Cango Caves

Cango Caves are located in the southern part of South Africa's Swartberg mountains, near the town of Oudtshoorn. The Caves were visited the next day after crossing the Swartberg gorge. The total length of the passages is more than 4 kilometers, but only one-quarter of it is open to visitors, and even that with a guide only.


The caves were discovered in 1780 by a local farmer Jacobus Van Zyl. It`s more correct to say that re-discovered - as the entrance of the cave had been inhabited in the Stone Age already.

Cape Town

And Cape Town it is. Coming here by car it took me 371 days and 41.000 kilometres were covered.

Cape Town is different, as if it were not real Africa. Africa as such is usually associated with villages and towns of quite different looks.

In the Swartberg Mountain Range

For a change some pictures of nature from the southern part of South Africa, here in this post there are mainly mountain roads of the mountains of Swartberg.

While looking at the pictures of the roads they just confirm that one must visit the place. And fortunately here they have not been able to put down the asphalt everywhere as it could spoil half of the fun.


The signpost promised a bit more interesting part of the road.

Cape Agulhas

Day 369
41,437 km since the beginning of the journey

Cape Agulhas is the place you could not help visiting it, as it is the southernmost tip of the African continent and also the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. Portuguese navigators named of the cape Cabo das Agulhas or Cape of Needles, because the magnetic and geographic north direction coincide here.Link


The southernmost building of continental Africa is a lighthouse, built in 1848.

Kimberley – The Big Hole

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Day 364
39 993 km since the beginning of journey

This morning the journey continued towards Kimberley, because there is the Big Hole, the most famous and the deepest hand-escavated hole in the search for diamonds.


So it looks like, the city of Kimberley is in the distance and the Big Hole is really huge.

More about Pretoria

Day 362
39398 km sinve the beginning of the journey.

I'm still in Pretoria. The formalities with the visa are not over yet and so I have enjoyed the town and its places of interest.


Church Square in Pretoria.

South Africa

Written in South Africa, Pretoria.

The checkout from Swaziland was as easy as the entry to this country had been. In the queue for 2 minutes, one more stamp in the passport and that was it. A couple of hundred yards ahead the next country was waiting, South Africa. The paper work took more time there. I asked how long I could stay in the country and I was told that until January 31. Up to that date I was supposed to have the right to enter the country. It was something unexpected and new to me - because in the majority of the countries I had visited, the visas are issued for a certain period of time – either one month, or 90 days etc. And the period starts in the moment one enters the country. To be quite sure I asked it over once more and the answer was the same this time too.



And as the day was soon over I drove to Komantipoort ,the nearest place of a larger population, and it was supposed to have a decent mall, and camping place as well - and so it was. .

Swaziland, Mazda service

This post is of technical nature, in the meantime this kind topic of is necessary as well. The pictures about nature will be in the next post.
I have been asked many times if there had been any problems by the
car - but actually nothing special has happened. One thing was that a new battery was needed and the tailgate lock also needed to be cleaned of the dust of the road and after Congo the radiator was full of mud, but no more specific problems that I can recall.

But this time the story is as follows.

As a rule almost every morning I check the car - have a look under the bottom and check the oil level. And so in Mozambique I find out that some oil is leaking between the engine and gearbox. At the camping I was advised to have it repaired in South Africa but while in Swaziland I found a good “Service”. And not only for Mazda but for Ford and BMW as well.

To make the long story short – all the necessary items were found sooner or later.

Swaziland

Day 349

Between Mozambique and the Republic of South Africa there is one small country more - Swaziland.

The Kingdom of Swaziland or Swaziland achieved independence from England in 1968. The area of the state is 17,364 m2, it is less than half of Estonia and the population is 1.2 million, so the population is smaller than in Estonia as well. The state is surrounded by the Republic of South Africa from three sides and Mozambique lies on the fourth side Swaziland does not have sea border.

And another important difference – according to the information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Estonians are allowed to go to Swaziland without a visa. The sign "Welcome to Swaziland” was waiting ahead.

And so it was.



The Passport Control examined the passport. “Estonia?" Then checked something and stamped the border crossing. The whole story, and that's true that Estonians need no visa to enter Swaziland