Hi There. Last year I wrote about some of my favourite road trip experiences which included a drip between Connect and Weehawken as well from Durban to Johannesburg and back. You can read about and see pics of the smallest church in Southern Africa here.
Another trip that comes to mind is an overnight bus trip from Durban to Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) that my son and I took when he was about three or four years old. The new name is an IsiXhosa word, and the pronunciation of it might take some practice. You can learn how to pronounce it here. Anyway, I digress. I was a bit apprehensive about travelling overnight on a bus with him. Lucky for me, he was an excellent traveller as a kid, so on that front, all went well. It had snowed the previous day on the Drakensberg mountains, so I was hoping that my son would get his first glimpse of it and even get to touch it when we got to Kokstad, which is near the southern Drakensberg. It was not to be. Most of it had melted, and all we saw was the last dregs on the side of the road as we neared Kokstad. By the way, Oprah’s school for girls is just outside of Kokstad.
The trip was going well until the bus broke down about 20 minutes outside of Grahamstown (Now Makhanda. Thankfully, there are no tricks to pronouncing that name 😅). It was about 5 am, and it was freezing cold. The temperature was closer to zero degrees Celsius than it was to ten. Thankfully, after about thirty minutes, they got the bus going again, and we limped off to Grahamstown, where it died. I felt so sorry for those who needed to get to Cape Town. They now had to wait for a new bus to arrive to take them the rest of the way. I have no idea what time they eventually reached their destination. Luckily for my son and I, the friend we were visiting drove through to fetch us. It’s just under an hour and a half’s drive, so we were very grateful. It was freezing in Grahamstown. We were so fascinated by the town. The architecture is an interesting mix of Cape Dutch and modern buildings. It’s a modern town, but we also saw a donkey cart making its way down the road. It’s part dorp (an Afrikaans word for a small town or village) and part modern town. It was very interesting.
Anyway, we did eventually get to Gqeberha. It took us a while longer than planned, but we reached our destination safely. Thank goodness I had booked us flights home so we didn’t have to go through that experience again. My son wasn’t feeling well either, so it worked out perfectly. Needless to say, we will not be doing a bus trip again in a hurry.
An update on my plan to go on a cruise as I mentioned in part 1. It is booked and happening this year! We are super excited! I will definitely tell you all about it when we get back!
Well, that’s it from me. Thanks for popping by. Be blessed!
Grounded African 