And so it begins, Johannesburg to Cape Town

Above is the map of the tour we are going on. 

Below is Nomads description of what our day should look like. After that is what we experienced on the tour.

 

Day 1 South Africa - Panorama Route Leaving Johannesburg we travel along the Panorama Route one of South Africa’s most scenic drives.  The Panorama route consists of Bourke’s Luck Potholes and the Blyde River Canyon including God’s Window and Three Rondavels.  This evening we will enjoy a traditional Shangaan Dinner with dancing.   Meals: Lunch, Dinner

2nd December 2013

We got up early again to catch the Gautrain back to the airport as the departure point for our tour was right next to the O.R. Tambo International Airport and we have been told by everyone that the traffic would be horrendous.

We met a "taxi driver" at the airport who explained the 4 way stop signs, it turns out that the car that arrives at the intersection first gets to go first and on it goes.

When we arrived at the meeting point we met Owen our tour guide and driver and Rimson our chef. After that we filled out some forms and waited for the rest of our fellow tourists to arrive.

A quick briefing by Owen and we departed, the first stop was a shopping mall to get any last minute supplies, a 5 litre of bottled water was top of our list. From there we headed out through the highvelt which is a lot of farms, occasional mining sites and one Nuclear Power station.  Given I'd never seen one other than on TV its hard to imagine the size of this one it has 4 cooling stacks that can be seen from space, okay just a really long way away...

It very scenic country side with townships scattered along the way, some of the townships were nothing but corrugated houses, whilst others were of a brick construction. These were always in stark contrast to the "mac mansions" which were always surrounded with high brick walls and topped with razor wire for good measure.In the trip blurb it talks about how scenic the Panorama route is, well they got it right it is. There is lots to see landscape wise, there were corn fields in different stages of growth, to cattle ranching farms then dairy cows farms to natural bush. As we started to climb there was a noticeable drop in temperature, and in the distance we could see the rain clouds.

We arrived at Blyde River Canyon which is the 3rd largest canyon in the world and the greenest, its big and pretty impressive from what we could see. The clouds obscured some of our views, but it was worth the drive. When we entered the viewing area we could partially see the Three Rondavels, they are rock peaks in the shape of cylindrical domes. We then kept walking anti-clockwise until we got the birds eye view of the dam, it was a long long way down.

Next we headed to Bourke’s Luck Potholes, the area is where the Blyde river & the Treyr river converge and as a result of the rivers meeting a swirling action occurs. The swirling water has eroded the rock formations in an almost perfect circular pattern, I'm sure someone with nothing else to do counted the "potholes" but I'll just guess and say there were lots of them. The other impressive thing about Bourke’s Luck Potholes is the work that has gone into making it tourist friendly, the walkways are beautifully made from the local stones and bridges spanning the narrow canyon so you can get great views from almost everywhere.

The last stop for the day was God’s Window, but unfortunately the less than ideal viewing weather had closed in. When it wasn't torrential rain it was the old pea soup fog, I have no idea about the validity of that saying, but it seems to fit the occasion. 

Whilst we were contemplating going to see God’s Window I voiced my concerns and it went something like this. "Have you ever seen a slasher horror movie?, it always starts with a group of people having a good time on vacation. Then the fog rolls in the vehicle breaks down, they hear a noise outside the brother goes outside to investigate and gets killed in some gruesome way." So I went on to explain my concern that Owen, Rimson and me were going to be the first to get nailed if we broke down here and I was not happy with the prospect of my untimely demise. And just remember we are now in the heartland of South Africa and they prefer to shoot first and not bother asking questions.

We now headed for our first nights tour accommodation, we got to have a team dinner and had a group of school girls do some dancing for us, they were really entertaining and they had those beaming smiles. It was hard not to be moved by their enthusiasm and joy, but it still doesn't make me want to have children...