We fly to Cape Town to start one of the biggest adventures of our lives: travelling Southern Africa for several months with our two little children and camp wherever we like with our Landrover Defender.
Enjoy impressions of our journey so far in the following video.
You may have noticed that the video ends rather depressingly. Indeed, the new circumstances shown here mark the beginning of a series of unplanned events. Read all about it in our next post!
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After three days of heavy rain and storm the sun decides to show up occasionally. While the kids slowly start to feel at home at African Overlanders the Defender receives its last repair on Wednesday. So after eight days at African Overlanders we are finally free to leave on Thursday morning.
Baby chameleon found in a tree at African Overlanders walking our kid’s hands
We drive to Boulders Beach to see penguins. The penguins have babies that look bigger than their parents. They are grazile swimmers but change to clumsy as soon as they leave the water. They dig holes into the sand to hide and sleep. The kids love looking for their hideouts. It’s like looking for eggs on Easter.
We camp with a great view onto the sea and a good hot shower. At night a porcupine plunders our waste bag. In the morning a baboon family with two babies drops by to see if there is food that they can steal from us.
Our next destinations are the south-western capes Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. The children manage to climb all the way up to Cape Point’s lighthouse and are very proud when they arrive. At the capes the sea is rough and and the waves are high.
I have had a good hope that people would stop staring as soon as we are in Africa, the place where Landrovers belong to. But at the Cape of Good Hope people even take pictures of our car driving away.
When we drive on we spot a group of ostriches. Our next camp is more a dilapidated animal farm than a campsite. It is home to several hundred animals most of which are birds like chicken, ducks, gooses, turkeys and peacocks but there are also dogs, cows, horses and turtles.
Here, we find the most dangerous playground that we have ever seen before. We can sense the love and motivation with which this place was once built. But its age and decay make it a scenery suitable for a horror movie. A playground packed with attracting, creative installations (our kids go mad and want to try out everything) but so broken that each of them has an evil potential to injure a child severely.
On top of that, the playground serves as a pasture for two horned cows and a fiercely looking bull that all approach our children uncomfortably close. Steven King could not have invented it any creepier.
Lean back and let your children play
Via Chapman’s Peak we enter Cape Town city where we have a delicious lunch at a place called Scottish Ale House. Afterwards we visit the Aquarium. The children are wonderfully entertained by the various species, especially clown fish, jellyfish, rays and big sharks. On our way back to the car we listen to an inspiring street choir.
In our next post we’ll leave Cape Town and drive eastwards. Don’t miss it!
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On the plane, for the very first time in their lives the kids don’t like pasta with tomato sauce. Luckily, “Lady and the tramp” rescue the situation by glueing the kids to the screens in front of them until they fall asleep.
We land at Cape Town airport at 8 o’clock on Wednesday morning, all of us very tired. Duncan picks us up. At African Overlanders we are reunited with our Defender and move in instantly.
Moving into our Defender
Unfortunately, the Defender still has some defects that are to be sorted out before we can actually start our trip.
Specifically, the Turbo needs repair by “Turbo Master” in Cape Town. Duncan doesn’t have time to go for us, so he gives us the key of his Hilux (right-sided wheel!). Due to offline cellphone we have to fight our way to Turbo Master and back in left-hand traffic without Google Maps.
Cars at African Overlanders
In addition to the Turbo problem, a noise from the engine will cause “crazy expensive costs” (according to the mechanic).
Cape Town is windy and rainy and temperatures are between 10 and 20 degrees. There is electricity only occasionally due to load shedding. Warm water that does not suddenly run out is even more rare.
On the road
Meanwhile, Timo loses the dental filling that he has received just before the flight and needs to see a local dentist on our second day.
Trip to shopping mall
The kids are happy to have back their playmobile horses that were shipped with the car. They have made three dog friends that behave like their pets. At least one kid believes that “Africa” ends at the fences of African Overlanders.
We are eager to explore Cape Town and its surroundings and then to leave eastwards as we are longing for warmer weather. But for now, we are stuck at African Overlanders. Hopefully, all car issues can be sorted out during the coming days.
Longing for Earth 