Day 100 of 138 of our cruise from Fort Lauderdale to London. We are making 5 stops in South Africa – Richards Bay, Durban, East London, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) and finally Cape Town as we round the southern tip of Africa.
Let’s cover these in a mult-part series if I may –
Richards Bay – was a port specifically built to handle the coal mining shipping for South Africa and while they were at it, it made sense to make it a cruise stop since the port has relatively good access to some of the safari lands nearby. the Port is extremely industrial with the winds picking up, we had to wear masks to avoid breathing in the coal dust whipping in the air. The ship staff placed sections of old carpet in hallways and elevators just to avoid damaging the rugs. We we only allowed out of the ship to head directly onto. the motor coach to minimize exposure – felt bad for some of the vendors who came early to the ship side to display and sell their crafts. Our safari excursion lasted 9 hours, we arrived back after sunset and we had no time to visit them anyway.
Our Safari was to the Hluhluwe-Umfolzi Park a viking included excursion which is one of the better included excursions on this trip. After a 90 minute drive we arrived at the park then wished away in our 4×4 jeeps that carried some 10 passengers. Lee was our driver he was from South Africa and was an extremely informative guide driving around the 237,000 acre game reserve one of the oldest in South Africa. Notably, the park is the only state-run park where each of the big five game animals can be found.
We could see water buffalo on the hillside of the mountain however as we tried to get to that section of the park a large elephant was blocking our path, munching on the shrubs and would not lets us pass! I was magnificent to be so close to a wild animal that appeared gentle and kind (as long as we did not make sudden movements). After 15 minutes we opted to turn our sights on other sections of the park reserve – we saw Impalas, Rhinos, warthogs, however the lions were hiding in the dashed on the hot day and a few other vehicles did report seeing a leopard in the bush. Giraffess were also hiding and as luck had it, one of the other groups did get a viewing – the luck of doing a safari is that it’s like fishing, either you get lucky and catch everything, or you may not land a fish. Anyway, hope our photos give you a taste of what the safari was like.
Durban – we sailed overnight about 100 NM to the City of Durban which is the area Nelson Madela was from. The area is a smaller sibling to Cape Town and the Nelson Madela cruise terminal was very beautiful. Our excursion was another safari in which we drove another 90 minutes up into the mountains surrounding Durban to a game park called Gwahumbe Game park and Spa – yes you can actually get a hotel room and spa treatments there. The park is a private reserve located in a very remote and hilly area that is surrounded by vast acres of sugar cane fields. It was truly amazing to see the sugar cane farming is so huge. The reserve did not have all the big 5 game animals but did have zebras, rhinos, impalas, ostrich, and lots of bids to see.
East London – In East London South Africa, we took the included bus tour that highlighted some of the local sites. We visited their historical museum which similar to NYC’s Natural History Museum had taxidermies of various local and indigenous animals and their story of the living in the area. Most notable however were three exhibits, one was the extinct Dodo Bird with the last remaining dodo egg known on earth. The second was fossilized footprints of a boy and animal that was from 124,000 years ago (it is known as the world’s oldest trace of human existence, found off the southern coast of Africa). Third was a Coelacanth, a fish that was thought to be extinct but discovered in the mud of the deepest parts of the ocean and still present. The scientist that is in charge of the fossil discovery and dating it was actually the person giving us the presentation of the exhibit.
After the Museum, we took a bus ride to see some local neighborhoods (actually the bus driver took a wrong turn and got lost) and we finally made it to Nahoon Point (where the fossil was actually discovered) for some lovely photos of the shore from the boardwalk.
Upon returning the the ship, Viking pulled out the red carpet (actually a sea of red umbrellas) for all those on excursions returning back to the ship – The Head Chef was the DJ playing great dancing music, Antonio from the food service staff had a megaphone announcing all the passengers names (he actually studies and memorizes each passenger’s names!) and the staff dancing and smiling under the umbrellas – remarkable to be part of the event, we felt like celebrities.
