B6
FRIDAY, July 15, 2016
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TRAVEL
TRAVEL CO-ORDINATOR: JESSICA WALLACE 778-471-7533 or email jessica@kamloopsthisweek.com
ON AND OFF THE RAILS IN SOUTH AFRICA MARGARET DEEFHOLTS
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MARGARET DEEFHOLTS PHOTOS
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here is an enormous shudder, a loud clanking jolt — and wheee, we’re off. I peer out of my window as the Cape Town railway platform slides away. We are moving — new horizons beckon. Oh the magic of train journeys. Sholongololo, the train I’m riding on, is aptly named after the Zulu or Xhosa word for millipede. It curves sinuously along the rails, through the African landscape. The sky bending like a blue bowl over the grassy veldt stretching to the distant horizon. The last couple of days have been memorable ones. Cape Town is as sharply etched in my mind as its iconic Table Mountain rearing high and proud against the sky with the city sprawling in its shadow and the dark blue ocean prowling its beaches. I’ve sat entranced on the upper deck of a hop-on-hop-off Cape Town bus, watching the road curve past beaches thronged with surfers, the sands bleached blonde in the blaze of the afternoon sun and where the breaking surf shudders and roars. Palatial homes line the seafront, vivid
Travelling by train in South Africa aboard the Sholongolo gives a vast perspective of what the area has to offer from (left, clockwise) vegetation to wildlife and Cape Town’s sharply etched coastline.
bougainvillea creepers showering down their whitewashed walls, many of which are topped with snarls of barbed wire. Now the evening beyond my train window is closing down, the last rays of the dying sun turning the air to a dusty gold, and reflecting off the carriage window panes, as the train curves along the track. I’m lured away from the window by a silvery melody on a four-note xylophone playing on the corridor outside my cabin: a summons to dinner. The dining car tables glitter with fine china and silver cutlery set out on crisp linen tablecloths. This first dinner, like the rest of
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the meals throughout our 13-day trip on the Sholongololo, is fivestar quality, served by gracious smiling African waitresses. At the end of our trip, the master chef and his kitchen staff get a well-deserved standing ovation from appreciative guests. The Sholongololo experience is more than just a train ride. After breakfast, we spill out onto station platforms and board coaches to be whisked off into day-long excursions accompanied by knowledgeable, entertaining driver-guides. We drive through rolling countryside, and over craggy mountain ranges, past vertiginous canyons and
rushing streams. Magnificent sunsets set the sky on fire and the sun is at white heat during white afternoons. At the Cape of Good Hope, the wind is a hysterical banshee and we watch gigantic rollers as high as 20 to 30 feet rushing madly to the rocky shore and breaking into enormous clouds of spray that blot out the skyline. The unending roar and hiss of the primordial ocean, its fathomless depths and furious intensity arouses a profound sense of awe. Leaving the heaving sea behind, we visit Boulders, where a colony of hundreds of Cape Penguins waddle around on a beach,
some tending to their babies, others patiently sitting on eggs or engaging in couplings. A couple of days later, a wetlands river cruise reveals a pod of impassive hippos, their droopy-lidded eyes and flaring nostrils floating just above the water. Upstream, a crocodile suns itself among shoreline reeds. At Kruger National Park, we drive dusty trails past thorn bushes and trees with branches that twist into macabre silhouettes again the sky. Herds of antelopes, loping giraffes, Cape buffaloes, a lone leopard and a group of rhinos wallowing in a mud hole are all subjects for our cameras.
Cruising the Lower Fraser River Jasper Park Lodge Senior Fall Getaway Thanksgiving at Parksville New Orleans & Cajun Country Branson - see 14 musical shows! Theatre Escape to Oak Bay Beach Hotel Caribbean Cruise with New Orleans Early Booking Discounts! Ontario Theatre - Includes 6 shows! Beautiful : The Carole King Musical in Seattle Celtic Thunder in Abbotsford Leavenworth Christmas Lighting Mexican Riviera Cruise
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A baby Jumbo, ears flapping, makes a mock charge at us, but it’s only for show and fun. He takes off after his Mum as she crashes through the trees. The days spin by in a variety of outings: A visit to a Zulu settlement is a popular tourist attraction and we sit bemused at the closing item — an energetic Zulu warrior dance. In Durban, beaches bordering the placid Indian Ocean are thronged with holiday crowds, as are the shopping arcades where we buy spices from Indian merchants who have lived in the city for generations. Africa’s dark days of apartheid are also on show.
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We tour Number 4 jail at Johannesburg’s Constitution Hill and are sickened by the brutality suffered by black inmates. Later, we walk the streets of Soweto, past Desmond Tutu’s home and linger to read emotional tributes carved on stones that are placed on the sidewalk in front of Nelson Mandela’s house. Then, abruptly, it’s all over. My plane rises off the tarmac of Johannesburg’s Tambo airport, the sun the dips below the horizon and Africa slips away silently into my past. Travel Writers’ Tales is an independent travel article syndicate. For more, go online to travelwriterstales.com.
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