{"id":5626,"date":"2024-07-27T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/?p=5626"},"modified":"2024-08-19T17:49:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T15:49:52","slug":"winter-kruger-backdated-as-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/?p=5626","title":{"rendered":"Winter Kruger (backdated as always)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A.k.a. the 4\/5 trip.<\/p>\n

Having been to Kruger many times in summer, we figured we should go see what it’s like in winter.<\/p>\n

(TL\/DR: It’s a bit like the dude looking for his keys under the lamp post<\/a> — the Kruger weather is excellent, much better than in summer — but the light’s not so good for photography).<\/p>\n

I also decided to vary the route a bit. Cape Town – Sutherland1<\/sup><\/span> – Fraserburg – Loxton – Victoria West – Britstown2<\/sup><\/span> – Hopetown – Kimberley – Bloemhof – Ventersdorp – Krugersdorp – Pretoria3<\/sup><\/span> – Witbank4<\/sup><\/span> – Middelburg5<\/sup><\/span> – Dullstroom – Lydenburg – Sabie – Hazyview – Phabeni Gate. And back, Malelane Gate – Baberton – Badplaas6<\/sup><\/span> – Bethal – Nigel7<\/sup><\/span> – Warden – Bethlehem – Fouriesburg – Ficksburg8<\/sup><\/span> – Ladybrand – Bloemfontein9<\/sup><\/span> – Colesberg – Middelburg10<\/sup><\/span> – Cradock11<\/sup><\/span> – Addo12<\/sup><\/span> – PE13<\/sup><\/span> – Mosselbay14<\/sup><\/span> – Cape Town.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Don’t do this. The road to Sutherland is wind-ey and up-and-down-ey therefore slow, and the R356 is not as good as you might be lead to believe<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Overnight at Kambro Accommodation<\/a>. A good place to stay over. Although next time I’ll stick to the N1 to Three Sisters and sleep in Kimberley.<\/li>\n
  3. Mainly to drop off a gun but also to catch up with the friends we stayed with.<\/li>\n
  4. To drop off a bunch of guns at Classic Arms.<\/li>\n
  5. Where Tanya bought some really crappy steak from the Spar in the Middelburg Mall.<\/li>\n
  6. Avoid this route. Can’t tell you why I don’t learn<\/a>. Take either of the passes to Machadodorp (now “eNtokozweni”, but the streets are still Voortrekker, Potgieter and the like) and go from there.<\/li>\n
  7. Because my GPS is evil. I swear to Finagle, the toll road people must be paying Garmin to route via as many toll roads as possible. The sane route should have been Badplaas – Ermelo – Standerton – Vrede – Bethlehem. The Nigel route added 70km and R175.50 in toll roads.<\/li>\n
  8. Because I had to pick up a gun. Stayed at the Green Acorn. Eclectic but not terrible.<\/li>\n
  9. In this case I agreed with the GPS. The R26 from Ladybrand to Wepener should be canonised, and while the N1\u00a0 outside Bloemfontein is technically a toll road, there’s no toll gate.<\/li>\n
  10. The other one.<\/li>\n
  11. Now “Nxuba” with great fanfare and absolutely no increase in quality of anything for anybody.<\/li>\n
  12. We had not been to Addo before. It’s recommended. More later.<\/li>\n
  13. Because I had to… pick up a gun. Also, Tanya wanted to visit an old friend.<\/li>\n
  14. We have friends there, stayed over, drank too much.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Stats: 6414km, 378 litres of diesel costing R8487, 5.9 litres\/100km average.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    I need air helpers. But they’re expensive. Tiguan springs<\/a>, maybe? (It’s the fridge and the beer in the back of the Golf, the teardrop’s only about 30 kilos on the hitch, even loaded — I can (and had to) pick it up when the jockey is giving me shit).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A.k.a. the 4\/5 trip. Having been to Kruger many times in summer, we figured we should go see what it’s like in winter. (TL\/DR: It’s a bit like the dude looking for his keys under the lamp post — the Kruger weather is excellent, much better than in summer — but the light’s not so good for photography). I also decided to vary the route a bit. Cape Town – Sutherland1 – Fraserburg – Loxton – Victoria West – Britstown2 – Hopetown – Kimberley – Bloemhof – Ventersdorp – Krugersdorp – Pretoria3 – Witbank4 – Middelburg5 – Dullstroom – Lydenburg...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kruger-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5626"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5640,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions\/5640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retro.co.za\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}