle 600 Zulus were killed, but 6.000 rounds were fired.  The mission/church has been rebuilt on the original Foundation as it originally was, and the church is in use.

The Zulus memorial

   

The hospital at Rorke's Drift

Anne and Foy at Isandlwana  - The white stones is British Mass graves.

We also heard about the Boer war where 20.000 British soldiers were killed, and 6.000 Boers. Why?  In short. The Boers used horses, had Mauser riffles, used guerrilla war techniques (hit and run),  and could shoot from horses due to their hunting abilities. What the Boers did not loose on the battle fields, they lost in the British concentration camps. 26,000 died there of hunger and deceases. Among them were many children.
But the Boers could not win over troops from the whole British Empire.

In this part of SA the countryside is full of tragic war memorials.
  

31^st January.
  

375 km and 6 hours plus 1 hour  in a 4x4

From war to nature.  We drove to the east coast to stay 3 days at Thonga Beach Camp. We couldn't drive all the way to the camp but have to drive the last hour in a 4x4 - we were picked up by the camp.

Here we are in the Simangaliso Wetland Park (close to Mozambique) to see turtles come ashore and lay their eggs, snorkel along the reefs in the Indian Ocean and relax. We were unlucky the first night. No turtles were seen. They have had the biggest turtle Leatherhead on the beach, 1 ton and the smaller Loggerhead 40 kg. But we try again. In the mean time we got a drop in the wind, and could swim inside a small low water reef with a very strong current. You can also go out to sea to a reef where you scope dive or snorkel seeing fish, dolphins sharks etc. But the wind was too strong; you could not pass the breakers without great risk of capsizing. The tide is very strong, and dictates the time for water activities.
In the last evening  at 23:30 low tide, we drove along the beach to see if the turtles came in to lay their eggs. But we were not in luck. We had to give up :-(

Sundowner at the biggest fresh water laker in SA

It was beautiful and quite windy

   

What activities are we going to do?

    

The viewing deck

3^rd February, 
We left Thonga to go to Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park where they have Black Rhinos and 1,600 white rhinos.
   

1 hour to the parking and 4 hours to drive (200 km)

   

It is a beautiful park, fantastic views over the hilly countryside with all shades of green. It had been raining a lot in this region, the grass was up to 70 cm. high, bushes and trees were green and growing, so it was difficult to see animals and their movements. Any animal  with less high than a Zebra could not be seen except on the roads.  We saw many animals, even 2 wild dogs, which are very rare, but it was on the road. We gave up and left one day earlier, the bush was too thick and honestly we did not like the bush camp we were staying in. The standard of this camp was far below the standard of the camps we have been staying  t in Kruger Park.
Two times we were hold back by the same big male elephant that would not allow us to pass so we had to turn the car and find another route.
  

   

     

   

   

This was outside the park on our way to St Lucia

5^th Feb. 
We left to go to to Princes Grant Golf lodge 70 km. north of Durban.  On our way we took  little detour to St Lucia which is a small town with a lot of beaches to the border of the wetlands.We had a nice lunch with sole on Ocean Basket which is a restaurant chain we already have visited three times.
  

250 km and 4 hours

Princes Grant Golf Lodge is good golf hotel with a fantastic situation and view , and a golf course falling down towards the Indian Ocean, exposed to the oceans wind and weather.  It is a very difficult long course, but hopefully a little easier the second time it is played. We try tomorrow again, there is certainly room for improvement. Here at 18:00 hours the thunder is roiling over the sky.
  

Hole no 15 - the signature hole

February 6 - 11

February 6

We drove  to dinner at 19:00, it rained. On the way back we found we had a flat tire.

Next morning it was a fantastic sunny morning, almost no winds. We got out 08:30, and did much better than the day before. The wind picked up the last 9 holes, but it did not stop us. We got back in time to change the tyre.

February 8

 

 We left Princes Grant Golf - but we will come back and drove to Zimbali Golf Course 40 km. north of Durban. We played it in 2000, but although the course is the same, it was changed. Houses all over . Trees had grown up between the houses, and surrounded the course, that before was an open course. But it was a good experience, rated 25, no wonder!
 

 

 

 
We drove on, and passed by Avis in the airport to get the punctured tire changed.

We arrived at our hotel Beverly Hills in Umhlanga 15 km north of Durban direct to the Indian ocean. We enjoy the view from 5^th floor. And we enjoyed being old. A special senior escape package make us stay on this 5* hotel “demi pension” (the dinner we could choose from the menu)  and free round of golf at Mount Edgecombe for 200€ per day - and the kitchen and the service is 1^st class.
 

 View from our room - 503 - at low tide

 

Nice breakfast view

Next day - Saturday - we went to play golf at Mount  Edgecome but there were so many players and the humidity was enemous so we decided to use the practise and had lunch.

The rest of the day was pure relaxing.

We felt a little bit home because right out in the sea we had a big Maersk Container ship - the day we left we counted 21 ships which anchored outside Port of Durban  - probably waiting to be unloaded. The day we left we saw 2 Maersk Ships in the port.
 

  The port of Durban handles the greatest volume of sea-going traffic of any port in Africa. Containers handled at Durban represented 62 percent of the total number of containers handled at South African ports.
    
February 10
The next morning it was Durban Country Club, the old renowned club from 1922 listed as 11 of of Top 100 golf courses in Golf Digest. Durban CC was the home for 2013 Volvo Golf Champions.

 

But it was a strange atmosphere. No smiling welcome at the caddie masters house as we are used to. It was the same at the pro shop. We were starting on hole 10, and after a couple of holes Anne asked if it was started as a nine hole course, and the back nine had been added later. We think so.
The holes were very close to each other, the only view was to the Moses Mabhida stadium which was completed in late 2009 for the worldcup. There was no signs to help you round the course. We went well, but did not feel really comfortable. We dropped the halfway house; the food looked like junk food. Hole 1 to 9 was different. It was a nice lay out, long difficult holes, but disturbed by a motorway running just besides the first holes. Not the fault of the club, it surely was not there in 1922. The golf was fine, Anne couldn't play at all so Niels won.

BUT the view to the stadium was great.
 

The Moses Mabhida Stadium has a seating capacity of 70,000 and was designed to be a multi-purpose venue and amphitheatre. This stadium features a massive 350 m long free and 105 m high span arch which holds up the roof. The top of the arch rises to 106 m above the pitch. The arch consists of a 5 x 5 m steel hollow box which weighs 2,600 tons. Visitors can be carried from the North side to a viewing platform at the top of the arch by a funicular and enjoy breathtaking, panoramic views of the nearby city and ocean

The following day (February 11)  we should play the other course of Durban CC - Beachwood - but on the way back we drove by, and decided to play another course laying an hour’s drive from the hotel, a new course Cotswold Down. We arrived late as the route was not updated on the new Garmin map, but the old paper map did the job in cooperation with common sense and spotting the clubhouse on a hilltop. A fantastic course with spectacular views of bending hilly grassland with long holes, sneaky at places, but fair.  Anne got hip problems, and had difficulties to turn the body when swinging, so she could not win today, but we had a fine day on a course to return to. And by the way it cost 20€ incl. buggy and water each. Normal price 30€!! Ranked 45.
 

         Anne at the tee, she must hit over the trees, or it was a drop zone! She made it and a good bogey.

On return to the hotel we had English 5’oclock tee with scones etc., we picked up our laundry from the local laundry shop, so we can be ready to go on tomorrow.

February 12 - 18

12^th February. 

 We left this very good hotel (Beverly Hills Hotel) to go south to Port Edward. This little village is living of tourism and the big Sun Hotel with an enormous Water world, Casino and the famous golf course Wild Coast Sun, which is a rated as no 10 in Golf Digest.

We have booked a room in Ocean View B&B. A nice place where the family shares the living room and kitchen with the guests (which we have not tried before) and you come to learn the owners pretty well, even if we stayed in our own room.  There are 2 restaurants, and a KFC fast food restaurant. The B&B had a fantastic view, a nice garden and salt water swimming pool, which we can use.  We had a nice dinner in neighboring restaurant PEG & PUNTER, which was cheap and  good.
  



  View from the swimmingpool

 

We are 10 minutes from Wild Cost Sun Golf Course. What a course. Long often hilly holes, and wind from the mighty Indian Ocean as a big factor when you play. The first day (February 13th) we had difficulties exactly because of the wind, but we got through loosing around 6 balls each!

 

Finishing around lunchtime, we decided to go to the hotel to see it and to have lunch. We passed the  Wild Coast Water Park with many, many visitors with screaming kids; we got to a big parking lot, and ended up inside a huge building like in Sun City with gambling machines and casino.

But they had a restaurant with ocean view. It was not pretty. It was brownish with plastic covered tables, placed just beside the casinos glittering lights. And there were tons of people, mostly older like us. And the casino restaurant had a special old citizens 3 course lunch for 12€. The restaurant was full – just besides the casino!
We had to try it. And the food was excellent, the wine and coffee as well. Afterwards we walked around and found it was 90% older women staring at machines with spinning wheels or pictures shifting and lights blinking in this fatamorgana world at 2 PM.

We got out, and found the sun shining, went back to have a swim and a rest. The evening we went to Beach Bubbies restaurant. That was not good.

The second golf round (February 14th) was better for us, we teed off 7:30, still a lot of wind, but a little more favorable direction, and did ok. I was a nice round on this fantastic course. Today we got a “spotter” called Wonder Boy to help see the balls. It was ok, and relieved Anne of looking after Niels` balls as he can’t see the “long” drives. The spotters relive the caddy, as it is obligatory to drive around this long hilly course. At one place we saw small old rail tracks, and were told it was an old lift to help the caddies up a very steep hill.
Getting a coffee afterwards we met 8 Danes, living in the area for 9 weeks each winter playing golf and enjoying the weather. They came from Copenhagen, Værløse golf klub.

To night it was Valentine’s day, and we are booked up at PEG & PUNTER. That is a feast evening in SA, we got a nice buffet, again it cost nothing and was very good. We left before it got “hot”, and got safe home.

We heard that the N2 main roadwas under repair, and advised by the locals we decided to go via Queenstown, a detour of 200 km. But a fine road, and very beautiful.  

 

We had found a B&B; top modern, and also a gallery. It hosted a very fine restaurant  - The Gallery - mainly visited by business people. We had 2 course dinner main course Kudo Filet and very good. Perfect vine, and all for 35€ - for both! A pearl in a small but important town, with many houses belonging to the rich. Absolutly worth the detour, and knowing of delays of 2 to 4 hours, it was no doubt a good idea.

We left early to go to Fish River Sun golf Resort to play. They had a Valentine Package - €130 pr couple for D&B&B.  The course rated 32 and again the situation is fantastic towards the Ocean, and of course the wind! We played it twice, and if we drive by we will play it again, but will not drive to play it. The hotel is fine price performance, so was the course, green fee 28€ for 2, buggy 16€. A spotter cost 7,5€ but we pay 15€. He finds the balls taken by the wind – and many are taken adrift.

  

The view from our window

  

  



The rooms - its best to have a room in blog 5

 

Niels and our spotter Nigel

  

After the golf we went for a walking to the beach (ca 1.5 km from the hotel)- wouv - thats was beautiful.

 

The view from the mouth of Old Womans River towards the golf course

February 19 - 25

19^th February.

On the long detour via Queenstown Anne worked with her tablet, which has got a SA Vodacom mobil/data SIM card, and found a lodge in a private concession of Addo Elephant Park, and we got a last minute offer for two nights at Gorah Elephant Camp, which means we hopefully are going to see animals - cats, black rhinos and elephants. We have earlier been in Addo NP without any interesting  sighting  of animals but we have just got an e.-mail from some good friends that  have visited the National Park 2 weeks ago and seen about 200 elephants drinking from a dam.

 

We arrived at the camp around midday, got our luxury tent, and went to lunch which was very delicate. By the way the camp is a member of Relais and Chateaux. 

Our tent

We got on the evening drive after a 4 o´clock tea, and saw many heartbeats, kudos, eland and even more warthogs - or pumba named from The Lions King. All super lion food. We were told that this park, SA`s 2^nd largest had only 3 female and 6 male lions. This after the park administration had exported 18 six month old lions to other reserves. Maybe because of fear of inbreeding? Who knows? But the result is a very big number of above mentioned spices.

suites-1

After a while it started raining and thundering. Anne did not like it, and we drove her back to camp and continued.
  

The park is also famous for its big number of elephants, and for having Black Rhino.  The latter is very difficult to see because there are not many left and they are shy and difficult to find. By the way rhino poaching figures for 2012 that 668 rhinos (mostly whites) were killed for their horns - up from 448 in 2011. The Kruger Park was was hardest hit by losing 425 rhinos.
During the 3 hours drive in fair overcasts weather mixed with fierce showers and thunder we saw buffaloes, elephants and dears, and towards the end we suddenly saw a Black Rhino 150 m. away And it was big. A moment later another came towards us, but have surely smelled us as it stopped. Then it started to rain, and both went back under the low bushy trees to get shelter.
  

We drove towards the camp as the the rain got more and more heavy. We had ponchos on, but with that amount of water in complete open Land Cruisers we were very wet when arriving for dinner in the camp.

They had lit the fire in the sitting room when we returned from getting dry clothes on, and we all got a drink before we went to dinner.

Anne had been in the main house, and seen around 200 buffaloes come to drink water from the watering hole in front of the main house. It had been a fine day, but a tough day.

 A herd of 200 buffaloes 50 meters from the living room

The next day the morning drive did not bring any exiting sights except 2 big male elephants. But it showed the beauty of the landscape of the park.  Huge areas of woods curving over the hills, mixed with grassland with grassing dears.

  

New guests arrived, and for the afternoon drive the two cars got filled. But Anne rightfully protested, we would not sit more than two on each row. I mean, on a lodge of this quality (read price), (although we had negotiated 50% discount on space availability terms) we meant we were on “business class”. After a few minutes Anne and I was asked to wait, and we got another car where we and the manager of the camp as our guide went on the evening drive.

And it was a very cosy drive, and we had a beautiful sun set from the highest point of the park, and when sipping our G&T a heard of buffaloes went around us and the car on their way to the camps waterhole. There we saw the heard 2 hours later in the dark.

In the night we heard Hyena calls just outside the tent. We could not see them, and we do not go out. But it sounded as if they were just outside.

At 6, just as we were to get up we heard a male lion roaring. He was not far away. The lions had come back. A few minutes later a female lion walked by the tents listening to the roar, and going his way. We got up, and after a cup of coffee and a muffin we went off in two cars to track the lions. We found the female lion, but she disappeared into the bush where we could not follow her. We never saw the male.

We did not find the Black Rhinos either, so at 10 we were back, had breakfast, changed and drove off to Port Elisabeth where we shall play golf tomorrow. 

22^nd February. 
We got installed on Hotel Garden Court Kings Beach, Tsogo Sun group, pensioners promotion (we like that hotel group -they really do something for us old people :-) ), 40€ incl. breakfast and indoor parking. We had a wonderful dinner (and very bad service for the first time in SA) on a nearby very hip restaurant in Port Elizabeth - Coachman on the Bay. Niels got oysters and after we had crayfish . A nice walk back to the hotel (5 minutes) and got early to bed.

In the morning we played Humewood G.C., the only true links course in S.A. (they say). Quite nice, windy but not very well maintained fairways, although rated as No 18. It was opened in 1929.

The clubhouse 
  

 The course

We drove off to the place we both wanted so much to go back to - St Francis Links - rated as No 9. St Francis is about 90 minutes drive from Port Elizabeth.
 

 

We have booked room in St. Francis Lodge, laying on the course. Top modern, well designed house, with many rooms for guest use, kitchen for light meals, honest bar, several furniture arrangements outside,  big TV /DVD and TV in all rooms. 

Here we are on hole 1

 The view from our room in the morning

 
St Francis is a beautiful little town - you have the St Francis Channel Houses, The Bay and The Port and the Estate on The Links) and all houses except for those in the port has to be in black and white and preferably with thatched roof. BUT maybe that will change because in November 2012 the village was hit by an enormous fire which with a very strong wind jump from house to house and 60 houses were burned down in the channel area. We went down to see the area and that was depressing. Its very expensive to insure a thatched house -  250 Euro pr month.

  Imagine 60 houses like this - quite depressing - there were 3 houses which were not insured

  

  

  A more relaxing view of the village

First day was very windy, but the course fulfilled all our expectations, it is just a fantastic course. So good, that we decided to stay an extra day.

The nature, Jack Nicklaus lay out, the people and the elegant clubhouse, and the lodge we stay in, makes this place outstanding. The houses around the course and in the village are all white with black roofs or black straw roofs. This makes the surroundings just very nice. The next two rounds we played in lighter wind, clear sun and 25 degrees. The results also improved.

Here you have some pictures from the golfcourse. 

Green 18 and the club house

 

On our last golf round at St Francis we met a Norwegian couple that have a house at the golf course. They invited us to their fantastic beautiful house (which you can rent) with the most stunning view for a sundowmner and here we also met another Norwegian couple who has a house here in St Francis Bay. After the sundowner we had a Monday evening dinner in the clubhouse - 3 courses for 8 Euro.