Let’s bring Sauna into Africa

South Africa to Germany – at least a try. Meer informatie

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Het begin van de reis
18 december 2019
Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
Leaving Brauni
14 december 2019, Duitsland ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C
Wanted to ship my tiny little Land Cruiser 120 already in November to have it at hand when flying to South Africa in mid December with Franziska. Plans never work out as expected. I will be dropping the car in Bremerhaven on Decenmber 16th, flying to Durban with Franzi on 17th and the car will arrive in Cape Town on January 11th. The time until arrival of the car we will be filling with hiking, road tripping, wedding-partying and crazy going, yeeehaaaaw =)Meer informatie
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Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
Farewell
16 december 2019, Duitsland ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C
Kurz und knackig: 14th dinner at mom's, 15th at dad's. 16th in the morning last fitments around Münster with directly following car dispatching in the harbour of Bremerhaven where I visit Kono at AWI, share a quick beer with him and finally go back by train to world town of Kattenvenne for a chill out evening at Sven and Lydia's with cats, whisky and a gigantic lasagne. What a rush, what a pleasure!Meer informatie
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Let’s bring Sauna into Africa
Joining Franziska
17 december 2019, Duitsland ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C
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Dubai airport
17 december 2019, Verenigde Arabische Emiraten ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C
Use your brain and imagine what someone would write here.
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Arriving and recuperating
18 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C
Acclimatizing in Smith's Cottage, Durban, during the first three days after picking up our rented Polo Vivo directly from the airport. All the thanks for total stresslessness go to Franzi who organized everything important beforehand while I was deeply distracted with preparations around my vehicle back in Germany!Meer informatie
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Durban impressions
19 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika
Wandering around Durban's beach promenade, we notice a lot of run-down ex-surfer boys asking for money. The shopping malls seem to be overcrowded with local people, which for us Europeans is a bit overwhelming on our first days on the African continent 😅. But the following day we already jump into the local culture on Victoria Market. Our evenings fade out with red wine in our cosy cottage where we recover from the coastal thick and humid air. At least there is some refreshing wind!Meer informatie
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In search of the Giant Cup
21–27 dec. 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C
Our first action item leads us deep into the Drakensberg mountains where we escape civilization from December 21st to 25th and stroll around deserted paths, basically following the Giant Cup Trail. Forming a wall of inaccessibility, the border to Lesotho as a monumental ridge with constantly over 3000 m of elevation becomes our best friend. The trail takes us from Sani Lodge over Garden Castle to Bushman's Nek. We die in 35+ °C with stiff air but the second day brings misty in-cloud-walking with cooling moisture. Warm and cosy days follow, with regular thunderstorms in the afternoon where we catch up with another couple – the only other hikers on the whole track. The trail is well cared of and each stage awaits us with lovely, clean shelter huts, mostly equipped with simple, stacked beds and lousy mattresses. We battle snakes, lizards, scorpions, elands, baboons, lammergeier, barn owls, sunbirds and even fancily striped mice. Nobody stands our Knoblauchfahne.Meer informatie
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Michi, der At the foot of Garden Castle you see a handful of free-standing oaks. This is where the Winterhoek huts are waiting for us =)
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Michi, der Activate the standard map with relief for better impression of the topography.
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Michi, der At Swiman Hut we are surprised by a South African family coming here for a 5-day stay over Christmas. They are super-friendly and enrich our simple pasta dinner with ciders and precious other deliciousnesses =)
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Of scorpions, snakes and Schleiereulchen
23 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C
While watching a beautiful snake from a safe, elevated distance we are in turn being watched by a white bird of prey: the common barn owl (Tyto alba), also inhabiting European realms.
Later I will contact the African Snakebite Institute on identification of this snake and it turns out to be a Rinkhals (Hemachatus haemachatus). Mostly it comes plain blackish but in the region of KwaZulu-Natal it indeed comes fully banded with thick orange stripes. They can spit venom directly into your eyes, give birth to live young and fake death in the same way you would do it. Awesomeness to the max!
Check this out: https://www.africansnakebiteinstitute.com/snake… and this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RinkhalsMeer informatie
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ReizigerEin tolles Land und schöne Fotos
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South via Queenstown and Hogsback
28 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C
The following two days of our road trip lead us along scenic mountains, a night in Queenstown with great food and through a surreal bathtub at the edge of a cliff in Hogsback.
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Addo Elephant National Park
29 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C
Couldn't find Timon.
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Apocalyptic snail attac
30 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ 🌧 19 °C
In Afrikaans there is nothing like "Schön mal den Rüssel reinhalten und dinieren".
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Not planning anything is the best plan
31 december 2019, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
Wonderful remote camping spot at Outeniqua Trout Lodge, suddenly appearing out of nowhere after a lot of rain and muddy gravel roads. Treating our Polo like a full-grown overlanding vehicle is the only way to progress here ;-)Meer informatie
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"Rivers" without rivers
1 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C
Six years of serious drought render place names like "... river camp" pretty funny ...
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Witsand
1 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C
Dunes are supposed to be very delicate. Don't you dare touch them!
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Rushing through dryland to find a camp
1–2 jan. 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
After letting ourselves go too much in Witsand, it's getting late. My plan to cross the Breede River to the west unfortunately falls through as the ferry at Malagas Pont doesn't seem to be running today 😅. Unfortunately, there's no cosy camp in this completely deserted area and we're a bit stressed as we head north to pitch our tent somewhere before sunset. Once again, Franziska has the route under control and guides us to Buffeljagsdam, where we make it in time for a glass of red wine and some stargazing 😊.

The following day, we climb up the pass towards Barrydale and then turn west to pick up a truckload of dried fruit in Montagu before descending the escarpment again in direction to Franschhoek. Oooh, those dried mangoes!Meer informatie
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Franschhoek
4 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C
Around Ina's and Werner's wedding party!
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Guardians of the fynbos
6 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C
"Fynbos (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ˈfəinbɔs], lit. 'fine bush') is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces [..] Fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic." (Wikipedia)

On our attempt to privately explore the hilly area, two monstrous dogs appear out of nowhere and won't go off our side.Meer informatie
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West Coast National Park
7 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C
When coming here we yet didn't know that birdwatching would become our main travel passions in future ...
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Found penguins
9 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
Hopping around Cape Town, dancing with penguins and waiting for my car to arrive on container ship Santa Clara from far away Germany :D
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Michi, der The container ship with my Toyota not far from its destination port :D
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Swapping lovely Franzi for Wurstdaniel
11 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C
We did around 3.330 km in our rented VW Polo Vivo! Now it's time for a new chapter ...
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Because we can
12 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C
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Addicted to wine
13 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 34 °C
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Unpacking the treasure from Germany ...
14 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C
Sitting, waiting (and sleeping) inside SACD's huge cargo hall while my car is beeing administratively processed by local customs. The container arrived in 11th but my carnet de passages arrived just yesterday via UPS courier with a huge delay, because, after the German customs completed their paperwork, they sent it back to my German home address instead directly to Kaapstad. In between came Christmas and "stuff" ...
So, today, just now, after validating the vehicle identification number on my carnet the container is again closed for several hours and I am dropped at home (what I call The Buddha Garden by now). In the afternoon I get picked up again for the final arrangements and car release. While on the way back to the customs I get a call that unfortunately it'll not work out any more today because container unloading was scheduled too spontaneously (due to carnet delay) and has to be postponed for tomorrow. Damn! Haha! "Pläne und so ..."Meer informatie
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Michi, der Tyre deflation in order to fit the fully packed J12 with its 2.26 m into a 20" container of 2.30 m inner height :D
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Finally!
15 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C
Awesome 🥳🥰
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Nope.
17 januari 2020, Zuid-Afrika ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C
:-( :-( :-(
Left the car yesterday for window tinting and diesel injector checking. Both is quite affordable here and the latter even conducted through a Bosch Diesel Service with superb staff! Today in the morning they wanted to start the car and ... nothing. Apparently the aluminium "ignition lock cylinder barrel rod" just cracked, leaving the ignition dead! Wtf? No tests. No anything. Dead car. The point of fracture looks very uneven so it could have been a manufacturing fault. I read about this possible failure a few times before but never thought that my holy car could once be affected by it ;-)
We are approaching the weekend where everything stands still here in SA. They do their best to find a spare part but I somehow have to keep Daniel in good mood because we wanted to be on the road by this weekend already! After the repair still comes the testing. I already cancelled the installation of an additional long range fuel tank. Right now the weather gets bad with winds up to 30 knots and fortunately some light rain.Meer informatie
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Michi, der Strolling around in despair through Paarden Island at least discloses well-sorted marine shops, car garages, camping equipment and electronic hardware stores with super-helpful people, many smiles and hidden gems like this one :)
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