We spent a week exploring the Wild Coast towns of Morgan Bay, Coffee Bay and the incredible Hole in The Wall, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It’s rural South Africa where cows have right of way and life is synched to a much slower pace. Here’s the video… NB! If you arrived here after clicking a link to or within my older site kangela.com, please don’t be alarmed, you have been redirected to my new online home, I’m gradually […]
Gamkaskloof, also known as Die Hel, or The Hell is located in a remote valley in the Swartberg mountains in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It was entirely cut off from the outside world until 1962, when the road; actually a steep, windy and sometimes dangerous gravel track, was built. Most of the original 160 residents of the valley left soon after the road was completed, the last one departing in 1991. Here’s the video… NB! If you […]
Sossusvlei, a place that’s had a special place in my heart ever since I first read about it in the ’80s, and then experienced through the photography of late Getaway Magazine photographer Patrick Wagner. Here the Tsauchab River, which only flows occasionally, eventually gives up its effort to reach the sea and disappears into the drifting sands of the Namib, the most ancient of the world’s deserts. Some years the river doesn’t flow at all, other times for only part […]
From the Mata Mata border to Lüderitz is a 6 hour drive (according to Google), but I’d allow more time to appreciate the awesome scenery that changes all the time. Check out the Seeheim Hotel, 50 or so kilometres past Keetmanshoop. It’s like Hotel California crossed with the Royal Hotel, where anything might happen. Omaruru the African Grey Parrot will be there to meet you. Also stop to admire the Wild horses of the Namib Desert a few kilometres past […]
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is in the far north of South Africa, at the meeting place of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. It’s the kind of place where the first thing that springs to mind is a dry, almost lifeless desert. How wrong assumptions can be though, at times, after a summer of excellent rains the area can be a green paradise, with lush grasslands, full waterholes and abundant wildlife. I just love roads like these, where you won’t see […]
The island of Zanzibar is a semi autonomous province of Tanzania on Africa’s East Coast. The name “Tanzania”, which came into being in the early 1960’s, is a combination of the original colonial name Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Azania (the ancient Greek and Roman name for the East coast of Africa). There are several islands in the Zanzibar Archipelago, the main island, commonly known as Zanzibar Island, is officially called Unguja, and it’s been inhabited for at least 20 000 years. […]
It was cold when we drove down the main street of Matjiesfontein, which seems as though it’s stuck firmly in the late 19th century. It’s not hard to believe that it’s supposedly one of the most haunted towns in South Africa. We pulled up in the parking area in front of the Lord Milner Hotel and pushed open the huge front door, revealing a red staircase, right out of a Stephen King novel. Here’s the video (more recent than the […]
