East Coast, Addo Elephant Park, Mountain Zebra and Cango Caves

In-between getting a few things done on the truck we went into Cape Town to look at some historical sites.

Robben Island
Tour guide was a former political prisoner, which made it worthwhile. We were shown Nelson Mandela's cell and Robert Sobukwe House, where he was kept in solitary confinement for six years.
Sobukwe, leader of the PAC Pan Africanist Congress, was charged and convicted after he had led a protest against pass laws which required black people to carry a passbook at all times to move around the area. The protest ended in police opening fire on protesters killing 69 people, it became known as the Sharpeville massacre. Sobukwe was imprisoned for three years 1960 to 1963, the law was then changed to imprison political prisoners indefinitely and that's how he ended up on Robben Island.

Castle of Good Hope
1652 Dutch East India Co established a refreshment base in the cape.
The fort was built in 1666 to 1679 to protect the Dutch settlement from England.

District Six
Sixth District of Cape Town. 1867 it was a community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans' and labourers.
1966 The area was declared a white only area. The residents were then removed, and the area was demolished.

Cape Malay food
A fusion of food styles from Malaysia, Indonesia and East Africa. Brought to the Cape by slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Table mountain, first place our guide went when he was released.

Nelson Mandela’s cell He was imprisoned here for 18 years in a total of 27.

dog kennels at the back of Sebakwe’s house

Bontebok, one of the rarest antelopes in SA. The patchwork buck. They would be extinct if a local farmer hadn’t fenced 17 in with his sheep which saved them. Not good jumpers like the kudu but apparently can crawl under things.

Nyala antelope. Males have the yellow socks.

Addo Elephant National Park.

Drove into Addo from the bottom entrance on the N1, it is not recommended to take the Addo entrance because it runs through the informal settlement of PE.

Addo is the Third largest national park, founded 1931 to save the 11 remaining elephants in the area at the time, all of them were tuskless.
The big tuskers were hunted into extinction 150 years ago.
The park brought in more elephants from Kruger with tusks to bred with the tuskless females. We only saw three of the big five here, but I am told the others are in the park.

There are now more than 600 elephants in the park, great watching them in the water holes.
400 Cape buffalo.
xx endangered black rhino, that they keep quiet about.
largest remaining population of the flightless dung beetle. We were very careful not to run them over in the truck.

Did not see the Kalahari lions which were introduced to the park over ten years ago, They introduced them because they were a closer match to replace the extinct cape lion that used to be in this area, also chosen because they were fee of tb, which protected the buffalo population.

Fourth oldest town in South Africa.

We arrived here after dismissing the caravan park because we thought the gates were two small for us, only to find they had a separate gate for big rigs.
Great campsite, in a sort of compound, including pool and restaurant.
I was told this was a good town to visit with lots of monuments and history.

Est 1786 by the Dutch East Indian Company. Lots of history and many famous people from here.
Andries Pretorius - born here 1798 known for leading the Voortrekkers to victory at the battle of blood river. Capital city Pretoria named after him.
Andries Hendrik Potgieter - one of the great pioneers of the great trek
Presidents, commanders in the Boer war, engineers and activists like Beyers Naude' a Dutch reform theologian and anti-apartheid and freedom fighter Robert Sobukwe born 1924.
Anna Neethling born 1906 translated seven of Shakespears plays into Afrikaans.

Stinking hot day so we didn't walk around for long. Lunch at the beautiful Dorstdy Hotel.

It was Laurie's birthday, and he wanted to see the Camdeboo National Park, Valley of Desolation, so off we went. Our truck was a bit big for the roads but fortunately there was no one else on them.