South Africa

[readyforachangemaybe]

Hi team,

Looking at going to South Africa (covid permitting) in December 2021 or 2022. Does anyone have any recommendations for sightseeing or things to do?

Thank you

Absolutely re profit orientation and choosing wisely but absolutely not re hunting as a conservation tool at Timbavati or anywhere. It’s a much disputed and completely derided argument in animal welfare circles. There are many many counter arguments to the owner of Timbavati’s claims and against the hunting as a conservation tool argument put forward by the hunting lobby you can find online if this interests you, mostly focusing on the lack of money that actually goes back into conservation & communities as versus the pockets of the well off landowner. There’s also the argument that if 3 lions are bred, two are shot for money, one survives, if you call that adding to the population then that’s a poor defence.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-02-05-does-trophy-hunting-really-benefit-conservation-and-local-communities/amp/

Well we have always avoided areas that allow game hunting. WWF used to support it and there are mixed messages. Personally I would rather money came from elsewhere but often people in Africa won’t think like that.

The time difference with SA is only two hours. I’m not a fan of a gambling resort. You could be in Las Vegas! You don’t really need rest and recovery time in my view. Plenty to see without Sun City I think. Beautiful places to stay too.

PresentingPercy how did you arrange the kids spending a term in school there? I’ve vaguely considered sending my kids to do a term with my cousins in CT.

Just to defend Sun City (I always have to do that on these threads).

We were going with children. It was our first long haul flight with them and our first 'adventurous' holiday.

We wanted somewhere that would feel nice and safe and familiar after the overnight flight, not too far from the airport. We stayed in one of the cheaper hotels & I don't remember seeing any gambling.
The girls loved the breakfast buffet (they had never had one before), and we did canoeing on the lake, jetski and segway there too.

We were going on to 8 continuous days of late night / early morning game drives, so we wanted to be well rested before starting them and again before the flight home.

So absolutely not for everyone, but it was just right for us to top and tail our holiday with.

I think you have had some good replies OP. I just wanted to mention that Dec/Jan are our main holiday time and peak season, so it will be much busier and also more pricy. Flights especially.

Pp was asking about June / July. It's mid winter then, so although it doesn't get as cold as your winter, it gets pretty cold at night and mornings. It rains a lot in the cape and not at all further north, so it's quite wet in one half and very dry in the other. It isn't really beach weather if that is something you might me wanting.

March and April are lovely weather months, as is Sept / Oct. Not too hot either.

‘WWF used to support it and there are mixed messages’

It’s been a big embarrassment for the WWF - they were directly funding projects at Reserves where hunting took place of the species donors were paying money for them to protect. Ranulph Fiennes pretty publicly called them out on it resulting in a change of policy.

They stood on their own previously on their pro hunting = conservation stance - all the other big International Animal Welfare Charities (one of whom DH is a Global Director of) are firmly anti.

@BIWI

In case it helps, here's my post which was reporting back on what we did:

We had a fantastic time. This was what we did:

1st week in a beautiful villa in Camps Bay. We went to Boulders Beach, Chapmans Peak Hotel for brunch (except turns out they don't do brunch any more so had lunch there!), a day at the cricket (which was fantastic as we won!), a walking tour round Cape Town (history of apartheid) and lunch in Bo-Kaap, Cape Point where we saw baboons, Kirstenbosch, lunch at Klein Constantia (other lunches and dinners I can't remember!)

Then a beautiful drive to Robertson, over the Du Toitskloof pass, to stay at the most amazing hotel (Mo &Rosa) for a couple of nights, with a couple of vineyard tours/tastings, and an olive oil tasting.

Then on to Franschhoek for a few days where we did the wine bus/tram, with some beautiful wine tastings and food.

From there, to Hermanus where unfortunately the weather changed. Very good for the local communities, though, as the drought in SA is the most severe in the last 20 years. We had four days of pretty solid rain which did hamper what we were able to do. However, we enjoyed the town, despite lack of whales, wink, and the shops and restaurants were great.

Last stop was a couple of nights at the Aquila Game Reserve, where the rain continued - the first time it had rained there in 4 years! But it didn't spoil our time and we had amazing drives to see the animals much more up close and personal then I ever imagined would be possible. Our last day the sun returned, so we did enjoy a bit of warmth before we came back.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions - it really helped. And definitely agree that it's a fantastic place to travel to.

Oh, and can definitely confirm/recommend a visit to Creation vineyard for the wine pairings/lunch. Fabulous.

Sorry I've only just seen this. Thank you so much! So helpful!

@SJaneS49

Just following this thread as SA is somewhere we’re looking to visit over the next couple of years.

As a quick add on re National Parks v Private Reserves (farms), if you are going to visit a Private Reserve, it’s worth doing a bit of research to just double check you’re not visiting somewhere that offers lion hunts. This is a legal and pretty horrible business (there are about 200 Private Reserves in SA) where hunters pay to shoot lions and other animals that are captive bred. Normally a Reserve will not offer both hunting and safari’s (the activities being pretty mutually exclusive) but some of the hunting Reserves do do eco safari’s out of season. So if you’re visiting a Private Reserve and don’t support this industry, worth a quite check. If this ‘industry’ is something you aren’t aware of - www.bornfree.org.uk/great-betrayal

Canned Hunts are big business in South Africa. Hunting is banned in the National Parks but unfortunately there have been a couple of instances of under the cover activities:

Thank you for this, it's something I feel really strongly about so it's definitely worth doing a bit of extra research on it

Plettenburg Bay, Knysna Lagoon, Wilderness and Storms River are all beautiful places.

I travelled the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town, for 2 weeks and stopped at various places along the way.
Was amazing.

One of our favourite places in the world. All said in previous posts - have a look at the Portfolio Collection for amazing accommodation options. We were so lucky in that the rand was weak against the pound so we had an amazing luxury holiday on the cheap.

I can highly recommend this tour guide. He really knows his stuff and will take you to places you will almost certainly not know about from guide books etc.

capewithmac.co.za/