For our first night in South Africa, we traveled a short distance from Johannesburg Airport to the lovely highland village of Dullstroom, stopping first at Alzu Petroport, where we could view quite a few species of antelope, as well as cape buffalo and zebra.
Dullstroom is a quaint and lovely village used locally as a popular base for trout-fishing in the “highlands” of South Africa. We stayed at a lovely house found on booking dot com, Rueby’s Guesthouse, which provided ample room and lovely modern furnishings that greatly facilitated the rest we needed after the long slog to South Africa from Canada. Dullstroom is no more than 3 hours from the airport in Johannesburg, and stopping there for the first night is highly recommended as a soft landing after a long haul of overseas travel. For dinner, we feasted at the marvelous and quirky restaurant, “Mrs. Simpson’s” and were given a warm welcome and personalized care by the staff and owners of the restaurant.
The next morning we awoke to the typical mist and cool of Dullstroom’s location and drove out into the fog swirling around the mountain views. Fortunately, the fog lifted after just a few minutes and we carried on through the mountain passes via the R36.
We stopped at the African vendors just outside of the tunnel before carrying our journey on to Hoedspruit. It was a first opportunity of “shopping Africa” and another colourful and wonderful cultural experience.
