There is very little of interest between Johannesburg and Waterval Boven in the middle of winter. Aside from the change in landscape at the N1/N4 interchange after Pretoria, the dry brown scrubby highveld is broken only by the smoking towers of power stations and the angular electricity pylons marching away importantly to the cities west of them.
We took the N14 past Pretoria to the N4, where signs pointing to eMalahleni temporarily confused us. Unfortunately Witbank’s more exotic modern name has done nothing to improve this hard little coal-mining town where we were confronted by large signs on the outskirts warning us not to stop. Hi-jack hotspot! High crime area! Complete with a 10-foot wall down the center of the highway (apparently an attempt to stop pedestians crossing and lower the fatal accident rate).
But at Waterval-Boven the road drops into the lowveld and the air is warmer. The trees are taller, flat-topped acacias and lime-green fever trees start to appear. Further east, past the flamboyants and bright purple bouganvillas of Nelspruit (where we stopped to buy groceries and had very good sushi in a local Super Spar) the inselbergs I associate more with Zimbabwe than South Africa dot the landscape. It is only the lack of baobabs that reminds me I am south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
Inselberg ahead.
Throughout southern Africa these are referred to as koppies. The best examples I’ve seen are in Zimbabwe, with Matopos, outside Bulawayo, providing us with hours of fun as children, where we ran shrieking from the blue-headed agamas (or blouskops as we called them) sunning themselves on the rocks.
With the shortage of petrol we had been driving slowly and even though the teeny-tiny 4x4 was fully packed (I took all my clothes, just in case) our petrol consumption was around 6-7l/100km. Walter immediately declared we could get there and half way back on a single, 40l tank. Walter is not known for his petrol-consumption wizardry, however, and has had to be rescued after running out a few times (the children always told me, despite being bribed with sweets, milkshakes and later even money) Being more cautious I filled up as soon as the gauge dropped to half a tank (despite the spare 10l jerry-can we carried)
Just before Komatipoort I made him pull over so that I could take a picture of the KFC plane. Words fail me for this one.
Bizarrely (or appropriately, I can’t decide) there are chickens roosting in the plane
We had booked into a small B&B in Komatipoort and after giving the TomTom heart failure by changing direction a few times we finally found our way there.
The sleepy town of Komatipoort
It’s a pleasant little B&B, run by 2 slightly eccentric cat-loving Brit expatriates who put on a braai for dinner and welcomed the “united nations of guests this evening; we have Americans, Dutch, Brits and South Africans”
The other guests were heading into the Kruger Park. We spent a little while talking to the other South African family who had been to the Samora Machel memorial. “The wreck is still there” they told us, “lying broken in the veld”
The B&B in Komatipoort
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