9. From Kruger Park
From Kruger Park, we were to travel Southeast to a town called Newcastle on our way to the coast near Durban. Unfortunately, our plan was disrupted.
While we were traveling through an area marked by eucalyptus plantations and all kinds of tropical fruit farms, the large van we had rented (accommodating all 10 of us and our luggage) suddenly and rather mysteriously just slowed and eventually shut down. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere in a clearing of eucalyptus logs.
After numerous calls to the rental agency, a man appeared with another vehicle and we limped our way to the small town of Hazyview. We stopped at a little shopping area that had a beautiful outside coffee bar/restaurant. The man from the rental agency took the van to a larger city where they attended to the issue. (Evidently, the issue we had is not uncommon with that particular vehicle)
The silver lining was that the stay we had at the coffee bar, Sabie Valley Coffee, was really pleasant. We enjoyed great coffee and lunch and just relaxed while we waited. It was really good for us to take a deep breath and calm our nerves. The setting highlighted the semi-tropical plant life of the region and the coffee plantation owned by the folks at Sabie Valley Coffee. They even had little coffee plants on each table.
I don’t remember exactly, but I believe our delay was about 3-4 hours. The van was returned to us at Sabie Valley Coffee and we continued our journey without further interruption. The trip to Newcastle was uneventful other than a restroom stop at a small town. The only place we could find that had a restroom was a very rundown filling station that really looked very sketchy. We used the facilities and left as soon as possible. It was very nerve-wracking to say the least.
We were supposed to arrive in Newcastle in the early afternoon. The place we stayed at was called Haggards on Hilldrop. It takes its name from the famous author, H. Rider Haggard, who lived there. His home was converted into an inn of sorts. It was really spectacular with the buildings and rooms laid out in a semi-circle. Unfortunately, we did not get to enjoy the place. We ate dinner, went to bed and had breakfast there before continuing on our trip to Durban.
The setting of the dining area was really magnificent, set in the old house. We had one of the rooms to ourselves for both meals. Dinner was really good, with several choices on the menu. Breakfast was a full buffet with both hot and cold choices.
We arrived at our Air BnB at Westbrook Beach north of Durban in the early afternoon. It was beautiful and literally on the beach. We merely had to go through a little wooden gate to be on the private beach. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay there, though the stay in Durban turned out to be much less than I had intended. More with the next blog.
