Rest area
Monday, September 24 the way was very short. I had elected my bivouac at
Forgotten Waterfall Camp where there was no parking lot. I continued on
the track to hills whose trees had been cut down. Desolation view where
there remained only one tree with a trunk in four parts, strange! I
lunched on the spot but the place is isolated too much for a bivouac. I
went to Jukani Sanctuary to bivouac on the car park. A colored
south-African gave me the authorization. But later a white south-African
brutally meant me to leave. Consequently I was going to install me on a
rest area which I had seen approximately 4 km before.
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| Lunch on nowhere |
Refused bivouac at parking Jukani |
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| Bivouac on rest area |
The GPS road tracklog
from Rest Area to Total gas station
from 2018/09/25 to 2018/09/25
Total gas station
Tuesday, September 25 I visited two sanctuaries. Jukani is a
sanctuary of Big Cats which are free in vast enclosures and not in
cage as in a zoo. Accompanied by two other visitors I traversed
during nearly two hours the site with the explanations of a guide.
Observatories allow to see animals above of protections and in
particular to take pictures without fences. A few kilometers further
on I visited Birds of Eden at the beginning of afternoon. Under a
vast tent of fine netting very in height all kinds of birds live
freely with here-beyond mangers for their food. Without being tamed
they are not savage walking on the boardwalk which traverses a small
valley in zigzag around a murmuring brook. I passed more than two
hours in a rapture of colors taking keeps not to walk inopportunely
on small volatile ones. In end of afternoon I found a bivouac on the
car park of the Total gas station.
click on the pic for opening the gallery
click la photo pour ouvrir la galerie
The GPS road tracklog
from Total gas station to Port Elizabeth
from 2018/09/26 to 2018/09/27
Port Elizabeth, Skoenmakerskop
Wednesday, September 26 long way without interest to Port Elizabeth.
After a research I found a splendid bivouac vis-a-vis the Indian
Ocean where I remained two nights.
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| Bivouac |
Sunset |
Le tracé GPS de la route
de Port Elizabeth à Kouga Dam Picnic Area
du 2018/09/28 au 2018/09/28
Kouga Dam Picnic Area
Friday, September 28 after a detour to Pick'n Pay I moved towards
Kouga Dam Picnic Area by the R 331 and R 332 where I arrived at the
beginning of afternoon after having wiped a storm along the Indian
Ocean. The valley around the town of Patensie is an immense citrus
fruits orchard planted on a very fertile ocher ground sprinkled out
of water by the tank of Kouga.
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| Orchard of citrus |
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| Bivouac |
Kouga Dam |
The GPS road tracklog
from Kouga Dam Picnic Area to Willowmore
from 2018/09/29 to 2018/09/29
Willowmore
Saturday, September 29 I undertook to traverse the R 332 which twist
in Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area, registered with the World
Heritage. It is a very degraded ground track sometimes with a
two-track cemented roadway, sometimes paved on 10 or 20 meters and
often with fords to be crossed. The panel at the entrance announces
173 km in 6 hours. Left at 8:00 I arrived at Willowmore exactly at
14:00! The landscapes are sublimes sometimes in bottom of valley,
sometimes on croups or peaks to pass from a hill to another.
Sensibly there are leopards, antelopes and Buffaloes. I met only
antelopes and, monkeys on the track. In Willowmore I bivouacked in
the street in front of the Police office.
click on the pic for opening the gallery
The GPS road tracklog
from Willowmore to Graaff-Reinet
from 2018/09/30 to 2018/10/01
Nieu-Bethesda, Valley of Désolation
Sunday morning September 30th I left my safety bivouac in front of
the Police headquarters to go to Graaff-Reinet which I crossed
without to stop to visit Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda. The house of
the owl was decorated by Miss Helen Martins (1897-1976) with cement
characters more or less in a biblical attitude, of which one of the
characters is a reminiscence of a Sumerian orant! The interior of
the house is very coloured. The unit is a patchwork between the
French Dadaism of the Facteur-Cheval and the dwarfs of garden more
licked besides. Is it art? or a demonstration of a disturbed spirit!
At the beginning of afternoon I returned to Graff-Reinet to see
Valley of Desolation located in Camdeboo National Mark. The
description of Lonely-Planet is as usual dithyrambic. Actually it is
about a gigantic fault between two rock faces laminated by the
climatic erosion of million years. Of course only one walls is lit
by the sun in the afternoon. Then I sought a bivouac in
Graff-Reinet; I found only Urguhart Caravan Park whose sanitary are
of a pushing back dirtiness! Before leaving to visit the city
I announced the state of the sanitary to the reception.
click on the pic for opening the gallery
click on the pic for opening the gallery
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| Bivouac at Graaff-Reinet |
Graaff-Reinet
Monday morning I visited the four museums installed in houses of the
time of colonization by Dutch East India Company. Graaff-Reinet was
founded in 1786 according to the name of the governor, Van der
Graaff as well as the maiden name of his wife, Reinet. It is at the
altitude of 760 meters at the bottom of mountains and Valley of
Desolation. The four museums gathers attesting odds and ends of this
time of the life of the inhabitants. The houses kept their furniture
of origin; it is moving. At the beginning of afternoon I returned to
the camp-site by informing if the sanitary had been cleaned.
click on the pic for opening the gallery
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| Dutch Reformed Church |
