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South Africa

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
zico
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Re: South Africa

#185766

Postby zico » December 9th, 2018, 4:08 pm

This might be helpful.
We took a 17-night tour with Archers (a cheaper version of Cosmos but same hotels and itinerary) who used Springbok Atlas tours for the in-country guide.
It was a coach tour, with one internal flights from Durban to Port Elizabeth. We really enjoyed the tour, though there were some long drives. We tend to enjoy seeing the lesser-known parts of a country, rather than just flying from highlight to highlight, and found there was a lot of interesting variety of landscapes, people and sights in this tour.

Glad we went on an escorted tour, as there are quite a few things you need to beware of, mainly people-related, that guides will warn you about. In general, be wary about going even slightly off the beaten track on your own, especially after dark. Was amused to get a safari guidebook and find in South Africa there are 4 kinds of snakes - Non-Venomous, Mildly Venomous, Venomous, and Highly Venomous! (They also sub-divide by Aggressiveness - suffice to say that Black Mambas are the ones you really don't want to be anywhere near!)

Here's the itinerary.

1 night Sandton (suburb of Jo'Burg)
3 nts Kruger Gate hotel Mpumulanga (game drive area is adjacent to the very expensive Sabi Sands) including game drives & tour of Blyde River Canyon
1 nt Kruger to Swaziland (a little country surrounded by South Africa)
1 nt Swaziland to afternoon game drive in Hluhluwe private game reserve - different feel to the Kruger. Overnight stay at St.Lucia
Next day - Morning river cruise to see hippos and other stuff then onto Zulu village demos and overnight in Zululand. Zululand is a kind of Zulu theme park where you sleep in upmarket version of traditional circular houses, we enjoyed it, most others on our trip hated it.
1 nt Drive to Umhlanga (upmarket beach resort suburb of Durban)
1 nt Fly from Durban to Port Elizabeth then coach to Knysna on the Garden Route.
Full day around Knysna including lagoon tour.
1 nt Knysna to Oudtshoorn. Ostrich farm centre, Cango Caves and Cango Wildlife Ranch where you can go in an enclosure with cheetahs for about £20.
1 nt Oudtshoorn to Cape Town along Route 62(?) a nice desert road.
4 nts Cape Town.

Whether this would suit you depends what you're interested in. We were very disappointed with the eastern part of the Garden Route, and if time is short, I'd suggest flying direct from Durban to Cape Town then doing some day trips from Cape Town as wineries are within easy reach.

Looking at your itinerary, I'd suggest you try planning it, allowing pretty much a whole day for any major transfer (i.e. flights - 1 hour transfer to airport, arrive 3 hours before flight, 2 hour flight, 2 hours from touchdown to hotel means 8 hours out of your day before even allowing for travel delays). Personally, I'd rather go to fewer places, but have long enough to experience them more fully, but we're all different!

Give me a shout if there's anything you'd like to know about.

doug2500
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Re: South Africa

#185767

Postby doug2500 » December 9th, 2018, 4:23 pm

It was 20 years ago that I was there but my two suggestions would be:

Why not stay in Pretoria rather than Jo'berg? Still easily accessible from Jo'berg airport,but nicer and (then at least) safer.
Visit Stellenbosch and the wine area outside Capetown. If you like that sort of thing.

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Re: South Africa

#185807

Postby tea42 » December 9th, 2018, 7:49 pm

Combine a stay on the Marina in Cape Town with a self drive around nearby Namibia organised by http://www.discover-namibia-safari.net . You can do all the South African stuff that people mention and drive yourself around one of the worlds spectacular countries - Namibia. Better wildlife, better landscapes. Next to the Antarctic best by far than anywhere among the 48 countries we have visited.

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Re: South Africa

#185858

Postby GoSeigen » December 10th, 2018, 9:04 am

ap8889 wrote:I think this may be my last chance to see South Africa before the place turns to a basket case wreck like Zimbabwe. The SA government is rapidly enacting a prima facie racist policy of legal expropriation without compensation of white landowners. That has generally ended in famine and violence elsewhere.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -case.html


This of course should be welcomed by the "white" farmers of South Africa who have long championed race as a sound basis on which to manage social and economic affairs in South Africa. The fact that they will now be losers in this arrangement should be accepted by them with the same resignation they expected of the former victims of their racist policies!

What's good for the goose...



GS
Of course some of us have been arguing the case for years that race is bogus and should not enter the equation at all -- with strong opposition from the people now being hoist by their own petard. The irony is exquisite...

TaurusTheBull
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Re: South Africa

#186017

Postby TaurusTheBull » December 10th, 2018, 5:18 pm

Hi Brendan,

Good luck with that. Agree with others. Far too much. The parks are supposedly better in the dry season. Probably best to forget one.

Pretoria smaller than Jo'burg and a city centre that I felt (relatively) safe walking around. The only SA city I would recommend is Cape Town. Durban has an okay beachfront but is nothing compared to CT.

Yes, Namibia is a gem, with your own transport, but you're not going there.

Vic Falls is magical, but you could save three days and go to Iguassu Falls (Brazil/Argentina) in the future, which is even more magical.

It all sounds very hectic!

Taurus

tea42
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Re: South Africa

#186028

Postby tea42 » December 10th, 2018, 6:05 pm

When we visited Capetown we got the airport taxi guy to take us to the winelands for a day doing 3 vineyards and another day touring right around the Cape to see the Cape itself and the penguins. On another day we visited Kirstenbosch gardens and went on the cable car to Table Mountain. Staying at an apartment in the Marina we walked to the waterside which is full of shops and nice restaurants. A great very normal touristy place.

From Capetown we flew up to Windhoek in Namibia where we were met and taken to the vehicle hire company, not Hertz, a local business who really knew and understood the country. We had a 4WD Toyota Hilux with extra wheels, tyres water and fuel in the back. You need such a vehicle on the dirt roads. With a map and an unecessary sat nav we set off to the area with the Dunes, Sossusvlei to stay in a desert hotel. The next day with a packed breakfast and lunch to explore the worlds highest sand dunes seeing Oryx and Ostritches, desert foxes, secretary birds. Returning to the desert lodge we set off on a road trip around Namibia lasting 10 days. This largely desert country is full of eye popping sights and magnificent wildlife red in tooth and claw. The scenery is very varied and quite staggering, with only 2 million people in a land the size of Britain. The Skeleton coast as per Alistair MacLeans novel is right there with its rusting ships. There are desert camps with tents where light comes from oil lamps and luxury camps with thatched huts that ooze quality. Everyone goes to Etosha and it won't dissapoint, the wildlife is thriving, and its in a real setting, not a wildlife park like you see in South Africa. We have been to other African countries including Kenya, Namibia tops the lot by several miles Where else could you come upon the Mad Max film crew in the desert? To get there you cant fly direct, via Capetown is the best way to go and includes some nice touristy experiences, but Namibia self drive, is an adventure you will never forget.

zico
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Re: South Africa

#186044

Postby zico » December 10th, 2018, 8:23 pm

Would you recommend Namibia if you aren't confident about fixing tyres & so forth, or are there alternatives which are less likely to need this kind of knowledge?

tea42
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Re: South Africa

#186053

Postby tea42 » December 10th, 2018, 10:02 pm

zico wrote:Would you recommend Namibia if you aren't confident about fixing tyres & so forth, or are there alternatives which are less likely to need this kind of knowledge?


We had two spare wheels and a tyre. We never had a puncture. I think that you would need to be confident to change a wheel, the extra tyre was just a precaution that you might get a garage to fit in the unlikely event you need to fit it. The roads are packed chip stone. You only see another vehicle every twenty minutes or so and you can see their dust cloud in the distance. Only needed 4WD once in the sand dunes.

You can go around in an organised group in an air conditioned steel box on the back of a lorry. We were going to do that with Jules Verne but a few weeks before the off they cancelled the tour. The lady that organised our trip is English living in SA. We booked our own flights. Overall it worked out £600 less than going with Jules Verne.

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Re: South Africa

#186388

Postby bjmarren » December 12th, 2018, 4:03 pm

Thank you all for replying,

Looking at it again, the schedule does look a bit hectic. After some more thought, we are now looking at a 3 night, 4 day Kruger park tour, starting the day after we arrive in SA and after that go to Victoria Falls. If we arrive in Vic Falls in the afternoon, we will have one full day there, plus 2 half days, would you say that is enough or should we plan for another full day, bearing in mind the amount of time we will spend dealing with airport arrivals and departures?
We are then thinking of 2 nights in both Durban and Port Elizabeth. This would mean we would still have 7/8 days to take in Cape Town and surrounding area, the Garden route and vineyards. My own feeling is to fly to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth and arrange tours/car hire from there for this. Does this still sound too hectic? Namibia sounds great but we'll probably stick to SA this time. We'll be in SA from 26th Jan to 12th Feb.

Grateful for any more thoughts,

Brenda

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Re: South Africa

#186390

Postby bjmarren » December 12th, 2018, 4:16 pm

To add to the above, our original idea was to hire a car in Port Elizabeth and drive to Cape Town taking in the Garden Route on the way stopping overnight in 2 or 3 places and then doing Cape Town and the surrounding area when we are in Cape Town for the last 3 days. It's just that I'm not sure about driving and whether it's worth the hassle. Any thoughts?

Thanks again,

Brendan

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Re: South Africa

#186429

Postby GoSeigen » December 12th, 2018, 7:01 pm

bjmarren wrote:To add to the above, our original idea was to hire a car in Port Elizabeth and drive to Cape Town taking in the Garden Route on the way stopping overnight in 2 or 3 places and then doing Cape Town and the surrounding area when we are in Cape Town for the last 3 days. It's just that I'm not sure about driving and whether it's worth the hassle. Any thoughts?

Thanks again,

Brendan


In our experience driving in SA is not much of a hassle. The roads are mostly good, a few nutty drivers but not like Cairo, or Paris for that matter. The main hazard is wandering animals and humans at night. Mind you, we drove everywhere in a rather nondescript, unpretentious Toyota Corolla and have kids; if you get something flash and look like a tourist you may attract more attention. Everywhere people were kind and friendly to a fault. We picked up hitch-hikers whenever we could -- you will see many of these (though not suggesting you do likewise!). The most unpleasant was a young unemployed Afrikaner returning home, not drunk or anything but he had nothing nice to say about the people living around him during his brief lifetime. One thing that can be intimidating is the begging and offering of services but if you are friendly and generous people are nice back and it makes the experience more memorable.

I think driving from PE to Cape Town and around winelands would be a very good idea. There is a huge amount to explore and a car gives you the freedom to go wherever you wish and saves a lot of hanging around waiting to be transported.


We stayed in a B&B in Soweto while visiting Jo'burg. Fairly basic but a wonderful host cum tour guide whom we went out of our way to visit again later in the trip. Can give details if you PM me.

Enjoy the trip.


GS

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Re: South Africa

#186862

Postby bjmarren » December 14th, 2018, 3:27 pm

Hi GS,

Many thanks for your reply. We really like the idea of driving along that route as we will have the time, and it will leave time for a more relaxing perid around CT before we depart back home. Had you booked the car before you arrived in SA?

Cheers!

Brendan

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Re: South Africa

#186889

Postby stockton » December 14th, 2018, 4:53 pm

bjmarren wrote: Had you booked the car before you arrived in SA?

In recent years I have used rentalcars.com and auto-europe to rent cars abroad. I even got a small refund in SA because there was a discrepancy between the Budget and Rentalcars contracts, and Budget in Joburg were themselves very satisfactory.

GoSeigen
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Re: South Africa

#186915

Postby GoSeigen » December 14th, 2018, 6:12 pm

bjmarren wrote:Hi GS,

Many thanks for your reply. We really like the idea of driving along that route as we will have the time, and it will leave time for a more relaxing perid around CT before we depart back home. Had you booked the car before you arrived in SA?

Cheers!

Brendan


Definitely book before you arrive at the counter. We used RentalCars.com for comparison and booking, car was from Budget. Keep an eye on prices because you can pick up some real bargains sometimes. We got a month's rental for less than £10 a day.

Beware one-way rental though: may be much more expensive. Forgot to factor that in when I mentioned car hire earlier. [However we got really lucky in the USA: Nissan SUV for 21 days one-way NY to SF for $300 total -- so try a variety of quotes varying endpoints and dates if price is important to you.]


GS

bjmarren
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Re: South Africa

#190722

Postby bjmarren » January 3rd, 2019, 8:28 am

Hi,

It's me again with another question, specifically regarding car hire in SA. Is it necessary to have an International driving license to hire a car or is my old paper licence acceptable, as far as anyone knows. My wife has a normal EU card license, with photo etc, being a citizen of Bulgaria, but I still have my old paper one and it has been accepted everywhere in Europe when we have needed to hire a car, so far

Grateful for anyone's previous experience.

Cheers!

Brendan

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Re: South Africa

#190732

Postby GoSeigen » January 3rd, 2019, 8:53 am

bjmarren wrote:Hi,

It's me again with another question, specifically regarding car hire in SA. Is it necessary to have an International driving license to hire a car or is my old paper licence acceptable, as far as anyone knows. My wife has a normal EU card license, with photo etc, being a citizen of Bulgaria, but I still have my old paper one and it has been accepted everywhere in Europe when we have needed to hire a car, so far

Grateful for anyone's previous experience.

Cheers!

Brendan


UK licence card is fine. I don't know about the old paper ones -- surely google will help? This link, for example:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g293740-i9186-k9946103-Can_you_hire_a_car_with_a_UK_licence_only-South_Africa.html


GS

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Re: South Africa

#190743

Postby dionaeamuscipula » January 3rd, 2019, 9:46 am

bjmarren wrote:Hi,

It's me again with another question, specifically regarding car hire in SA. Is it necessary to have an International driving license to hire a car or is my old paper licence acceptable, as far as anyone knows. My wife has a normal EU card license, with photo etc, being a citizen of Bulgaria, but I still have my old paper one and it has been accepted everywhere in Europe when we have needed to hire a car, so far

Grateful for anyone's previous experience.

Cheers!

Brendan

You are supposed to take a driving licence check code:

https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence

I always take one but have never been asked for it during any of the hires I have done since the system was introduced - over a dozen, on three continents, with most of the majors and a few locals.

DM

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Re: South Africa

#190751

Postby swill453 » January 3rd, 2019, 10:01 am

dionaeamuscipula wrote: You are supposed to take a driving licence check code:

https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence

I always take one but have never been asked for it during any of the hires I have done since the system was introduced - over a dozen, on three continents, with most of the majors and a few locals.

I've always* been asked for it in the UK, but never abroad.

* - only hired in UK 2 or 3 times since it came in. Hired numerous times abroad.

Scott.

bjmarren
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Re: South Africa

#190760

Postby bjmarren » January 3rd, 2019, 10:48 am

Thanks for all your replies.

I had a similar situation when hiring in Ireland last June. In the end I just presented my old paper license and passport and that was fine with them. I think I'll stick to the same this time. I usually worry too much about these things.

Brendan


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