Category Archives: Johannesburg:Feb/Mar

Johannesburg to Sydney

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The flight from Johannesburg to Sydney was our first encounter with Qantas airlines. I only know them from adverts in my youth which featured Dame Edna and a koala bear. 

 

The adverts didn’t say anything about allowing you a much lower weight allowance for your carry on bags than any more civilised carrier. As we only have carry on bags and no luggage going in the hold it doesn’t seem overly fair that an overly-zealous book-in lady decided to weigh our bags when we checked in. 

 

Ella was, of course, just under her 7 kg allowance as she had bothered to read the blurb and had come prepared in case they adhered to it. My bag was a mere 13 kg. (It seems to have got heavier as we’re travelling but I really don’t know how as I don’t think there’s any more in it.)

 

The lady told me I would have to get my bag down to 7 kg. Ella tried not to give me an “I told you so” look. I’m not sure she fully succeeded. I helpfully made the point to the lady that if I checked my bag into the hold it would be free and would also have the benefit of the added excitement of wondering where it would end up when we were looking forlornly at an empty baggage carousel in Sydney. She reminded me that for carry-on the weight restriction was 7 kg and could I please make my bag lighter.

 

There then followed a wonderfully pointless exercise in moving things from inside the bag to outside the bag in order to make the bag weigh less just so that I could put all the things back into the bag as soon as we were through the check in. So, out came a sweat shirt that I tied round my waist. Slung another top over my shoulder. I stuffed tee shirts and shirts into the arms of my jacket and carried that over my arm (although this made the arms of the jacket stick out as they were stuffed solid and it looked like I was carrying a torso). Bag back on scales – just under 8 kilos. Need to get to 7. I asked her if there was a bin into which I could throw my least wearable shoes and she said: “oh, don’t do that, just put them on top of the bag – it doesn’t really matter that much.”

 

Through check in. 20 yards down the corridor: stop, stuff everything back into bag. Proceed to boarding gate.

 

We had booked the rearmost seats on the plane. We thought they looked like a good choice when we had selected them during the online booking process because there were two of them alone, together – and it looked from the diagram that you’d get a bit more space and wouldn’t have anyone pushing past you to get out to the loos. And the theory was good. You did get a little bit more room. 

 

Well done us, we thought. 

 

Til we were way out over the ocean and at the mercy of the winds in the roaring forties (if that’s where they are, I think they are) and every single one of them roared.  

 

A whole torrent of turbulence that threw the plane around for what seemed like an age. The heavy food serving trolley went flying during one severe dip and fell onto one of the passengers. Fortunately the arm-guard took the brunt of it or his legs would have been squashed. As it was the stewardess who hadn’t secured it properly had egg on her face and the passenger in seat 74E had egg absolutely everywhere.

 

Way back in the tail we seemed to be suffering the worst of it and in recognition of that the chief steward came along during a slightly calmer moment and asked if we would like to move closer to the middle of the plane for the remainder of the journey. Promotion to the dizzy heights of Premier Economy! Only a flapping curtain’s width from Business Class!  Near the wings – a lot smoother ride – with far more fancy seats and stuff to play with and way superior plastic cutlery with which to breakfast.

 

We felt like royalty. 

 

Albeit slightly minor royalty from an obscure East European country with too many consonants.

 

Touching down in Australia we had jumped forward 9 hours and although we hadn’t slept at all and to us it was 5.30 in the morning it was actually mid afternoon in sunny Sydney.

 

Our hosts for the first night were Steve and Grace. Grace is Korean and we were taken that evening to an amazing restaurant where we battled with chopsticks and had a traditional Korean spread of about 20 small dishes of food which gave some palate punching combinations of flavours. We sat next to some black-belt chop stickers who made us feel a little inadequate. Strange cabbage stuff that’s normally stored underground to keep it tasting funny and what can best be described as a crab which had recently stepped on a land mine were two of the stand-outs. Very tasty. 

 

We spent the next morning exploring Sydney and the early afternoon sleeping in a park trying to catch up on the jet lag.

 

Must mention the exceptionally excellent trains they have – double deckers with air conditioning and seats that you can move to face both ways! The upright back section has cushioning on both sides and it pivots (the seat bit you sit on stays where it is) and you move the upright to instantly turn a three seater bench from forward facing to backward facing. Handy indeed if you are the sort of person who likes to travel facing forward. The trains are clean, air conditioned (did I mention that already – and are you listening Transport for London), with excellent communications and less than half the price of London Underground too.

 

Anyway, that afternoon we embarked on what will most likely be one of the most scary and memorable evenings of our whole trip…… 

 

Johannesburg – the Kruger National Park

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Back in the relative safety of Johannesburg (relative safety being defined by the fact that the people we’re staying with in Jo’berg know less people who have been killed than the people we stayed with in Zimbabwe) it’s hard to miss he fact that apart from the sprawling shanty towns, every other property is surrounded by electrified fences, high walls, razor wire and dogs.

 

As the town was not dangerous enough, we were taken on a camping safari to the Kruger National Park. (Many more things that could kill you.)

 

The Kruger National Park is a huge area of nearly 20,000 square km to the northeast of South Africa, criss-crossed occasionally by tarmac roads and sand roads that you drive along through mainly shrub land and grassland and alongside rivers. There are occasional campsites which are fenced to keep the animals out, giving a safe haven for the night – with the roar of lions and the scavenging of hyenas at the fence giving you something to count as you drift off to sleep…..

 

……For an hour or two before getting up at crazy o’clock in the morning to be in the camper van and in the queue at the exit gate before 05.30am. Stephan was, well, let’s just say “keen” to be in the first 2 or 3 cars in the queue because the gates open on the dot at 5.30 and you really want to be the first car on one of the roads leading out through the park to have the best chance to see the lions, leopards and wild dogs that often walk the roads early morning, enjoying the feel of the retained roadheat from the previous day and avoiding the dewy grass. 

 

So, if you’re, let’s say, third in the queue on the first morning, the done thing (I offer this Kruger Park etiquette lesson free of charge to you) is to drive out after the first few cars shouting “turn off left, turn off left” to get rid of the first one and then pleading with the next one to carry on straight because the road we really wanted to go down is a few km from camp and off to the right. Worked like a charm.

 

Having successfully rid yourselves of the hindrance of cars ahead of you (it’s very bad form to overtake another person unless they are stopped at the side of the road and if they are stopped you’re likely to want to stop too because they’ll only be stopped because there’s something to see), you are free to enjoy an unencumbered view of the road ahead as you embark on a futile game of “leopard spotting”. Let’s face it, there could have been a troupe of 9 leopards in day-glo spandex leotards doing a Buzby Berkley routine and I wouldn’t have seen it at 5.30 in the morning.

 

However, over the 4 incredible days we spent in this amazing place we did see 42 different species including the Big 5, so named because they were the most prized hunting trophies in days gone by: loads of elephants, 4 different pairs and triplets of rhino, several groups of lions including one lucky chap and his harem of 10 ladies who were all relaxing by a water hole when a large bull elephant decided to walk through them and wanted them to move out of his way. They obliged. Quite a few buffalo and 2 leopards (or rather one leopard, twice – though not in the early morning). 

 

Apart from the big 5, favourites were probably the packs of African wild dogs we saw sleeping a couple of feet from us on several occasions – one or two would then get up and dopily meander about and flop down again looking incredibly docile and tame, a million miles away from the extraordinary raw power and aggression they show when they hunt with military precision in formation, running their prey, up to buffalo size, into the ground or taking it in turns to take chunks out of their moving dinner as they run alongside. 

 

And my personal favourite: one of nature’s real thugs – the honey badger. Nearly a metre long with a lovely two-toned light and dark grey coat. Prefers to attack rather than defend and will do so with no provocation. It has no real predators because nothing is stupid enough to take it on.

 

Apart from having a worse than skunk like excretion from the back end, its powerful teeth and claws do a good job at the front end. It has a tough, loose skin which, if a larger animal were daft enough to get its jaws around it, enables the honey badger to twist and give a good smack to anyone who’s grabbed it – same principle as a Glaswegian in a shell-suit, really.

 

Why are honey badgers so aggressive? I don’t know. Possibly it’s down to pure embarrassment over its name.

 

A honey badger sounds like he or she should be chums with Winnie the Pooh…..

 

Chapter 7. In which Winnie the Pooh meets the Honey badger.

 

The sun beamed its happy rays over 100 Acre Wood as Winnie the Pooh awoke, did a few uppy and downy exercises while thinking of his favourite jar of honey and then sallied forth, skipping off toward Piglet’s house. Along the way, whom should he meet but a 90 cm long block of muscle wrapped in a loosely fitting two-toned grey pelt.

 

“Hullo,” said Winnie, the bear with very little brain. “I am Winnie the Pooh. I’ve not seen you around here before. Who are you?”

 

“I’m a honey badger.” 

 

Winnie was everso exited. “A hunny badger! ” he exclaimed. A badger made of hunny? Hunny is my very favourite thing. I am going to see if you taste of hunny.”

 

“I don’t think so, pal!”

 

Chapter 8. In which Piglet and Roo stumble into a scene of unimaginable slaughter.

 

Chapter 9. In which Eeyore hits the anti-depressants pretty hard.

 

Chapter 10. In which Christopher Robin gets a new best friend. 

 

If Winnie the Pooh met a honey badger – it would not go well for the bear with very little brain. Honey Badger could take on Winnie, Tigger, Eeyore and the heffalump with one arm tied behind its back. Christopher Robin would need more than a couple of plasters and a visit to nursey in sick bay. 

 

 

I shall not be trying to take a honey badger home in my bag, but there were a number of other animals we saw that looked like they would have made awesome pets. 

 

The usual patten of the day was to drive from 5.30 am to about 11.30 am, stopping somewhere to cook a breakfast. Then return to camp and rest during the worst heat of the day and head out again about 3 til 6.30 when the camp gates close. A braai for supper and then hit the hay between 8 and 9 pm. 

 

It’s an exhausting, but exhilarating way to see animals in the wild.