Month 1 - done and dusted

“The hills and valleys of Natal are the face of a beautiful woman, destined to watch the deaths of many of her suitors. In her smile is a compassionate understanding of the enigma of man’s inhumanity to his fellow creatures in a land large and rich enough to sustain them all.-Reader’s Digest Illustrated Guide to Southern Africa, page 334 “The Blood-Stained Eden”

Ncandu Falls, close to Newcastle

Our first month on our 12 month long roadtrip has passed by so quickly. So many things have happened and we have experienced so many different things ...so therefore I have the need to record some thoughts.

Our roadtrip through South Africa is one heck of a task, firstly because this country of ours is so vast and beautiful.

Kwazulu Natal is proving to be a great place to start, but I fear we are struggling to move on to our next circle.

Instead of spending one month per circle, we will now be spending the second month in the same circle.However in the second month, we have moved to the coast.

Our fascination is not only because of the Boer wars, the Anglo-Zulu wars and all the other wars in-between, but definitely also the beauty of everything here. We are truly in awe of this beautiful place. KZN has a deep green about it that almost makes it feel like Scandinavia, or Scotland. In one place you have friendly (soft) rolling hills and then you find yourself being awe-struck by the giants of the mountains. It is like the landscape reflects the contrasts of the beauty drenched in wars over thousands of years. 

It is truly shocking to learn so much about wars that took place here that we have never heard of. Our film makers are sitting on gems of stories waiting to be made into movies. The most fascinating of it all was to learn about the Secret San at Fort Nottingham. Second to that (for me) was to learn about the Zulu uprisings against British rule, and the chiefs who were captured (chief Ligananda / Sigananda whose picture is up in the Newcastle Club). This really broke the back of the Zulus who were a fierce force to be reckoned with.

Our roadtrip is opening a world to us that we always knew existed, but we could never really get into it.

Another thing that strikes me is how this roadtrip feels like we are "cheating" at life. We are still working, and doing school - but we spend afternoons on the beach, or in the mountains. On weekends we are always out exploring. 

It feels like nothing is holding us down. We are not bound by a school schedule that says we have to attend this or that practice, or bound by places and spaces for work and home. Thanks to being able to work remotely, we can have the best of both worlds.

Everything has turned into an adventure.

So, some interim thoughts:

What we have learnt:

1.       We have learnt that some things need to stay in the car.

They are –

·         Shoes and socks for the kids (trust my kids to be barefoot when we need to scramble up a hill)

·         Sunblock & swimming clothes & towels (you never know when you might stop some place for a quick swim)

·         A set of dry clothes for everyone

·         A warm jacket

·         Our Parkrun barcodes!!

·         Toiletpaper

·         Plasters

 And most importantly - NEVER SWIM IN THE SEA WITH YOUR GLASSES ON!

2.       We also have learnt that some things are really unnecessary to drag along.

Such as –

·         Books – schoolbooks to be precise. So many books to work through and the kids actually just need to learn certain core material. The rest is a natural outflow of our trip

·         Clothes – we have learnt that 10 sets of clothes is more than enough. We should have left behind about 3 bags of clothes on the farm that are not going to be worn very soon, but alas they were packed into the trailer and we are taking them everywhere.

·         Toys – we did not have ANY space for toys (except one doll for Charma and a mini Jenga set for Declan), but we have bought a ball and a skipping rope. The kids play with them sometimes and now of course they have boomerangs. Something very cute is that Charma is playing with paper dolls out of a cut-out book that her friend gave her for her birthday last year.

   So we are learning as we go along. One thing is certain, we will definitely not be able to see EVERYTHING we have on our list, but we will definitely see and experience A LOT of things!