Mopani and Letaba in the Kruger National Park are the recommended overnight camps close to the Giriyondo border post into the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. We were quite concerned as to the state of the roads on the Mozambique side, but our research suggested that even though the route we were taking was for 4×4’s only, we should be fine in our normal Kombi which has quite high ground clearance but no 4×4.
I must say I was feeling very apprehensive about the whole thing – here we were, not very well prepared at all, going on a family road trip into a completely unknown territory. All the other cars we passed on the highway from Johannesburg were rugged looking cross-Africa 4×4’s, loaded with extra wheels and jerry cans and serious bushwhacking trailers brimming with stuff. We were just a family with a bag each piled into a normal car.
Back in January, we wrote an open letter to the universe, putting our 2017 travel dreams into writing in the hope of turning them into reality (#17Adventures). Top of our whole family’s list was somewhere tropical. We weren’t too fussy exactly where – it should just be somewhere with warm turquoise waters teeming with fish, white sand beaches and palm trees swaying in the breeze. Although getting a family of five to these kind of places works out tearfully expensive, there was no way that we were going to let minor details like a lack of sufficient finance stand in our way of visiting a tropical beach this year.
To hell with it, we thought…let’s just drive there. And so began our 19 day, 6000km road trip from wintery Port Elizabeth all the way to Mozambique’s tropically warm Vilanculos via the Kruger National Park.
And boy do we have a lot of stories to tell! We saw and experienced so much, its hard to know where to start. After mulling it over, I thought the best way to begin is with a summary of where we went and why, how we got there, where we stayed and what we did.
The well-worn leather bound South African National Park Visitor’s Book at Narina Bush Camp in Addo National Park is such an entertaining read that it is reason enough to visit this delightfully rustic camp.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a multitude of other reasons to visit Narina and it remains one of our all-time favourite SANparks spots. But each time we arrive, the very first thing I do after settling in is head for the gas fridge, on top of which is a trio of books. The first is a recipe book where campers can add their favourite fireside concoctions. The second is a comprehensive list of all the flora and fauna in the area and the third is the bee’s knees in camp side entertainment.
One of the reasons we relocated our family to Port Elizabeth was the fantastic lifestyle the city offers, at an affordable price. While our teenage relatives in the bigger cities are trawling shopping malls, our PE kids are catching waves, climbing dunes and hugging ancient trees in hidden forests. As our kids have grown into teens, their taste has started to become more pricey with the lure of IMAX movies, trips to the ice rink and trendy restaurants. But the good news is that while our purse strings are being pulled tight by politicians, it is still possible to have a fabulously affordable and fun time with your family in PE.
Here are 17 of our top things to do in Port Elizabeth for under R30 per person:
When we published an Open Letter to the Universe, listing 17 adventures that our family would love to do during 2017, we included the Owl House and Nieu-Bethesda as No. 5 – Somewhere New. Although we had heard and read so much about the Owl House, we were completely ignorant about how amazing the entire village and area is. So, here are 6 other reasons, besides the Owl House, to visit and fall in love with Nieu-Bethesda in the Karoo Heartland of South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
