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Cruising
along the N2
- James Clarke
Writing can sometimes be very trying. For instance when,
as a war correspondent you are trying to pen something
and bullets are pinging off your helmet, or, as I find
myself at this moment, trying to write overlooking False
Bay while families of whales cavort in the blue, sparkling
sea.
But, as a writer of many summers, and almost as many
winters, I am used to such hardships.
I have been away from my Gauteng nerve centre for
three weeks now, following the course of the N2 highway
that runs along the perimeter of South Africa from the
tropical bush of northern Zululand to Cape Town where
it becomes the N7 and reaches the Namib's edge.
And it has struck me only now how this 3000 km long
highway offers one of the world's greatest touring experiences
- tropical forest; unrivalled wetlands; great beaches;
deep gorges, mountains and landscapes ablaze with an
astonishing variety of flowers.
I stayed at game lodges in Zululand and the Eastern
Cape, and took pot luck on bed-and-breakfast places
in the south.
B&Bs have taken over from hotels in South Africa.
Overseas visitors have come to prefer them because our
hotels are still somewhat Russian. B&Bs are competitive
in their services and in their tariffs - and staying
in them one gets to know the locals and their secret
places.
This was one of those very rare occasions when my
wife accompanied me for I wanted to show her some of
the areas I have grown to love along the arc of the
N2, beginning with a deviation to Kosi Forest Lodge
near the Mozambique border. One leaves ones car at KwaNgwanase
police station from where you are driven to the thatched
lodge between a sand forest and the Kosi's most southerly
lake.
Typically, lodges are places where you are flung together
with others for days, sharing inspiring experiences.
Inevitably you bond with a couple from somewhere overseas
and they end up inviting you to stay with them when
next you find yourself in Kuala Lumpur or Phoenix, Arizona.
And you earnestly implore them to stay with you. Two
weeks later, you battle to remember who they were because
you have by now bonded with several more couples exchanging
mutual invitations.
I know what will happen one day: I will be sitting
in my armchair watching rugby on the box, drinking beer
from a can with my shoes off and holes in my socks when
there'll be a babble of voices at the door and my wife
will announce the combined arrival of the Domingos from
Lisbon, the Hung Fus from Hong Kong and the von Himmelschatens
from Munich.
Our next stop was Phinda, a vast and uniquely beautiful
private reserve where we stayed in a glass-walled chalet
hidden from the other chalets in a thick forest.
We then followed the N2 down the Natal coast making
use of an awful hotel before driving down the length
of the old Transkei which, we had been warned, should
be avoided. In fact it was a fine and interesting road
- though one has to look out for cattle and goats and
drivers who appear to have passed their driving test
by correspondence.
Near Grahamstown we took a short deviation to Kwandwe,
a just-opened 15 000 ha reserve in the Fish River valley.
Here is a most unusual region, rich in wildlife. The
design and decor of Kwandwe Lodge - set in the middle
of a truly vast wilderness of bush-covered hills - provides
a new benchmark for luxury game lodges.
I'd like to tell you about the B&Bs we discovered
along the Garden Route and in Montagu and Swellendam
but my space has run out.
But I can recommend a summer cruise by car along the
N2.
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