At times you cover only a short distance, or no distance at all, and still there find that there is a lot to tell. At other times it is the other way around.

We needed to be back in Johannesburg by Tuesday night April 15 and were still hanging around Cape town on Saturday morning as we wanted to visit the Table Mountain. The only way to do so was by cable car or walk (as if)

The drive to the base was slow as there was a lot of traffic consisting of day trippers in cars and large tourist busses. Parking was arranged along the road, however when directed to a parking spot we ignored the signals and kept going past at least 500 meters of parked cars and busses. Near the entrance we instantly decided to use the roundabout and give the whole idea a miss as queuing was not an option.

Instead we headed out of town and started to drive the approx. 1800 km back towards Johannesburg. A few days ago we had entered the Cape area via the Little Karoo with its mixed landscape and semi dessert areas. Now we were heading north into the Great Karoo. A dessert area of dry land dotted with flat top mountains. These mountains are unusual and will not erode the normal way as they are capped with a hard layer of solidified lava called dolerite. The day ended in Beaufort West, the 480 km of nothingness had taken us a full eight hours to cover. This was due to the fact that the previous night we had met some students from Switzerland and Denmark and had been engaged in deep and meaningful conversations until 2 Am. Today we were paying for it and needed to stop for more than an hour under a shady tree, just outside Touw River. (of which I took a picture for obvious reasons; one of my friend's surname is Touw)

The Karroo gets hotter and dryer the further you move north and ultimately changes into the Kalahari dessert. Beaufort West is a nice small town made prominent by its world famous son Dr Christiaan Barnard; the man who was the first person in the world to perform a heart transplant.(1967)

Before leaving to mid1800’s old ex police station turned into a small hotel with creaky floorboards, we asked the manager what kind of territory we were heading for. Oh…just more of the same- nothing. We decided to give it another chance to see if we could reach the country of Lesotho which we failed to enter two weeks ago. From this side it would be easier as it has some tarred roads. The nothingness of the Karoo did remain the same, the only wild life we came across we small groups of monkeys darting along the side of the road with the odd car driving past at up to 130 km/hour. No need to slow down for them as they know what it is all about otherwise they would have been dead before now.

By four pm we reached the border near Mohale’s Hoek. The border formalities were minimal and didn’t take more than 10 minutes. From there on, once you leave the building and pass the boom gate you leave the bitumen, common sense, phone and internet service, friendly people and 2014 behind and enter an obscure territory with a very rough road surface. A few days earlier I had checked Google earth and knew that bitumen roads lay ahead so we pushed on until we reached Mohale’s Hoek town for the night.

The next day (today) we needed to continue and didn’t know what to expect but found the roads to be in good order, they had obviously been built in recent times. People here were very different, hardly any friendly smiles and at times when they saw us using a camera we were met with angry shouts. Not a friendly place at all for some reason. Having no internet or any other means to book accommodation we made our way to the far north and exited near the town of Butha-Buthe as this is on the way to the South African town of Bethlehem. We figured that there we would always find a place no matter what, even if all the inns were full there would at least be a stable or two.

Tomorrow back to Johannesburg, our last day of driving. We plan to visit Soweto when we get there.

Before closing this page I would like to thank all the persons who sent me comments and words of encouragement to keep writing which, it times, is rather difficult and time consuming; but nevertheless I enjoy doing it and reading your comments which are sent to me via the blog and directly to my email address. After leaving Johannesburg I will attempt to what I have been doing in the past- sum up my thoughts about the country I have just visited including the conjured question. If I had the opportunity would I want to live here for some time. Well let’s see…