South Africa Adventure
September 16 - October 15, 2019
I got the incredible opportunity to spend a month in South Africa with work. A little back story, I work for an air emissions testing company, and we are the only company in the world to do a certain type of testing, and as a result, we get some cool international jobs sometimes. This was one of those times. I was the only person to stay the entire month, as there was a crew change midway through as we moved to a different part of the country. We spent most of the time on the east coast. For the first two weeks, the first crew and I stayed at a golf resort north of Durban called Prince’s Grant Golf Estate. From there we moved down to Scottburgh (south of Durban) where we stayed at the Blue Marlin hotel. This is where the crew swapped over to the second team, and we stayed in Scottburgh for about a week before we made our way far northwest to a small town called Kaapschehoop, which is east of Johannesburg. We stayed at the Kaapsche Hoop Gastehuis (Guesthouse), shout-out to Ria, Niles, and Sunny. We wrapped our testing with a few extra days to spare, where we were able to go on a trip to Krueger National Park, before spending a day at the Thaba Eco Hotel and Spa near Johannesburg before flying home. The trip was incredible outside of working, and I had some unforgettable experiences. Also, shout-outs to Lucas and Dion. Here are some photos from the trip.
The first set of photos are from the Prince’s Grant Golf Estate north of Durban. There wasn’t much to do here besides golf. We didn’t have much time to do that because of work, but it was still a really nice area.
The next set of photos are from the town of Scottburgh, mainly from the Blue Marlin hotel and a local golf course. Some of the shots of the ocean are from the beach just below the Blue Marlin. We ate a lot at a place called Enzo’s right next to the Blue Marlin and I’d like to shout-out Junior there who was our server a few times and was super cool and got to know us. A lot of the photos are from a golf course in Scottburgh that we were able to go to on an off day (only the second time I had ever swung a golf club). Also, the day before we went golfing, AJ and I got drunk with some locals and got into a great world history discussion.
Here are some photos driving from Scottburgh to Kaapschehoop. Not much to see here besides some cool landscapes and some towns. In place of redlights and stop signs, South Africa has a lot of speed bumps to slow down traffic and that got annoying real fast. I have added some sunset photos on the drive back from Krueger National Park from later in the trip as they fit here.
Next up is Kaapschehoop. There are some photos of the room at the guesthouse. Near the hotel were a few hikes; the first was to the escarpment (which is basically a steep cliffside) where you could see out for miles. There was also a small waterfall tucked in the hills near the escarpment. Towards the end of the trip, before heading back to Johannesburg, one of my coworkers, AJ, and I hiked to the escarpment to watch the sunrise, but those photos will be down further.
Here’s the big section finally, Krueger National Park. We left the Guesthouse super early in the morning to make it to the park before sunrise. When we got there, we saw pretty much every African animal you can think of: springbok, kudu, zebras, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, hyenas, lions, leopards, hippos, various monkeys and birds, snakes, tortoises, all of it, except for cheetahs. We unfortunately were unable to see cheetahs that day. I even got pooped on by a bird when we stopped for food and souvenirs (that’s supposed to be good luck, right?) A few notes about the pictures: after the buffalo photos, there is a group of photos of what looks like a bush, but if you look closely in the shadows/ to the right of the bush you will see a lion walking towards the shade and another in the shade. I don’t have any of the photos of the hyena we saw, as it walked across the road really quickly and disappeared into the brush before I could get a good picture. There are no photos of the leopards either, as we had to use the binoculars to spot it lounging in the shade across the river from where we were. Also yes, all the selfies are necessary. There are some SICK photos I took of the hippos at the end so be ready for those. All the photos are uploaded in the order they were taken.
On the day we were set to leave Kaapschehoop, AJ and I decided to hike up to the escarpment to watch the sunrise. We were actually pretty sketched out as it was pitch black and had seen some beefed up monkeys running around Kaapschehoop the days before. The first photo is an old abandoned weather station that somehow I did not get a photo of on the initial trip. And of course, more selfies.
Alright, we are at the last chunk of photos. Thank you for looking at them all if you have made it this far. If you skipped down this far, you missed some good shots, go back and look. These last photos show me and the rest of the crew, along with Sunny, Ria, and Neals who hosted us at the Guesthouse, and the subsequent trip to Johannesburg and the Thaba Eco Hotel and Spa.
