The Great South African Road Trip

There is no doubt South Africa spoils you forever for nature and wildlife.

We are half way through our Grand South African tour driving from Cape Town to the north of the country, down through the Kruger National Park and then round to Durban and so back to Cape Town.

This half of our trip has focused on the National Parks and particularly the Kruger, the Big Daddy of National Parks, the size of Wales which measures over 250 miles top to bottom.

There is nothing like the thrill of driving along tarred or gravelled roads never knowing what may be round the next corner. It could be anything from the enormous elephant, tall giraffe, armour plated rhino

Baby rhino

Gemsbok

to the dainty steenbok or the masses of millipedes all long and hairy crossing the road. You can drive miles without seeing anything and then you can see three groups of rhino in half an hour.

The sheer variety and diversity of wildlife is breathtaking.

Stunning zebra

Male nyala - note the handsome yellow socks

This lady and her friend strolled by obviously feeling a bit peckish

The beauty of zebra, nyala and gemsbok is incredible and if you ever tire of the mammals or get impatient with the lack of animals willing to be admired from the safety of your car, then you can start on the birds. Words fail me to describe the beauty and sheer diversity of the bird life.

Vultures

Ground hornbill - nest building

An unusual black stork

The electric blue greater eared glossy starling

A jacana chancing its luck with a croc!

Even starlings come in stunning electric blue and there is endless fun in spotting and trying to identify that bundle of feathers up in the tree.

A tsessebe

So we visited Karoo National Park and the new Mokala National Park which is wonderful for animal spotting with something round every corner it seemed. It even has the rare tsessebe grazing happily.

Crook's Corner

Then we had a week in the Kruger Park going as far north as Crook’s Corner so called because it is where the borders of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa meet and crooks and poachers could easily slip across the border away from the authorities.

It has been a heartfelt desire of mine to visit this part of the park and it was even better than expected. The semi-tropical vegetation was home to all sorts of animals and birds and there was a plethora of baobab trees.

However this tour was not just to be an African wildlife bonanza. We also wanted to meet up with some old friends, firstly Kobus van Rensburg at his Spirit Word church for the monthly Miracle Pool meeting. We had hosted Kobus and Annaliese for one of the St Albans conferences several years ago. They were so pleased to see us and we to see them. 

The pool of Bethesda

 The worship was amazing and the presence of God beautiful. Kobus is very unwell at the moment but somehow God gives him the strength and grace to teach the Word. Though he uses a Bible to preach, he seems to have large chunks of it memorised and quotes freely and accurately roaming through the Word linking Scriptures. Afterwards everyone is invited to walk through the pool of Bethesda and be prayed for by a team of people.

The wall covered in crutches from people who have been healed

John and Bev Wasserman with ourselves 

Next day we visited John and Bev Wasserman at their church in Johannesburg. John used to visit the UK quite frequently but he also has not been well for quite a few years and now stays mostly at home. His church hosted both Arrows of Fire (the youth outreach team) trips to South Africa. It was so good to see him and Bev and again we were warmly welcomed. The worship was beautiful and Kobus’ youngest son Pietrus preached for the first time and overcame his nerves to give us a good message. Again we were all invited to be ministered to. It was so good to catch up with these people again. 

Afterwards as we drove to the northern part of the country it brought back many memories of our visits to this area in 1999 and 2002 with Arrows of Fire. We had ministered in the rural area of Venda and on the way there we had stopped to minister at a church in Malumalele. This time we got stopped for speeding by a lady policewoman eager to take our fine in cash rather than having the trouble of going to the police station. When we insisted on going to the police station she let us go on our way as it was too much trouble for her to go there with us!!

We had been advised that we could do any shopping we needed for the Kruger Park in Giyani, also a place visited by Arrows of Fire in 1999 and where several of our party contracted food poisoning at the local Nando’s. The whole town is busy, crowded, scruffy, grubby and very African. In great fear and trepidation we entered the local Spar (a convenience supermarket as it is in the UK) and found everything to be way outside our comfort zone. The butchers had a huge box of chicken feet and other delicacies sitting next to a box of goodness-knows-what. All the meat was very unappealing and there was little of anything to tempt us, so we grabbed a few essentials and fled!

At present we are making our way through some beautiful Mpumalanga scenery to the Indian Ocean near Durban where apart from a dip in the sea, we are going to spend several days with some old friends from Fish Hoek.