We had picked up our SUV from the Cape Town Airport. We received a white Renault Koleos who we aptly named Aisha, to give her some pseudo-African flair.
We were happy to leave Cape Town and the terrible weather we had encountered there. Our three day journey to Kruger would take us across the entirety of the South African coast, covering over 2000km.
The first challenge we had was driving on the left side of the road: all of us finding it difficult to habituate at first (more on that in a later post).
Grahamstown
The first leg of our journey took us From Cape Town to Grahamstown. As we hugged the Eastern Cape, we passed the Little Karoo mountains to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. We traversed the renowned Garden Route and the surfing mecca known as the Sunshine Coast. Due to our schedule we could not stop in any of these beautiful regions, only admiring the scenery from our vehicle.
We arrived in Grahamstown in the evening and although it was not wet, it was bloody cold. We stayed at the Old Goal Backpackers, which was an active prison until 1978. In fact, we had to cross a courtyard where executions were carried out, in order to reach our room, a former cell.
The night was spent running around with the Chris' shouting Scooby Doo quotes and other ghost-related shenanigans.
Port St Johns
The next leg took us through the Wild Coast to the cliff side town of Port St Johns. We stayed at the jungle monkey backpackers: an ultra-laid back, Rasta-run, seaside hostel situated on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean. This hostel was bliss, we easily could have stayed there for a week, but alas, the Azzurri awaited, we had to continue.
St Lucia
We had originally planned on going through the Drankensberg Mountains, but we were advised by a South African travel agent who suggested we divert to St Lucia, a UNESCO world heritage site.
Our evening was spent partying with far too many Canadians and the following morning was spent taking a river cruise, admiring lounging hippos and lurking crocodiles.
Immediately from there, we continued north through the land-locked nation of Swaziland, to finally reach our final destination: Kruger National Park.
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