Around 4 we arrive at Willekes, who is going to bring us to Schiphol airport.
Because of the Christmas Holidays it is very quiet on the road. And we arrive in time to
checkin 2½ hours prior to our flight, as asked by the travelagency.
After some shopping we are hungry, but the restaurant is under construction, a sandwich is
the best we can get. Flight SA255 leaves at pier G5, somewhere at the other end of the airport!
To Frankfurt the palne is only full, but after that it is getting crowded. After a
bad night we land in Jo'burg. And again we have to stay in the plane, while they
clean and refuel it. That is terrible, after 13 hours we would have liked to strech our legs.
And then the plane is filling up with people travelling from Jo'burg to Capetown.
After 18 hours we leave the plane in Capetown in a bad condition. We get our rental car at Budget and drive to our Tulbagh Protea Hotel.
In room 110 we try to rest a little. Around 16:30 we leave the hotel and see if there is a
place to eat something. But everything is closed, not only the shops, also the
fastfoodcorners. The restaurant in the hotel opens at seven. So we decide to go to the
Blaubergbeach. From there you have a great view of Capetown and Tablemountain.
But all restaurants are fully booked. In Seepunt there is supposed to be a 3 km long
boulevard. And again all restaurants are filled with people. But we manage to get a seat at
Wimpy, a fastfoodchain. We sit at the window with a beautifull view of the ocean.
The ocean and the rocky coast, it is a miracle we could have a burger with fries here.
Back to the hotel. On the television a Robin Hood film and soon we are sleeping.
Sunday 24 december
Breakfast is good. A really nice buffet with everything and even fresh orangejuice.
After breakfast we
took the rental car to the cape. The coastal road is great. Now and then we stop to enjoy the view.
Finally we arrive at Cape Point. It is a huge climb to the lighthouse but the view from there
is worth the effort. We share a huge sandwich and have a drink before we go back.
On our way back we see baboons, but too far away to take a picture. The next stop is at a
beach where we have a short walk. OK, beach... It is more like a collection of rocks. Via the winehouse Constantia in Stellenbosch
we go back to Capetown. It was a lovely day with lots of sunshine.
Maybe we better use some sunscreen tomorrow. Just before seven we go down for dinner
. The waiters are reasonable, casual, but the food is great and that is the most important thing.
After dinner we take a short walk in the city. The shoppingstreet is decorated with lights for christmas.
The huge churchtower we saw was not at a church, but it was part of cityhall.
Monday 25 december
Good Morning and Merry Christmas.
Today we started in shorts because the sun is shining already. We decided to drive north.
First stop at the beach. It is not very crowded yet, and we think the cold water has something to do with that.
We move further north along a long straight road. And soon we learn how to behave in traffic.
When somebody wants to pass you, you go on the shoulder. The passer is tanking you with his
alarmlights. It should be possible at home, no more trafficjams. In the West Coast National
Park we see lots of nature and some wildlife like ostriches, tortoises and even a snake.
struisvogels, schildpadden en over de weg kronkelt een slang. The birdlife is very abundant here.
We even see an owl, a bird we have never seen before in the wild. On our way back we pass the
wineareas Paarl and Stellenbosch. The grapes are not ripe for a long time though.
Back in Capetown we pass a huge graveyard. It is a busy day. Because of the Christmas holidays
many people, whole familues, are cleaning the graves. We drive on the graveyard through
gate 5 (out of 10). We walk a short route, many graves are english and very seldom we some
dutch heritage. Back to the hotel. We are informed the restaurant will only be open from
6:30 till 8:00. This means a quick shower and we manage to get to the restaurant just
before 7. Tonight there is a luxury buffet. We tried everything and it was all delicious.
After dinner we drive back to the Blauberg beach, but the tablemountain is covered with clowds.
No picture.... Back to the city again.
Tuesday 26 december
Today we are going for a long drive so we start with an early breakfast.
First stop is the most southern point of Africa. It is much further than we thought, but we want to
take a picture to prove we have been here. After we visited the lighthouse we took the shortest
route to Oudtshoorn. We get hungry and stop for a 'gryppeburger' in Heidelberg.
A bridge that seems very busy, when we stop we see there are people bungeejumping
in the direction of the brown river far below. Riempie Estate is a beautiful park
with white houses with reed roofs. Sitting on our terrace, enjoying tea, we discover some
weavernests. Safaritime ! A few wet feet later we have some birds on the picture
(a red and a yellow one). Dinner is in buffet,style again and again it is great.
After dinner we walk into the city. We enjoying some shopwindows and are surprised by the covered
parkingmeters. "Citycouncil wishes a Merry Xmas for everybody " is printed on the cover
that prevents everybody from putting money in the meter. We are tired and go back to our white
cottage to go to bed.
Wednesday 27 december
The cook that prepared breakfast is looking just like Phill Banks (of the fresh
Prince of Bell Air). And he is a good cook. Our first visit today is
to the Cango Caves. A tour every hour. This is peakseason and about 300 people are waiting for the
tour. After the second room the group is split. One group is going on adventuretour,
a group is going back, and the standardtour was split in three groups. 1 Afrikaans speaking
group and 2 english speaking groups. A german lady wanted to know if there were enough people for
a german tour. But the guide refused to even ask. We got very angry at her, which made her scream and so on.
We had the second group without the germans. The guide was very friendly. After i asked a question
see started to explain everything to me personally. She was shocked when we come with the idea to have
a tour every 10 or 15 minutes. That way you have much less people and with the same amount of guides
it is easier to control the crowd. They had simply never thought about that.
After the caves we drove to the Swartbergpas. A dirtroad route through the mountains.
Beautiful views, but a really bad road. After the Swartbergpas there was a long
straight road to the Meiringspoort, a split mountain. And after that it was a lot of
kilometers to Port Elisabeth. The Holiday Inn Garden Court is located close to the water. Our room is at the eight floor.
Before dinner we take a walk to see more of the city. Passing Happy Valley, a park with
fairytales in fluorescent colours. Awefull! Time to have dinner. The steakrestaurant at
the hotel is very american but also very good.
It is busy and we have to wait for a table. The waiter is very polite, too polite.
I ask for a South African beer and he recommends Amstel (dutch)! Then Carlsberg (danish)
and in the end i settle for an american beer brewed in south africa. After dinner
it is time to go to the fair in the harbor.
Thursday 28 december
Breakfast with the South-African cricketteam. There is a testmatch against England this coming days.
The hotel is filled with english cricketfans (4 busses full). After breakfast we go to Addo.
The National Elephant Park is absolutely worth a visit.
It took us some hours spotting but then we saw them up close. The route to East London is
great. A part of the route goes through Ciskei, a former homeland. You can see many differences
Colorful villages on green hilltops. Something we didn't see the days before.
The hotel in East London was easy to find. Our room has a view of the pool and the see. Again we
have a buffet for dinner in the hotel.
After dinner we walk along the boulevard and again there is a fair.
Friday 29 december
The first thing we do is trying to find the church where we have to attend the wedding later today.
It was easier then we thought and we decide to drive a bit further. The route takes us through
Ciskei to Hogsback. A pretty place in the wooded Amatola mountains.
Back in the hotel we had some time to relax before we put on our partydress.
It was hot in the church and a dog howled through the entire speech of minister Boet.
After church there was time to congratulate the newly weds outside.
After Paul and Abby left in an old ford we all went to the Blue Lagoon Hotel.
Presents were placed on a table and never touched untill everybody left that night.
We were seated at table H with a couple with 2 daughters, an austarlian boy and some friends
of Abby. The entire night there is food and music. The weddingcake is cut at the end of the evening
but after all the food i can't eat a piece.
Long past midnight we are back in our hotelroom.
Saturday 30 december
Today we have to take the airplane, so everything is packed neatly in the suitcases.
But the planes leaves at the end of the day and we have plenty of time for some sightseeing.
First a gamepark where we see giraf, zebra and some antilopes.
And after that we drove through Transkei, a former homeland.
The roads here was much worse and the houses look very different. And we see almost no
white people. Time to go to the airport.
After returning our car we bought some
billtong, dried meat. Which we ate in the sun before our small plane leaves for Durban.
The taxi that brings us to the hotel tells us this is a bad neighbourhood at night.
Especially the left side of the street (ofcourse this is the side where our hotel is).
The Seaboard Protea Hotel has 27 floors and we have a room at the topfloor.
From here we can see the ocean. The only downpoint is the elevator that is too small for
the amount of visitors in the hotel. There is a long waiting period to get down, or up.
But we manage to get down and have a walk along the sea. The boulevard is filled with
streetvendors. It is all junk and we buy only a bottle of lemonade.
Sunday 31 december
Today we stay in bed a little longer, although we are awake. After breakfast we bought some
drinks and chips in the supermarket for the private party in our room this newyears eve.
In the harbor ther eis nice shipping museum.
It was a very small museum and we decide to make a 'harbourcruise'. That means we buy a ticket for the feryy
it stops at different places and people get on and off, but we stay on untill we are back.
It was very refreshing in this hot climate. Although it is a sunday most of the shops
in the Big Wheel Shopping Centre are open. We found some reasonable postcards here.
Back to the hotel to write them. It is less humid than yesterday and when we open our window there is even a fresh breeze.
While we are writing the cards we hear a lot of fireworks. The streetvendors sell the fireworks
. And even the police is buying it and lighting at immediately.
Tonight we like to try the chinese restaurant. They have a special New Years Eve menu.
It is not very busy, the other custommers are a group of english people with partyhats.
After dinner a walk along the boulevard. It is getting crowded already. And the bangs of fireworks are getting worse.
We decide to get upstairs and watch the fireworks from our room. But at 12 there is no
real difference. The noise stays the same. We call home, to the chilly Netherlands and
another years passed by.
Monday 1 january 1996
Today we travel to Johannesburg. No real hurry we check out at 10.
It is hot and humid, but the taxi drives with open windows to the airport.
The plane to Jo'burg is full. When we arrive there it is raining. We take a taxi to our luxury hotel in Sandton, a
suburb of Jo'burg. The hotel is located in an industrial area. The weather is bad and no nice walks, so we decide to stick with the television.
Tonight we choose for the thai restaurant in the hotel.
Tuesday 2 january
An early wake up call, because we will be picked up at 6.45u for our Kruger Park Tour.
In total we are with 14 on the tour. 5 Italians, 5 Engelish , 2 Australians, us and
the wife of the tourguide. The guides name is Tom too. From Johannesburg we drove in eastern direction
through the highveld and the lowveld. Around 12:30 we enter the Krugerpark.
Almost immediately we see our first impalas. Guide Tom tells us we will see so much of them
that we won't care to stop anymore, we don't believe him.
In restcamp Berg en Dal we have bungalow 31.
The cabins have no key, that gives a real safe feeling. The shop and snackbar have a very slow service and
we see no chance to have lunch before our first real gamedrive.
A real exciting experience. We saw a rhino, very far away, and a buffalo.
Impalas, as much as Tom told us. Some girafs, zebras, kudu and many amny birds.
Dinner is at 7:30. We are at the table of the family Leoni (italian for lion), the guide
and his wife. It is a very good dinner with three courses of meat, fish and duck.
It is served in three courses. This means Marco, 1 of the italian boys, has to wait very long for dessert.
The entire meal he tells us he is a vegetarian, his brother thinks this is very funny.
Time to go back to our cabin. It is dark and it is not very easy to find it.
Wednesday 3 january
Wake up at 4.15 !! worden we gewekt. Before we leave camp at 5 we have some tea or coffee
at the guides cabin. The gate opens at 5 and we are one of the first to enter the park.
Spotting, spotting, and spotting spotten....
Breakfast is at anothe restacamp: Sukuza. Untill lunch the gamedrive continues.
We see a lot: lions, wildebeests, hyenas, waterbok, steenbok, mongoose, giraf, zebra,
impalas and many varieties of birds.
Lunch is in Berg en Dal. We buy some bread and cheese and make toast in our cabin.
When we sit outside enjoy the bush we hear a lot of noise at the other side of the fence.
An antilope is chased by something. The monkeys are startled and jump around us.
When life returns to normal they jump from tree to roof, to garbagecan.
We relax some more in the shade. At half past three another gamedrive starts. But the
animals think it is too hot and they stay hidden.
The two italian woman,
the mother and aunt, think everything is cute and nice, they don't stop saying
: ecoli, ecoli, ah, picolo, ah. We think the car that smashed into a concrete pillar in the middle of the jungle is much more of an attraction.
We return to Berg en Dal but the gate is closed. We are 10 minutes late,
The guard is taking notes but lets us in ..... Dinner is at 7:30 like yesterday.
Our vegetarian italian ate so much cheescrackers before dinner that he is feeling a bit
sick, the others tease him terribly. Tomorrow it is wake up at 4.15
so we go to bed early.
Thursday 4 january
The sun rises but we don't see it because of the rain. We tour through the Krugerpark
for a few hours and than we go back to Johannesburg. We saw some
buffelo and hippo in what we think was a great gamepark.
The italians are dropped of at the airport and we go back to the Holiday Inn.
We have a room at the fifth floor with a view of the city. But is raining again.
The Thai food last time was so good we decide to try it again today.
Friday 5 january
After a great breakfast we go to pick up our rental car, wrong...... Our reservation
had gone wrong. But at 10:30 we finally got a car and headed for Kyalami.
A lovely racecircuit which was closed, so we move on. We pass the Hartbeespoort dam.
The lake is completely filled and the gates are opened a little to let water out to prevent the
dam from bursting. It was years ago, there was this much water. The lake was filled for
ten procent last winter. There are floods now, lets hope we had something to do with it....
Although we concider rain bad weather during our vacation, the south africans are very plaesed with it.
There is enough drinking water for the next three years.
We drive through the Magalies mountains to Rustenburg.
In Magaliesburg we stopped at a supermarket for some cold drinks.
And then we went back to Sandton. Just before we arrive rain starts to poor down.
The wiper breaks down and we miss a turn. This meant a shot detour, but eventually we find the hotel.
While we are resting in our room the cahmbermaid knocks on the door. She is coming to bring
us a chocolat, and turn down our bed.
Because it still rains we decide to eat in the hotel. Th enormal restaurant has again a buffet.
And again we love the food.
After dinner it is dry and we decide to have a little walk and take i some fresh air.
Saturday 6 january
After breakfast we pack our bags, tonight we are going back home.But this entire day we can enjoy South Africa.
We visit the zoo of Pretoria. And after that we see a bit of the centre of town.
Ofcourse the voortrekkersmonument and museum, a monument and museum which depicts the life
of the dutch settlers, who were chased away by the english. The boers, as they are called,
defeted the english army and settled in the north.
Then on to the airport to check in for our flight back home to Amsterdam.
Our travels
Video+Pics
Cycling
Walking
About us
To Frankfurt the palne is only full, but after that it is getting crowded. After a
bad night we land in Jo'burg. And again we have to stay in the plane, while they
clean and refuel it. That is terrible, after 13 hours we would have liked to strech our legs.
And then the plane is filling up with people travelling from Jo'burg to Capetown.
After 18 hours we leave the plane in Capetown in a bad condition. We get our rental car at Budget and drive to our Tulbagh Protea Hotel.
In room 110 we try to rest a little. Around 16:30 we leave the hotel and see if there is a
place to eat something. But everything is closed, not only the shops, also the
fastfoodcorners. The restaurant in the hotel opens at seven. So we decide to go to the
Blaubergbeach. From there you have a great view of Capetown and Tablemountain.
But all restaurants are fully booked. In Seepunt there is supposed to be a 3 km long
boulevard. And again all restaurants are filled with people. But we manage to get a seat at
Wimpy, a fastfoodchain. We sit at the window with a beautifull view of the ocean.
The ocean and the rocky coast, it is a miracle we could have a burger with fries here.
Back to the hotel. On the television a Robin Hood film and soon we are sleeping. 
After breakfast we
took the rental car to the cape. The coastal road is great. Now and then we stop to enjoy the view.
Finally we arrive at Cape Point. It is a huge climb to the lighthouse but the view from there
is worth the effort. We share a huge sandwich and have a drink before we go back.
On our way back we see baboons, but too far away to take a picture. The next stop is at a
beach where we have a short walk. OK, beach... It is more like a collection of rocks. Via the winehouse Constantia in Stellenbosch
we go back to Capetown. It was a lovely day with lots of sunshine.
Maybe we better use some sunscreen tomorrow. Just before seven we go down for dinner
. The waiters are reasonable, casual, but the food is great and that is the most important thing.
After dinner we take a short walk in the city. The shoppingstreet is decorated with lights for christmas.
The huge churchtower we saw was not at a church, but it was part of cityhall.
We even see an owl, a bird we have never seen before in the wild. On our way back we pass the
wineareas Paarl and Stellenbosch. The grapes are not ripe for a long time though.
Back in Capetown we pass a huge graveyard. It is a busy day. Because of the Christmas holidays
many people, whole familues, are cleaning the graves. We drive on the graveyard through
gate 5 (out of 10). We walk a short route, many graves are english and very seldom we some
dutch heritage. Back to the hotel. We are informed the restaurant will only be open from
6:30 till 8:00. This means a quick shower and we manage to get to the restaurant just
before 7. Tonight there is a luxury buffet. We tried everything and it was all delicious.
After dinner we drive back to the Blauberg beach, but the tablemountain is covered with clowds.
No picture.... Back to the city again. 
Today we are going for a long drive so we start with an early breakfast.
First stop is the most southern point of Africa. It is much further than we thought, but we want to
take a picture to prove we have been here. After we visited the lighthouse we took the shortest
route to Oudtshoorn. We get hungry and stop for a 'gryppeburger' in Heidelberg.
A bridge that seems very busy, when we stop we see there are people bungeejumping
in the direction of the brown river far below. Riempie Estate is a beautiful park
with white houses with reed roofs. Sitting on our terrace, enjoying tea, we discover some
weavernests. Safaritime ! A few wet feet later we have some birds on the picture
(a red and a yellow one). Dinner is in buffet,style again and again it is great.
After dinner we walk into the city. We enjoying some shopwindows and are surprised by the covered
parkingmeters. "Citycouncil wishes a Merry Xmas for everybody " is printed on the cover
that prevents everybody from putting money in the meter. We are tired and go back to our white
cottage to go to bed. 
Prince of Bell Air). And he is a good cook. Our first visit today is
to the Cango Caves. A tour every hour. This is peakseason and about 300 people are waiting for the
tour. After the second room the group is split. One group is going on adventuretour,
a group is going back, and the standardtour was split in three groups. 1 Afrikaans speaking
group and 2 english speaking groups. A german lady wanted to know if there were enough people for
a german tour. But the guide refused to even ask. We got very angry at her, which made her scream and so on.
We had the second group without the germans. The guide was very friendly. After i asked a question
see started to explain everything to me personally. She was shocked when we come with the idea to have
a tour every 10 or 15 minutes. That way you have much less people and with the same amount of guides
it is easier to control the crowd. They had simply never thought about that.
After the caves we drove to the Swartbergpas. A dirtroad route through the mountains.
Beautiful views, but a really bad road. After the Swartbergpas there was a long
straight road to the Meiringspoort, a split mountain. And after that it was a lot of
kilometers to Port Elisabeth. The Holiday Inn Garden Court is located close to the water. Our room is at the eight floor.
Before dinner we take a walk to see more of the city. Passing Happy Valley, a park with
fairytales in fluorescent colours. Awefull! Time to have dinner. The steakrestaurant at
the hotel is very american but also very good.
It is busy and we have to wait for a table. The waiter is very polite, too polite.
I ask for a South African beer and he recommends Amstel (dutch)! Then Carlsberg (danish)
and in the end i settle for an american beer brewed in south africa. After dinner
it is time to go to the fair in the harbor. 
Breakfast with the South-African cricketteam. There is a testmatch against England this coming days.
The hotel is filled with english cricketfans (4 busses full). After breakfast we go to Addo.
The National Elephant Park is absolutely worth a visit.
It took us some hours spotting but then we saw them up close. The route to East London is
great. A part of the route goes through Ciskei, a former homeland. You can see many differences
Colorful villages on green hilltops. Something we didn't see the days before.
The hotel in East London was easy to find. Our room has a view of the pool and the see. Again we
have a buffet for dinner in the hotel.
After dinner we walk along the boulevard and again there is a fair.
Today we have to take the airplane, so everything is packed neatly in the suitcases.
But the planes leaves at the end of the day and we have plenty of time for some sightseeing.
First a gamepark where we see giraf, zebra and some antilopes.
And after that we drove through Transkei, a former homeland.
The roads here was much worse and the houses look very different. And we see almost no
white people. Time to go to the airport.
After returning our car we bought some
billtong, dried meat. Which we ate in the sun before our small plane leaves for Durban.
The taxi that brings us to the hotel tells us this is a bad neighbourhood at night.
Especially the left side of the street (ofcourse this is the side where our hotel is).
The Seaboard Protea Hotel has 27 floors and we have a room at the topfloor.
From here we can see the ocean. The only downpoint is the elevator that is too small for
the amount of visitors in the hotel. There is a long waiting period to get down, or up.
But we manage to get down and have a walk along the sea. The boulevard is filled with
streetvendors. It is all junk and we buy only a bottle of lemonade. 
In total we are with 14 on the tour. 5 Italians, 5 Engelish , 2 Australians, us and
the wife of the tourguide. The guides name is Tom too. From Johannesburg we drove in eastern direction
through the highveld and the lowveld. Around 12:30 we enter the Krugerpark.
Almost immediately we see our first impalas. Guide Tom tells us we will see so much of them
that we won't care to stop anymore, we don't believe him.
In restcamp Berg en Dal we have bungalow 31.
The cabins have no key, that gives a real safe feeling. The shop and snackbar have a very slow service and
we see no chance to have lunch before our first real gamedrive.
A real exciting experience. We saw a rhino, very far away, and a buffalo.
Impalas, as much as Tom told us. Some girafs, zebras, kudu and many amny birds.
Dinner is at 7:30. We are at the table of the family Leoni (italian for lion), the guide
and his wife. It is a very good dinner with three courses of meat, fish and duck.
It is served in three courses. This means Marco, 1 of the italian boys, has to wait very long for dessert.
The entire meal he tells us he is a vegetarian, his brother thinks this is very funny.
Time to go back to our cabin. It is dark and it is not very easy to find it.
We see a lot: lions, wildebeests, hyenas, waterbok, steenbok, mongoose, giraf, zebra,
impalas and many varieties of birds.
Lunch is in Berg en Dal. We buy some bread and cheese and make toast in our cabin.
When we sit outside enjoy the bush we hear a lot of noise at the other side of the fence.
An antilope is chased by something. The monkeys are startled and jump around us.
When life returns to normal they jump from tree to roof, to garbagecan.
We relax some more in the shade. At half past three another gamedrive starts. But the
animals think it is too hot and they stay hidden.
The two italian woman,
the mother and aunt, think everything is cute and nice, they don't stop saying
: ecoli, ecoli, ah, picolo, ah. We think the car that smashed into a concrete pillar in the middle of the jungle is much more of an attraction.
We return to Berg en Dal but the gate is closed. We are 10 minutes late,
The guard is taking notes but lets us in ..... Dinner is at 7:30 like yesterday.
Our vegetarian italian ate so much cheescrackers before dinner that he is feeling a bit
sick, the others tease him terribly. Tomorrow it is wake up at 4.15
so we go to bed early.
Thursday 4 january
had gone wrong. But at 10:30 we finally got a car and headed for Kyalami.
A lovely racecircuit which was closed, so we move on. We pass the Hartbeespoort dam.
The lake is completely filled and the gates are opened a little to let water out to prevent the
dam from bursting. It was years ago, there was this much water. The lake was filled for
ten procent last winter. There are floods now, lets hope we had something to do with it....
Although we concider rain bad weather during our vacation, the south africans are very plaesed with it.
There is enough drinking water for the next three years.
We drive through the Magalies mountains to Rustenburg.
In Magaliesburg we stopped at a supermarket for some cold drinks.
And then we went back to Sandton. Just before we arrive rain starts to poor down.
The wiper breaks down and we miss a turn. This meant a shot detour, but eventually we find the hotel.
While we are resting in our room the cahmbermaid knocks on the door. She is coming to bring
us a chocolat, and turn down our bed.
Because it still rains we decide to eat in the hotel. Th enormal restaurant has again a buffet.
And again we love the food.
After dinner it is dry and we decide to have a little walk and take i some fresh air.