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South Africa, finally!

Sunday morning we headed down from Namibia. No problems at all crossing into South Africa over a bridge on the Oranje River. The border officials said "what do you think of South Africa?" and I responded "I knew we were out of Namibia when I saw a river which actually had water in it", which they thoroughly appreciated. The Namibian joke is that the fish swim upstream and leave a dust trail! We continued south on roads which actually curved (Grant was in heaven!) and got to within 65 km of Cape Town that night.

Yesterday we bypassed Cape Town and headed southeast to Cape Agulhas, which is officially the southernmost point in Africa. Everybody, including us, thinks it's the Cape of Good Hope, but it's not! We both had to dip our boots in the ocean (forget swimming, it's freezing cold!), then took pictures of us and the bike and got a GPS reading (only 34 degrees, Africa doesn't go nearly as far south as Europe goes north - 71 degrees at North Cape, Norway). So we've come 30,000 km on the bike's odometer since North Cape, and were feeling a bit pleased with ourselves, even if we did have to fly it from Cairo to Nairobi.

We stayed last night in Hermanus, which is on the coast between Cape Agulhas and Cape Town, and famous here for whale watching. We did see whales today, but quite a long way out to sea. Then we drove around the coast to Cape Town, which is a fabulously scenic drive but windy! The wind is very strong here, even in town.

Written on October 14, 1997 by Grant and Susan Johnson riding around the world by BMW motorcycle. Their odyssey has spanned 14 years, 39 countries, over 100,000 km and produced 1000's of photos. More stories can be read on www.HorizonsUnlimited.com .

Posted on April 16, 2008

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