South Africa: Coast to Coast

[RudiGreyling]

Hi RVators,

* 4 Days,
* 2500 Miles,
* 15 Hours of Breathtaking Flying this Beautiful Country's Coastline,
* Weather CAVOK all the way, blue skies 90% of the time
* Meeting some Fantastic People, and
* Doing it in your homebuilt plane without a single glitch?Priceless!

I am busy sorting the pictures and stories and will post them later here below:


Groete
Rudi

[RudiGreyling]

Hi RVators,

Having finished building my RV, flying it around the cabbage patch for about 60 hours to proof it is safe and a worthy travel machine, it was time for it to stretch her legs?a long trip, 2500 miles along our Beautiful South African Coastline. Initially I was going to do it with the company of 2 other aircraft Cirrus SR22?s, but they decided not to join, so it was me, my wife and my RV?

Day 1:
Route WEST: Springs, Klerksdorp, Kuruman, Upington [FAUPl] to refuel, along the Orange river, West coast Alexander Bay, Down SOUTH to KleinZee[FAKZ].


The initial plan was to do a clock wise route, but due to anticipated bad weather along the eastern coast, I changed it the other way around, West coast first.

Getting ready to leave at sunrise, Bags and Jerry Fuel can handy. Why the Jerry can??? Cause I run my right tank on Mogas and most airports don?t serve Mogas.


Me and my wife ready and at the start of our adventure!


The predicted weather was good with only one single rain cloud close to our departure point over Vereniging, but not in our path. It was a beautiful sight.


There are some beautiful mountain formations on the route to our first stop Upington


Refueling with a Regional Jet in the background


A pretty picture at Upington with the Blue African Sky begging us to take flight again.


From Upington, we picked up the Orange River, we plan to fly it all along it, the border of South Africa to the Western most point. . This area is quite barren, semi dessert, to full dessert as you fly along the river to the west coast. First on the Orange River agenda was the Augrabies Waterfalls.




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[RudiGreyling]

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In the Desert the Orange River gives life, fantastic lush green fields every now and then.






The landscape is quite dramatic, almost the ?grand canyon? of South Africa, the mountain formations very contrasting in the barren desert.









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[RudiGreyling]

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We reached the coast at Alexander bay and turned south along the ?Skeleton Coast?. This area is rich in diamonds and you see diamond mining all along the coast, even in the water as these diamond fishing boats prove.


A Shipwreck along this coastline proves it name.




Our first overnight destination was Kleinzee, a diamond mining town. Lucky our wonderful host Rodney organized all the authorizations and clearances for us to land and go into this very strictly controlled Diamond town. Public are not welcome. Rodney was fantastic and assisted us in every way, going out of his way to help us. Thanx Rondey!


The best picture of the day is the one below, larger for your convenience.


The fist day saw us covering almost a 1,000 miles and our ?trip time? i.e. engine running time was 5H45.

?Day 2 to continue soon!

Regards
Rudi

[Mike S]

Rudi, GREAT PHOTOS!!

Thanks.

[TSwezey]

Unbelieveable! I'll be waiting for the next post!

[Red Voodoo]

...is about all I can say. Thanks so much Rudi, for your beautiful photos of a place very few of us in the U.S. know anything about. I'd love to see your country first-hand some day!

[L.Adamson]

I found it very interesting.....too!

I enjoy cross country & mountains.

L.Adamson

[rodeomanny]

Beautiful photography. What a fantastic trip it must have been. Thank you for the post.

[Greg Arehart]

Rudi,

Great photos. I only wish I had an RV when I visited in 2005. I saw a lot of the country by auto, but it would be truly spectacular by air. Maybe next visit.... (And the geology is fantastic as well.) If/when you get over Lesotho, I would love to see a few photos of that from the air.

greg