MS Touring

08/03/2024

KZN Midlands part 5…
Continuing along the R103 from Nottingham Road, we travelled through Lidgetton West, Lions River (where you can find the Mandela Capture Site Museum), Howick, Hilton and ending the day in Pietermaritzburg, which is officially the southernmost, largest, and only city in The Midlands.
It is a rather more open route, as you now motor along a relatively hilly bit of terrain between the drop off from the highveld at Harrismith, and the next drop off to the coastal plains on the east coast, but it has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting, and the scenery is just as good.
The weather was slightly better when we set off, and improved almost until we hit Pietermaritzburg, when it became heavily overcast and a bit drizzly again.

04/03/2024

KZN Midlands part 4…

Arriving in a misty, drizzly, cool Nottingham Road, where the local economy is driven by agriculture and premium private schooling, we found most of the town to be shut down as it was a school long-weekend and a Sunday afternoon. We decided to do a quick bit of stocking up at the local supermarket, before heading to our accommodation for the next two nights, and since we were coming back to explore this area, we decided to leave it in the hopes of finding it with better weather.
The R103 winds down through the heavily forested foothills of the Drakensberg mountains through small towns and vaguely demarcated areas with names reminiscent of a colonial past and the wildness that would have been found here centuries ago; “Lidgetton”, “Lion’s River”, “Balgowan”, “Dargle” and so on.

03/03/2024

KZN Midlands part 3…
Our second day saw us travelling along the R74 to Frere, the joining the old Johannesburg-Durban route, the R103, passing through the towns of Estcourt, Mooi River, Rosetta and ending up in the village of Nottingham Road, where we spent two nights. This was a leisurely drive of just over 100km for the day, affording plenty of time to see whether any of the old places of interest are still worth stopping off at.
Although there isn’t much in the way of attractions in many of the towns, they are still worth travelling through, often exhibiting historical buildings and old landmarks. The roads were in surprisingly good condition, and traffic – compared to the N3 highway – was minimal and easy to deal with.
Frere, at the junction of the R74 and R103, although steeped in history from when Natal was a colony, as well as from conflict periods during the South African War (Including a site where a young Winston Churchill, war correspondent at the time, was captured during the ambush of an armoured train), was fairly rundown, and we didn’t feel that it was worth stopping at any of the sites at the time of our trip. To be honest, the cluster of buildings that serves as the “town” is almost hardly visible from the road, and if you weren’t specifically looking out for it, you’d probably pass by without knowing.

28/02/2024

KwaZulu-Natal Midlands part 2..
Our first night stop in the town (more like a village) of Winterton, on the banks of the Little Tugela river. Winterton is not quite part of the Midlands, it falls under the Drakensberg region of KZN, and is very close to the foothills of the Drakensberg range.
Winterton is reach on the R76, after descending the first part of the escarpment, and passing Bergville. It was founded in 1905, initially named Springfield when the provincial government constructed a weir across the Little Tugela, and was renamed after HD Winter, the secretary for agriculture in later years.
Although there isn't much to see in Winterton itself, the surrounding areas hold many sites of interest, Winterton is only a short drive away from the South African war major battle sites of Vaal Krantz and Spioenkop, the Spioenkop Dam on the Tugela River as well as being an entry point in the northern and central Drakensberg regions. The splendidly scenic areas of the Champagne Valley and Cathedral Peak are reached through Winterton, and the world-famous Drakensberg Boys Choir is around 30km outside of town.

27/02/2024

We have just completed a short tour of a very small part of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. The Midlands, as it is known, is an inland area in the KwaZulu-Natal province lying in the southeast of the country, and runs roughly from Pietermaritzburg in the south up to the edge of the Drakensberg range in the northwest. The Midlands is one of the 8 “regions” of KwaZulu-Natal (we travelled to Zululand and Elephant Coast this time last year). Over the next few posts we will discuss some of the places we visited on this trip.
We travelled south from Johannesburg on the N3 national highway to Durban, turning off at Harrismith in the Free State to travel the backroads and start the tour. Focussing on small towns, interesting and historical places and back roads we managed to get a taste of what the area has to offer, and although the weather was really not great (misty, rainy and heavily overcast) we still managed to find some good wildlife and see spectacular scenery.
Harrismith lies in the southeastern corner of the Free State province, and was founded in 1849, and named after the British Governor Sir Harry Smith (also a high commissioner of the Cape Colony). It lies on the banks of the Wilge River, one of the main tributaries of the Vaal, and is also the site of the junction between the N3 (almost halfway between Johannesburg and Durban) and the N5 which runs westwards to the provincial capitol of Bloemfontein. Originally the town was laid out roughly 25km from where it presently stands, but moved because of better water resources in 1850. In the 1880’s the town was the second largest in the Orange Free State, after Bloemfontein, and it has been the site of major historical events and was even a major base during the South African War, several blockhouses in the area can still be viewed.
Several historical buildings can be seen around town, although a number are in quite a state of disrepair and some are no longer in use.

18/02/2024

18 February 2024 is World Anthropology Day.
Anthropology is the study of the origin and development of human societies and cultures.
South Africa in particular is incredibly rich in sites of anthropological interest, and today we will discuss the importance of Blombos Cave, which is situated on the southern coastline, around 32km south of the town of Riversdale in the Western Cape province (at 34°24′52″S 21°13′21″E,) and about 300km southeast of Cape Town.
The cave was first excavated in the early 1990’s and has provided a significant amount of early human artefacts and other material. Deposits from the Middle Stone Age are dated at between 100 000 and 70 000 years ago, and newer deposits from the Late Stone Age date back to 2000 to 300 years ago.
Some of the material excavated here consists of engraved ochre, engraved bones, shell beads made from marine shells, as well as some quite refined stone and bone tools. A variety of terrestrial and marine animal remains, including shellfish, along with tortoise shells and ostrich egg shells have also been uncovered, showing that these products were used by the early inhabitants of this site.
Many of the findings from this site, placed in context with other archaeological sites in South Africa also dating from the Middle Stone Age, resulted in a significant paradigm shift in the understanding of the timing and location of the development of what is considered modern behaviour within our species.
One of many hugely important artefacts uncovered here was a rock fragment buried amongst stone spear points, on which it was determined -after several years of extensive testing – were placed by an early human hand the earliest known abstract rock drawings know to us, dating from 73 000 years ago, and representing a quite creative thought process at work. These markings were made using an ochre “crayon” and the patterns on the fragment suggest that it was once part of a much larger drawing.
There is also evidence, on the various species of marine shells found in the cave, and the way that they were deliberately pierced, as well as wear patterns, that these were strung together perhaps to form some type of early jewelry in the form of beads. These are all remarkably similar in shape and size, unlike the same living species still found along the coastline, where much morphological diversity is present, suggesting that they were carefully sought out and selected for similarity. Up until fairly recently, it was thought that personal ornamentation was thought to have originated with the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe around 40 000 years ago, but the evidence from the Blombos site, and some newer sites in Sub-Saharan Africa, now push that further back by another 30 000 years!
The cave can be clearly seen in the centre-right of the attached image, courtesy of Jean Tresfon - Marine Conservation Photographer, a local Marine Conservationist who too the pic piloting his gyrocopter over the area a few weeks ago. Please have a look at his FB page - https://www.facebook.com/JeanTresfonPhotography - and follow his updates, the pictures are amazing and his posts are incredibly informative, and will give you a whole new perspective on the beautiful coastline of the Western Cape.
The cave sits about 100m from the current shoreline, and around 35m above seal level, with a south-facing entrance. There is a main cave chamber of around 39m2 floor space, with an ante-chamber of unknown proportions due to sand infill. It is clear that the cave was a lot larger and more spacious when it was previously inhabited, however it is clear that it was inhabited sporadically for undetermined periods. The site is still a working archeological site.

15/02/2024

15 February is World Hippo Day!
You will remember from our trip down to northern KwaZulu-Natal almost a year ago that we did a sunrise boat cruise on the St Lucia estuary and had a fantastic breakfast along with the hippos thanks to the wonderful staff at Shakabarker Tours (highly recommended). These are the types of activities we always try and find to refer our own guests to, and include in our tours to various areas, but we won't recommend something we haven't done ourselves!
Anyway, back to the hippos!
St Lucia lies on the estuary of Lake St Lucia, and is just outside of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The area in and around the park and St Lucia has the highest population of African Hippo in South Africa, with an estimated 800 individuals, a pretty decent number when you consider the collective weight!
St Lucia is a fantastic spot to do some hippo-spotting and get reasonably close to these amazing animals, but be cautious, hippos are incredibly dangerous both in and out of the water, but as with any wild animal, give them some space and respect the boundaries, and they will not harm you.

13/02/2024

We were honoured yesterday to be able to take some American guests on their first real African safari, although it was only a day trip to Pilanesberg, they had an amazingly memorable day, and we had a fantastic time with them as guests!
Hopefully they will be back to see more of our wonderful country, and we will be lucky enough to host them again. in the future.
Our planned breakfast in the park had to be delayed due to a large elephant bull in musth that decided the access road to the picnic area was where he was going enjoy his own morning meal, so we gave him space and moved on to an alternative spot, fortunate enough to share our breakfast space with a resident hippo pod.

11/02/2024

Another fantastic day at Pilanesberg on Friday with our international guests. Unfortunately we were not able to find any of the big cats roaming around, however the weather started off wonderfully cool and overcast with some slight drizzle which kept the temperatures down until just after lunch, when it got really hot! The animals were everywhere and we saw a huge variety. Elephants were highly entertaining, and we had a number of close encounters with almost all the species we came across.

08/02/2024

A recent outing the the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens with some international guests was very good for birding and wildflowers. We set off early to avoid the heat with the intention of seeing the Verreaux's eagles that have been resident on the cliffs above the gardens for several decades.
After a short, and not too strenuous hike up to the top of the waterfall, the pair of eagles did not disappoint us, with several fly-pasts at eye level, allowing everyone ample opportunity to get some great pictures. We also saw European honey buzzard and a Peregrine falcon bombing the eagles. Unfortunately no great images of those. Along with cuckoos, a kingfisher, several shrike, flycatcher, weaver and bishop species, we also got some excellent shots of widowbirds, canaries and others. The gardens are wonderfully green after the great rains, and the bush is lush and full of fruiting trees, flowers and insects of every sort.

06/02/2024

Over the weekend we took some international guests up to Pilanesberg for the day, the hot weather had many animals out, although there had been good rains recently and water was everywhere which dispersed them quite a bit. The birdlife was fantastic, with 97 species recorded for the day without even trying hard, and insect life was pretty good with a variety of butterflies and dragonflies around. Unfortunately no big cats to be seen on this visit, hopefully the upcoming trip will be the opposite!
Although it was a very long 15 hour day, it was thoroughly enjoyable and we saw a fantastic variety of species with a good range of the mammals in the park.

15/10/2023

The second Saturday of October 2023 is World Migratory Bird Day. The point of this is to raise awareness for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. These species have significant ecological importance, and they are facing several threats, both in their summer and winter grounds as well as en route during their migrations.
South Africa is a popular destination for many migratory bird species that spend their northern winters here during our southern spring and summer. Many of these species are insect or seed eaters, and many of them travel thousands of kilometres, arriving exhausted from their long trips, relying on local food supplies to fatten them up for the return journeys as the southern autumn approaches.
Most migratory birds are waterbirds, raptors, and some land-birds.
Waterbirds are defined as those species ecologically dependant on wetlands or water bodies for at least part of their annual life-cycle. They generally feed on aquatic life, whether it be certain types of plants, aquatic invertebrates, or fish. Birds like herons, many of the waders, geese, gulls, cranes and even penguins, along with many other families fall into this group. The main threat these birds face is habitat degradation through pollution, loss of wetlands to agriculture and urbanisation, loss of food resources (because of many factors, including anthropogenic activities such as overfishing).
Raptors, also known as birds of prey, include eagles, owls, vultures, falcons, and kestrels etc. Many of these are apex predators within the ecosystems in which they live, and can also be indicator species, in that they are indicative of the health of an ecosystem, which when in good condition, is diverse enough to support enough species in the food chain (plants, herbivores, etc) to enable predators at the top to survive and breed.
Land-birds include species like swallows, bee-eaters, cuckoos, and songbirds, many species of which are in rapid decline worldwide. Most of these species are insectivorous, and the abundant misuse of agricultural chemicals and pesticides across the world, especially in developing nations where these species breed or migrate over means that food supplies are dwindling, and the effects of eating food with high levels of chemicals results in poor egg development, high rates of infertility and poor survival rates in those youngsters that do manage to hatch out, putting sever stress on population diversity.
Large numbers of birds are killed on migration through collisions with man-made structures such as powerlines and glass (reflective) buildings, or are killed illegally through poaching activities at places where they congregate en route to rest or feed, or are unable to find suitable places to rest and feed because of habitat destruction. Many raptors succumb to poisoning en route, either indirectly as the result of consuming other species that have been poisoned on a large scale such as locusts by farmers, or directly through the actions of poachers and farmers misguidedly “protecting” their commercial animals. Several of them are also captured for the illicit trade in traditional medicines.

17/09/2023

Pilanesberg National Park (2 of 2)

17/09/2023

We recently took some clients to Pilanesberg National Park. Leaving the city early meant that we could arrive whilst the animals were starting their days and before it got too warm. Despite the dry bush, the park streams and dams were absolutely full, the highest levels we have seen them in years, as a result of the high volume late summer rains from the past season. Spring has definitely hit the park, with many of the plants starting to bud new leaves and a variety of flowers about, leading to an increase in insect activity, and all the birds that prey on them. We had really excellent sightings of many species of animals, and over 90 bird species for the day. (1 of 2)

08/06/2023

8th June 2023 is World Oceans Day,

We recently completed a tour to Zululand on the northeast coast of South Africa. The area we visited is inside a Marine Protected Area (MPA), and home to several endangered marine species, as well as a major breeding ground for leatherback and loggerhead turtles, as well as containing the most accessible population of coelacanth fish on earth!
This is Africa’s largest MPA, covering 10 700km2, and is part of the second largest wildlife reserve in South Africa after the Kruger National Park!
Oceans face threats from many sides, probably the worst of which is garbage pollution, and we are going to focus today on showing you just how big of a problem it is.
During one of our beach day downtimes, I spent an hour covering approximately 100m of beach at near-high-tide, picking up whatever non-biological debris I could find that was on, or poking out of the sand, which I then sorted roughly by type so we can see what we are dealing with. In total, I collected 1.014kg of waste, out of an estimated 14 MILLION tons of plastic that ends up in our oceans annually, literally a drop in the ocean. Hopefully after reading this post and looking at the images, you will encourage other people to think more about what they use, how they use it, and more importantly, how they dispose of it. We will not be able to come near enough to undo the massive damage we have done to the planet, but we can try, and we can certainly do our best to limit further damage as a direct result of our actions, or lack of them.

23/05/2023

23 May 2023 is World Turtle Day.

Today we will focus on the Green Sea Turtle, Chelonia mydas. These turtles are, like many other species worldwide, heavily endangered, with the main threat to their survival being hunting and poaching, as well as egg harvesting by humans, getting trapped and tangled in fishing nets and drowning, and the ingestion of marine trash like plastics.

22/05/2023

22 May 2023 is International Day for Biodiversity.

This year we will dedicate our post to the insect order Odonata, a group which comprises Dragonflies and Damselflies. These insects have remained on earth largely unchanged since they first appeared in fossil records dating to 250 million years ago!
Worldwide there are around 3000 known species, and in South Africa we have around 164 identified, spread across 6 families of dragonflies and 6 families of damselflies (out of 11 and 27 families worldwide, respectively)
Common names of these amazing insects are often whimsically imaginative, and include Emperors, meadowhawks, sylphs, petaltails, goldentails, demoiselles, odalisques, jewels, spreadwings, dropwings, skimmers, cruisers, darters and many others, often descriptive of behaviours or physical characteristics.

17/04/2023

17 April is International Bat Appreciation Day

Bats are the only mammals capable of sustained, powered flight, using forelimbs that have evolved into wings made up of very elongated hand bones with a soft thing naked skin membrane stretched over them. Bats are all strictly nocturnal animals, with almost all their activity occurring after dark, or around twilight. Bats are divided into two orders, Megachiroptera, the fruit bats, and Microchiroptera, the insectivorous bats. Southern Africa has quite a diversity of bats, with 77 recorded species across the region!

Today we will focus on Wahlberg’s Epaulletted Fruit Bat, Epomophorus walhbergii, one of the largest of the 8 fruit bats found in the region, found across the northern and eastern lowveld, and down the subtropical eastern seaboard through the Eastern Cape province, wherever there is moist evergreen forest with plenty of fruit-bearing trees.

16/04/2023

Everybody loves a good story, and our amazing country has a wealth of them! Al Prodgers has taken it upon himself to passionately retell many of these, through his YouTube channel "Just Off The Highway", sharing the history of people and places, many of which are on the brink of being forgotten. So if you find yourself with some time on your hands (and if you don't have any spare time, sort your life out and make some), visit his channel, and hopefully give him a bit of support. I've posted some links below, the videos are short, highly entertaining, delightfully insightful, and you can disappear down historic wormholes and learn more about so many of the things around you, perhaps looking at them in a different light in the future, whether you are visiting South Africa, or have lived here your whole life. You never know what you didn't know...
https://www.alprodgers.co.za/justoffthehighway.htm
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alprodgers

Al Prodgers Communication

Howzit! I'm on a personal journey, going “Just Off the Highway” to re-discover overlooked places and connect with people who have unusual stories to tell. I aim...

09/04/2023

Northern KwaZulu-Natal, Day 7...

Our final day saw us visiting the world-famous Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserves, the oldest reserves in Africa, established in 1895 after and influx of hunters to the area after the Great Trek decimated animal populations. The area was originally rife with Tsetse fly, spreading trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, making it almost impossible to farm with domestic livestock. In a scientifically unsound manner of trying to control the tsetse flies, during the period between 1907 and 1929, many wild animals, up to 100 000 head of game, were culled in this area with the intention of eliminating the disease, which was not effective.
Northern KwaZulu-Natal, Day 7...

Our final day saw us visiting the world-famous Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserves, the oldest reserves in Africa, established in 1895 after and influx of hunters to the area after the Great Trek decimated animal populations. Originally two separate reserves, the central corridor was added in 1989, allowing the parks to join, and animals to move more freely across both areas. The area was originally rife with Tsetse fly, spreading trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, making it almost impossible to farm with domestic livestock. In a scientifically unsound manner of trying to control the tsetse flies, during the period between 1907 and 1929, many wild animals, up to 100 000 head of game, were culled in this area with the intention of eliminating the disease, which was not effective. Research in the mid 1920's led to the invention of the Harris Trap, which captured incredible numbers of flies, interrupting the breeding cycle, and a massive DDT spraying campaign between 1949 and 1952 covered 10 000km2, almost entirely eradicated the disease by dropping the number of flies, and removed malaria from the area.
Like the rest of the places on our itinerary, the parks have seen good rains, and the bush is thick and lush, providing much food for herbivores, evidenced by the number of young we saw. It did contribute to having to work much harder to see things, but we had excellent sightings of a decent variety of birds, animals, and insects.
The parks are renowned for saving the white and black rhinoceros from extinction, having performed major research and work in reviving the species, and most rhinos in existence in other game reserves all carry the bloodline of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi stock. Unfortunately poaching has not missed this reserve and seeing these amazing animals is a rarity these days.

That brings us to the end of the tour. Thank you for following our updates, and if you wish to do an African Safari in a diverse country, drop us a message and see how we can help you have the adventure of a lifetime.

07/04/2023

Northern KwaZulu-Natal, Day 5...

Day 5 was a chilled day, spending some time on the beach, eating out, catching up on whatever, seeing a few things in town, pretty much whatever we felt like doing that did not entail much planning.
The road from town down to the beaches provides a circular route, through the coastal vegetation, dune forest and onto the beaches. A lot of flowering trees and shrubs provided excellent spots to stop and add a few more butterflies to the list (about 40 species on this road alone, although most of them didn’t cooperate well enough to make wonderful pictures, and a number we had spotted elsewhere). The flooded forests before the beach provided some good spots for birds and dragonflies as well, and we added a few more species of both to the total tally.

03/04/2023

We recently completed an 8-day/7-night tour to northern KwaZulu-Natal on South Africa’s east coast.
We visited a couple of world-renowned game reserves, took part in a variety of great activities, and saw a wealth of wildlife in what is arguably one of the wildest and diverse parts of the country. Over the next week, we will publish a series of posts showcasing the best of what we experienced on this trip.

16/03/2023

A teaser for an upcoming account of our current birding and wildlife trip to northern KwaZulu-Natal, a pod of relaxed hippos at sunrise.

02/02/2023