Monday, November 19, 2007

Durban Town

So parts of Durban city are quite nice I suppose, although we didn't really linger long (and the centre didn't seem to have much to offer once night fell, as the long beachfront becomes dangerous). We spent a great day at the Ushaka Aquarium though, one of the largest and most modern in the world. It was brilliantly laid out I have to say and of course I could have stayed there all day. Sarah got to see her first dolphin and seal shows, both quite impressive of course (although they don't have a killer whale show like in California's Sea World!).

Durban is famous for an Indian fast-food delicacy called Buni-Chow, but we actually had a hard time finding a place that had any (I finally had one later in Port Elizabeth and it was quite nice, and a tad novel I suppose). The guidebook had mentioned a place along the beachfront, and so after a beer at the famous surfer-watching bar of 'Joe Kools' we went strolling around looking for it, but couldn't find it. It was starting to get dark and we did look conspicuously like clueless tourists wandering about aimlessly when out of the blue this local girl jogging along the promanade passes from behind us and very casually says, 'They are about to rob you!'.

She didn't even look at us, so I wasn't sure that she was talking to us, and looking around I didn't see anything obvious. She kinda stopped jogging just in front of us and told us, again not looking at us at all, that she had just overheard a couple of guys behind us and that they were moving in to rob us. This time I had a proper look behind, and indeed two dodgey looking lads were a fair bit behind us, and did appear to be kinda stalking us. I thanked the girl profusely and moved along pretty sharpish, whilst trying to keep an eye on the lads, as they continued to follow us. Then we broke into a bit of a trot back to the car, only a little nervously of course, and went straight back home. It was probably a lucky escape, although I suppose we'll never know for sure what might have happened.

Our backpackers (Gibela Backpackers Lodge) was a lovely place, one of the nicest in SA really, and it was situated nice and close to Florida Road, one of Durban's main night spots. I spent another day strolling around the local parks, one of which (Mitchell Park) has a pretty cool little zoo with loads of playful marmosets that had me mesmerised.

But after a few days it was time to move on again (after I'd inadvertently burnt the outline of a mozzy coil into the varnish of the bedside table!), and I headed south to try some more diving at another famous dive site - Aliwal Shoal.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

The outskirts of Durban

I'd been looking forward to arriving in Durban for a while, as it was going to be the first big city we'd been in for quite a while (and I was looking forward to swanky restaurants and lively nightlife). We'd also had a kind offer from a friend of a friend that we'd met way back in Johannesburg. This friend (Bernd) had a holiday home just outside Durban, and had kindly offered to let us stay there. I felt awkward accepting such an offer from a complete stranger at first, but we met Berndt twice, and both times I ended up paying for his dinner. Apparently the guy was quite wealthy too, so I assumed we wouldn't be putting him out of his way at all by accepting.

I was also looking forward to being able to spend a few days just chilling out, thinking we'd have a lovely place all to ourselves in a lovely location for next to nothing.

Anyway, when we arrived at Umhlanga Rocks (actually a really posh district north of Durban city) we had to phone Bernd to arrange to get the keys - at which point he tells Sarah that we can certainly stay at his place, but that there would be a service charge associated. Naturally we thought this was completely fair, as it was a serviced apartment and so the management company would charge for anyone staying there. The shock came when we heard the amount - 450Rand a night. Up until this point we had been paying 200-250Rand a night for really nice places - the most we have paid in over two months in South Africa is 400Rand a night and that was for the exclusive use of a genuinely fabulous, huge house.

At first I just thought that the place must be an out-of-this-world amazing apartment, so we agreed to spend three nights, although I still thought it was a bit strange. After getting the key from the agent and moving into the apartment we realised that there must have been some kind of miscommunication somewhere along the line - the apartment was very small and actually quite run-down (paint peeling, damp patches, rusty ceiling fan). It did have a great location though, the balcony looked straight out over the crashing ocean, although it didn't have any access to the beach (a major storm in March had caused extensive damage along the shoreline and renovation work was continuing).

Realising that Bernd's kind offer wasn't quite as kind as we'd thought we phoned the agent and reduced our stay to just two nights. The agent informed us that the usual price for renting the apartment was 550Rand a night, so I suppose Bernd was doing us some kind of a favour, but the impression everyone got when he made the initial offer was that we could stay for nothing.

Anyway, Umhlanga wasn't even that great a place. It was all fancy and everything, but had a bit too much of an American-shopping-mall feeling to it. It's saving grace for us though was meeting up with a couple of Irish lads the first night. I think these were the first Irish we'd met on the whole trip and they were a mad laugh. They were both from Kerry and were working at the Durban docks building new cargo cranes (apparently world trade is booming and Durban has a serious lack of capacity), so they knew Umhlanga well. It ended up a very late and slightly bruised night, with Sarah a tad more under the weather than me I have to say. The entire next day was spent with both of us recovering in bed, so we never got much value from our stay (and never got to go to the fanciest restaurant in town, at the Beverly Hills Hotel - actually a really nice place, despite the really off-putting name).

The next morning we checked out of the apartment and went to visit the Natal Sharks Board. These guys are responsible for maintaining the shark nets that protect the swimming beaches of South Africa and they give an educational shark dissection demonstration every day. They inevitably catch sharks in the nets every time they check them - if they are still alive they release them, if dead they use them to try and help educate the public through these dissection talks. The talk was very interesting I have to say, and you get to touch and feel all the cut up bits of the poor 'auld shark at the end.

Next stop was a backpacker place in the heart of Durban city proper (the only reason we moved really was the fact that the backpacker place was sure to be nicer and much cheaper!).

Umfolozi and Saint Lucia

Next stop was Hluhluwe Backpackers and Safaris, right next door to the game reserve. We only spent one night here, getting up early the following morning and spending the whole day driving around the park.

I checked out staying at the main camp in the park, but they were completely full (lovely place though with a great short hiking trail through dense forest). This park had fantastic scenery, but not an abundance of game - still no leopard sightings.

That evening we drove the relatively short distance to Saint Lucia (Bib's International Backpackers), back on the East coast. Again we spent more time here then we first thought we would. We actually had our very first South African braai here (their word for a BBQ), whilst watching the first South African rugby game in a local bar. The atmosphere was good, but nothing compared to an Irish rugby game (but then we were in a smallish, touristy town).

Again we hired bicycles to explore the area, which has some amazing beaches. We visited the crocodile farm, which was very impressive (especially the baby crocs that were extremely feisty and would snap viciously when you'd approach them). The guide was actually originally from Ireland (O'Dell) and the tour around all the enclosures was very good - and yes, we did get to pet a baby croc while the guide held it firmly.

We took the evening cruise one of the days, just turning up and hopping onboard. The highlight of the cruise is meant to be the crocs and hippos you get to see, but by this stage we've seen what seems like hundreds of both, so I just sat on the upper deck and relaxed with a beer watching the sunset and the hippos, crocs and fish eagles drift past (all of the other people on board were down below eagerly snapping photos). In fact, I was strongly reminded of just cruising down the Shannon back home, it was such a lovely wee excursion.

I was tempted after seeing glimpses of whales at Sodwana to do a whale watching boat trip, but they were very expensive, and I knew I'd be diving again further down the coast so I didn't bother. Luckily I didn't either, since all you have to do is go to Hermanus at the right time of year and your pretty much guaranteed a fantastic show right from the shore.

Our last day in Saint Lucia we drove up the coast to Cape Vidal, through another game reserve. This reserve really doesn't have much game, it's more for the drive and the beach at the destination. Cape Vidal really was another great beach and we got to see lots of the really cute samanga monkeys - common here but endangered elsewhere across the world.

From St. Lucia it was off to Durban.

Scuba at Sodwana

Sodwana Bay is actually located within a marine nature reserve, and so the accommodation options are quite limited. But it turned out that the best and nicest place to stay was with the main scuba diving operation - Coral Divers. They are a pretty major operation and have superb facilities and equipment, and seeing as how we arrived mid-week in low season I got a great deal on a diving package.

In total I did five dives there - all of which were in poor visibility (8-10 meters), but all of which also had some kind of highlight. The launch site for the boats actually had quite big breakers, so actually just getting beyond them was a great laugh (we had to wear life jackets, and the boat captain had to do a practice run first to make sure the engines were working properly). On our first ride out to the dive site the dive master spots a whale shark and jumps into the water to try and get a proper bearing on it. I'm hurriedly getting my snorkel and flippers on, but the dive master can't find the whale shark again and we miss it. On my last dive I was bumped off my original dive boat to make room for a group of students, and of course on their way back from their dive they found a whale shark and got to dive with it and get really close - naturally I was raging, but that's just the luck of the draw really.

But it also whale season at Sodwana and coming back from my first dive a humpback whale's tail came right out of the water, no more than 30 meters from the boat. I thought this was amazing at the time, but the next day on the beach I saw flippers flapping about and just caught a glimpse of a full breach (where the whale jumps straight up vertically from the water, and splashes back down again in a huge explosion of water). But over the following few weeks (and especially at Hermanus) we got see lots of lots of whales, sometimes extremely close.

The dives themselves weren't really spectacular (mainly due to the poor visibility), but I still got to see lots of coral , lion and scorpion fish, nudibranchs, moray eels, rays, an octopus, puffer fish, pipefish, etc. It was great to get back diving again - it was hard to believe it had been over seven years since my last one.

I saw four turtles over the five dives, which is always nice. Sarah got to see one too when she did a Discover Scuba dive. Discover Scuba is for people who want to just give scuba a go without doing a full course, so after about an hours instruction Sarah got to come on one of my dives. She was pretty nervous but once she relaxed she got to enjoy the dive. Her instructor was good too, and let her free swim for a bit (i.e. not holding her hand for the entire dive) and she managed very well (some people will just bolt straight for the surface). Her air managed to last a good 40 minutes too, which was very good for a first-timer. She didn't get to see any sharks though!

From Sodwana it was South again and time for a tad more safari.