Going nowhere fast, well not with John anyway.

The time finally came to head back to Home Affairs yesterday to see if I
could collect my extended visa, a Spousal Visa. Now as far as we know I am
'entitled' to a 2 year temporary residence visa as Sue, my spouse, holds an
SA passport. Anyway, we have learnt the last couple of visits to Home
Affairs to get there before 09h00 as it is fairly quiet and you only have to
wait for 30 minutes or so instead of 3 or 4 hours to get the good or bad
news.

Now the only real requirement for me to get this visa is to prove that I am
married to Sue, hence a copy of the marriage certificate supplied with the
application. All straight forward. You would think. I get to the front of
the queue, get called up, hand in my application receipt and wait as the man
disappears into the back office. The man eventually comes back with my
application, 'there is a problem'. 'Oh, what problem?' I ask.

'You need to provide a divorce certificate for your wife's previous
marriage' he tells me.

'Err, sorry?' I reply, very confused. He shows me the print out from their
system of Sue's details with, according to them, the details of her husband,
John, and the marriage in 1997.

Sue comes over to see what is happening, and is just as stumped as me. We
try to explain that their system is wrong. The system was updated in 2003.
Sue realises that this must have been when she got her passport renewed with
her new name and supplied the marriage details. They obviously updated her
record with the wrong information. The man disappears into the back office
again. Several minutes later he comes back and tells us to go upstairs to
the marriage department and see the supervisor. We do as directed and
explain the situation to her. She takes our details and copies our documents
and says she will phone head office and see what they can do and then call
us. Back to the man downstairs who makes us wait a bit, then stamps my
application receipt so that I wont get thrown out of the country when my
current visa expires, well not for 30 days anyway!

So how long is it going to take to sort out their system with the correct
details? Back at home Sue tries the various phone numbers given to us
earlier. The helpdesk, no help. The head office, permanently engaged, and
the odd time you get through they try and transfer you to someone to help
but no one answers the phone. Finally Sue tries the helpdesk again, even
less help apart from telling us that we need to apply to get the details
amended, may take 3 to 9 months! Sue gives up.

To our surprise just before we head out the door after lunch the phone
rings, its the lady from the marriage dept at Home Affairs. She has passed
our details to head office and they will investigate their archives and get
back to her. Who knows when.

So now, we wait. Until the marriage details are corrected immigration wont
issue the visa. It makes you wonder how many thousands of details on their
computers are wrong, you read stories in the papers here every day, all of
them much much worse than ours, peoples lives destroyed with the
inefficiencies.

Hey ho, you just have to laugh. Wonder where John is though? Perhaps he was
the one who stole our vehicle (as we were told at the Swazi border)! Don't
things usually come in threes, what next??

Swaziland, the heat, the mist, the end

We had a great time at Mlilwane WS, but after 5 nights it was time to move
on. Before getting too far we stopped off at a fruit and veg market to fill
in the gaps in the food stores. The goods on sale were top notch and well
priced too. Just a shame we had not found the place a couple of days earlier
when we had gone to the supermarket to stock up, things were not so good and
not so cheap! Never mind, we know where the market is now for next time.
Further along we stopped off in Matsapha (S26 29.443 E31 18.326) to gets
some bread and beer then we fed Mufasa in Manzini (S26 29.835 E31 22.467) at
a Galp service station, boy fuel is cheaper here than SA.

Eventually we crossed to the north east of the country and to the Hlane NP
(S26 15.580 E31 52.603) and the Ndlovo Camp. The weather for the previous
few days had been nice, some sun, a cool breeze, into the mid 20's. By the
time we had come to rest at Hlane it was roasting in the top 30's, no
breeze! The campsite was empty so we picked a good spot and had some lunch.
Of course as expected with a whole campsite to choose from, the next people
to arrive parked right next to us, a noisy bunch too! In the end it turned
out to be a stroke of luck as we found and moved to another better spot with
nobody else nearby. No electricity in the camp at all, but the ablutions
were very nice and lit by paraffin lanterns at night. The park is not huge,
but they boast Elephant, Hippo, White Rhino, and Lions. Lets start with the
Lions. They are kept in their own special enclosure which you pay extra to
enter. Understandable to want to try and protect them from poachers etc, but
we did not bother to go and see them as it felt a bit like a zoo, and anyway
we could hear them roaring at night. Talking of zoos, there is a large
waterhole next to the camp. For protection from the wild animals there is a
two strand barbed wire electric fence. Impala , yep would stop them. Rhino,
err possibly? Elephants, good luck! We saw plenty of Rhino at the waterhole,
a group of 8 together at one point. We also had close encounter with two
young males, and two mum's with babies. Now of course the Rhino seem quite
used to humans in close proximity here, and unless provoked they come quite
close to the wire for a look. The problem is really with the 'intelligent'
species, i.e. humans. Some people will do anything to get 'the photo'. They
lie down under the fence, lean over it, all with a huge lump of Rhino just
feet away. I just sat and watched on. They did come quite close to me at one
point although they probably didn't see me as I was sitting very still they
might have got a whiff of me. Suddenly they got startled and sped off in a
cloud of dust. Why? A young girl came plodding up to the fence and plonked
down on the bench next to me. Hmmm. To top things off a member of staff came
out to 'educate' people of what not to do when the Rhinos were there and
that close, i.e. back away from the fence or just keep still. I was the only
one left sitting there, everyone else had wandered off including the young
girl, and got a personal message! I did explain that I was probably the only
thing at the waterhole that hadn't moved for an hour, I think he understood.

Anyway, since the heat of the previous day when we had arrived, it had
cooled somewhat back into the mid 20's, heavy cloud. The heavens threatened
to open that night with the sky lighting up with lightning, but we only had
a few spots. The Swazi dancers weren't taking any chances though and called
short their performance as they didn't fancy getting wet, and suspected that
the audience would scarper anyway.

The morning we left, only stayed two nights, was cloudy with light drizzle.
We had to manoeuvre Mufasa out from under the tree he was parked next to so
that the tent could dry off without constant dripping from the branches
above. Stopping off briefly just up the road at the Mbuluzi Conservancy (S26
09.359 E31 58.969) to check out camping options, rustic but nice, we aimed
north and west. As we had been without cell coverage in Swazi I had a
cunning plan to get close to the Managa Border Post (S25 56.000 E31 45.661)
with SA so as to get phone reception to check messages and send a blog (last
one not this one). The border was only 6km off route and the plan was
successful. Our next aim for the day was to head back across to the NE of
Swazi to Piggs Peak and then down to either the Maguga Dam or the Malolotja
NP, the previously misted out destinations. Although it was overcast the
weather seemed bright enough. Well it did until we hit the dirt road to
Piggs Peak just after leaving Mandlangempisi. As we climbed the mist got
thicker and thicker. The mountains are logging country, and with all the
trees comes mist by the bucket load. When we eventually crawled out into
Piggs Peak the mist was much worse than it had been just a week earlier. Our
hopes of a visit to Malolotja NP were not great, even staying at Maguga Dam
seemed pointless. When we eventually crawled past the entrance to Malolotja
NP we could not even see the entrance gate from the road. So with no other
option we decided to cut our losses and head for the border and back into
SA. It seemed a shame to end the trip like this, but we could not see things
getting any better for quite a while and camping in misty drizzle when you
don't really need to seemed silly. Walking in the Malolotja NP was quite out
of the question!
So to the Ngwenya Border Post (S26 12.758 E30 59.436) it was. Still misty
all the way. We topped up Mufasa at the Galp before the border, still cheap.
The border was quite busy but things moved quickly. Back into SA it was, and
still in the mist. Our best choice for the night was Badplaas (S25 57.412
E30 33.784) and the resort there where we could camp for the night. We only
shook off the mist once we had descended quite some way but we could still
see the blanket over the mountains to the east. The resort is huge with a
thermal spa etc., and quite busy. The campsite, average, and ablutions poor.
The view however was stunning despite only being able to see a third of it
with the heavy cloud.

The next morning after drying and packing a very misty wet tent we hit the
road back to Joburg. Stopping off in Carolina at the Wimpy, this time to
feed our bellies and not Mufasa's, we continued and decided to avoid the
power stations. So we went a different way up towards Witbank and ended up
with coal mines and more power stations, oh and plenty of huge coal trucks.

Finally we saw the sun on the highway back to the big city. Well sometimes
you just want to get away from it all and other times you sigh a relief when
you get back to it!

Into Swaziland, well it could be anywhere in the thick mist!

Off into Swaziland we go, well we hope that is where we will end up, looks a
bit cloud bound from where we are sitting in Barberton!
We had a great 3 nights in Chrissiemeer in our own private oak wood. The
water from the taps gradually became a lot less orange, obviously no one had
been camping for some time. Well probably not since the Bushcats were here
in August, thanks for pointing us to this great spot! A great spot to spend
time down at the lake checking out the birds, well that is if we did not
scare them off first, and then chilling in the wood reading and relaxing. We
could have stayed longer, we will be back.
So with Swaziland calling it was time on Friday to get closer with a stop
off at Barberton. We headed from Chrissiemeer on a great tar road up to
Carolina, not much to report but we filled Mufasa's belly. The we chugged
along via Badplass to Barberton. Our lovely sunny morning eventually
disappeared as we climbed up and over the Nelsberg Pass (at least I think
that is what it was called!). There was a very thick blanket covering it
which seemed to extend all the way to Barberton, and as far as we could see
on over the mountains to Swaziland. Our stop for the night was at the
Barberton Caravan Park (S25 47.110 E31 02.925). I guess many a year a ago it
was quite a nice caravan park, lovely grounds and trees but somewhat tired
ablutions, more than functional though. Our one night ended up being two
nights as Sue needed to do some washing despite the overcast and damp
weather. Things did not look much better when we upped camp and aimed for
the border Sunday morning. We knew there was a stunning drive ahead of us up
over the Saddleback Pass to the border into Swaziland at Bulembu (S25 56.896
E31 08.037). Being a steep climb Mufasa was mostly relegated to 2nd gear
which in the end didn't really matter as we could only see about 20 feet in
front of us in the heavy mist!! So much for the amazing view, another time
maybe.
The border formalities were as easy as could be. Well except for the men on
the SA side telling us that our vehicle was listed as stolen! Err, what?
Eventually after he got the whole story they said that sometime in Mufasa's
past he must have been stolen and recovered and this must be on his record
with the registration people. We did have visions of them impounding him and
making us walk home! Guess we need to check this out back in Joburg, nowt to
worry about they said!
So off into the cloudy misty murk of Swaziland it was. Bulembu is mostly a
ghost town since the asbestos mine there shut down many a year ago causing
an exodus of the 10,000 population of mine workers. It seems that things are
changing though with plans of creating a completely self sufficient village
there.
The road from Bulembu was 'back to Africa' style, bumpy but Mufasa (and his
driver) loved it! Eventually at Piggs Peak (S25 57.761 E31 14.731) we hit
tar, still in the murk though. Our planned stop of the Malolotja NR (S26
08.813 E31 08.304) was given a rain check, well it was cloudy misty and
drizzling! From the pictures we have seen it looks beautiful, and a walkers
haven, but we will have to come back another day either this trip or the
next. So instead we ploughed on slowly dropping in altitude and hit the
capital Mbabane (S26 19.514 E31 08.552). Well I say hit it we cruised past
it on our way to the next park on our list the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary
(S26 28.794 E31 11.662). A very pleasant camp, looks like they have been
doing some renovations as the campsite we are staying at has newly built
braai and the cane fences around other areas are getting a good licking of
creosote. The wildlife in the sanctuary is mostly buck and zebra but there
are hippos and crocs in the lake so care is needed if wandering in the dark.
Well for me anyway as Sue is usually tucked up well before then!! The
campsite was pretty quiet for the first night but suddenly on the second day
it was invaded. Thirteen rental motorhomes and their Dutch inhabitants on a
umpteen week tour of South Africa. Our only complaint, a lot of the men seem
to live around camp in their Speedos with overhanging bellies, nice!! One
their first night they were obviously due to eat dinner up at the
restaurant. We knew this as at about 18h00 their leader rang his bell loudly
to alert the group that it was time. Some of the group were already dressed
and ready others were frantically running around, wine boxes in hand, trying
to catch up and not make the commandant have to ring his bell a second time!
We tried not to snigger as we looked on, well it would be rude to miss the
show.
The one strange thing here, the drink rules. There is a big sign next to the
entrance gate, along with all the other many rules and regulations, stating
that as the camp is a licensed premises only alcohol bought at the camp can
be consumed! Make up your own mind on why, although prices are quite
reasonable. Needless to say I don't think the rule is fully obeyed, and
haven't seen an alcohol police yet?
There are plenty of activities to keep the willing busy, with walking, horse
riding, mountain biking, game drives, and quad biking. We did the 2.5 hour
self guided walk this morning. Nice but not too much to see, except a
multitude of White Fronted Bee-eaters ducking in and out of their nests in
the mud bank, oh and pretty hot too. A cool dip in the not so clear
swimming pool was just the ticket to wash the sweat and dirt off!
We have been happily camped here for 3 nights so far but will head to the
Malkerns Valley next door tomorrow to see the Swazi candles, either camping
there if we can find somewhere or perhaps coming back here if not.
Oh, we decided to come back for another night, our 4th. Then as we had it in
our mind to head off the next day another 'overland' couple, John and Karen
from Denmark, arrived and we chatted till late that night, Sue didn't get to
bed until almost 23h00!! We also spent the following morning chatting,
drinking coffee, and before we knew it lunch time had crept up and we
decided to stay one more night as did they.

Back behind the wheel again, for a little while.

Sometimes you just get the feeling that it is time to pack your life back into boxes and load them up ready for the open road.
After 3 weeks back and my visa application lodged a quick trip to pastures new is needed before the heat and the rain arrives, not to mention the long busy school holidays. Where to go is always an issue with so much choice on the doorstep, our decision is east to Swaziland.
But before setting off we had a very pleasant pre trip test run to the Pilanesberg Game Reserve made up of a long weekend at the Kwa Maritane Resort with Mike Sally and James, followed by 3 nights camping at Bakgatla with early mornings and some great game viewing. With everything checked off it was time to head off on the new adventure.
Getting away from the big city is always a delight but sometimes you have to encounter the powerhouse behind all of the city hustle and bustle. On this occasion it was the landscape of coal fired power stations and the endless acrid clouds they emit. It is hard to imagine living in the towns immersed in the ever looming pollution, it feels like our lives have been culled by a few days just passing through the 60km or so of oxygen free air between Leandra and Bethal. If nothing else it makes you appreciate the sacrifices some make for the bulk of the population, let alone the damage that we are doing to the planet.
Anyway, we continued to chug on in our very own oxygen eater to our destination of Chrissiemeer and the little gem that is Miss Chrissie's Country House (S 26 18.673 E 30 13.933). They have some 'historic sandstone accommodation', and also a very nice oak tree wood to camp in. The ablutions are basic and the water is sometimes very orange, but it is quiet and all ours. This seems so far to be a quite untouched part of the country as far as crime goes which is nice. The area is dotted with some 300 or so pans and pools, and the 6km or thereabouts long lake just next to us. We sat down by it for sometime this morning bird spotting. The only problem with the woods is the roosting Hadedas that went off like a loud out of tune alarm clock at some vulgar time this morning, aint nature great!
From here we head to Barbeton and then into Swaziland and the unknown.