5 September: 2 days of surfing as Stuart makes the most of a spell of decent weather, no wind and okay waves.
8 September: Irritated! In the eternal search for our fuel starvation issue, we had dropped the fuel tank a month ago only to find that wasn’t the issue and when putting it back I had concerns about the one gasket but didn’t replace it. We have only now filled the tank full and it’s leaking!!! Not much can do about it however as would have to drain off 120l of diesel to drop the tank, which is not practical right now, so we will have to leak for a while.
10 September: Back on the road again, feels great to be going to new places (not knowing what to expect) and driving roads we haven’t driven before, it’s basically been 4 months since we been somewhere new.
13 September: Spent a lovely afternoon and evening with the Macintosh’s yesterday, haven’t seen them in probably 6 years. All in all a great catch-up and “inspection”
14 September: We succumbed to the consumerism of the midlands meander, well at least a little bit by buying a few odds and ends, having lunch at one of the many eateries and finally buying some artisanal bread.
17 September: Been a very wet and cold couple of days in the Berg at Highmoor camp, temps yesterday didn’t get much above 5 deg and today only marginally better.
18 September: Took a very gentle meander along the back dirt roads to get to Injasuthi, so nice to travel slowly knowing we don’t have big distances to cover. Even had time to stop on the side of the road when we picked up some signal and catchup on digital life as we have had no signal the last few days and won’t have any for the next few either.
19 September: What a great day, clouds have lifted to give great vies of Monks Cowl and other peaks, temps increased so did a short walk in the morning followed by a lunchtime braai and chilled afternoon.
22 September: After a number of days with no cell signal we headed across to the touristy Cathkin/Monks Cowl valley only to run into the issue of a long weekend looming and full campsites BUT the great news is we learnt on social media that South America is starting to open its land borders in November. Time to get plans back on track !!!
23 September: Feeling very annoyed at the inconsiderate nature of fellow humans. After a disturbed night thanks to an organised tour hiking group who camped right next to us and generally spoke loudly, got up early only to faff for hours before leaving and then we watched the campsite full-up to bursting as the long weekend rush began. It is perhaps a good thing that all sites were booked and we can’t stay as the ablutions are going to take strain and its going to generally be noisy.
24 September: A gentle amble down the valley, stopping for bread, craft beer and some nice cheeses before heading off to Weenen game reserve. They only have 12 sites so we had tried to contact them yesterday to see if they had space but there was no answer so we are winging it and hoping the 100km slight backtrack is not in vain. In the end we got lucky and took the last site.
25 September: A nice day out in Weenen Game Reserve, didn’t see too much but scenery was quite good and spent a lovely quite midday period at picnic site in the middle of the reserve
26 September: Spent the morning on birthday messages and calls for Stuart then made a short 2 hour drive up to Dundee, really impressed with the scenery and landscapes of this part of Zululand.
27 September: A longer 5 hour drive today in very hot weather across the rest of Zululand and up into Mpumalanga as we headed for the hot springs at Badplaas. The scenery was once again great and the back roads relatively quiet but we were both fairly shattered upon arrival, probably a combination of the heat and not being used to longer drives. Made up for it with a soak in the hot pools before bed.
30 September: Massive storm last night, possibly the biggest downpour we have had while in Mr J, even got a bit of leakage through the seams. All hot pools closed today as they all are flooded, even in the inside ones which is a bummer as it is a chilly day and perfect for hot pools…