Doug and Kerry Hudson in Africa

In September 2002, we left Europe for Kerry's home country: South Africa. Lou and Rowley, Kerry's parents, met us at Durban Airport. We were tired from the gruelling journey, especially the eleven hour flight from London Heathrow to Johannesburg International Airport. We got a second wind, however, as we caught up on all the gossip and told Lou and Rowley all about our adventures in Canada, the United States and Europe.

With no plans other than trips at the end of the month to our favourite city Cape Town and to Namibia, the beautiful country of deserts and safari, we had nothing to do but relax in Pietermaritzburg for a couple of weeks. This was such a pleasure, especially as we had our beautiful dogs, Mishka and Jamie, to occupy us!

Apart from our trips to Cape Town and Namibia, we also spent a lot of time exploring the province of Kwa-Zula Natal. This included a trip exploring the awesome Drakensberg mountains, one of our all-time favourite places of all time, as well as being the place where we spent our honeymoon. We also spent a few days staying near Oribi Gorge, a magnificent river canyon south of Durban. Finally, we had a trip to Zululand, where we split our time between doing game drives, fishing and being robbed by thieving monkeys. It was during this trip that a bull elephant charged us. Given that this was also the trip where Doug came face-to-face with a deadly black mamba, it turned out to be probably our most eventful and exciting trip.

We also had a trip to the Free State, where we stayed with Neil and Beth, good friends of Lou and Rowley from when they lived in Lesotho. Neil kindly took us into Lesotho, the mountain kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa.

After Christmas, Doug's brother James and cousin Martin flew out from England to join us for two weeks. We had organised a hectic tour of South Africa, starting with Pilanesburg game reserve, followed by stops at Pietermaritzburg, and the Drakensberg. We spent most of the time travelling along the Garden Route to Cape Town however. The highlights of this trip were:

Cage diving with a great white shark off Gansbaai,
Stroking a cheetah and riding an ostrich in Oudtshoorn,
Walking down to the awesome Storms River Mouth,
Paddling among the wild African penguins at Boulders Beach,
And the magnificent view of Cape Town from Table Mountain.

As sad as we both were to leave behind our lives in Bournemouth, South Africa still remains Kerry’s home in her heart. It was special for her to recapture that love and kindle it in Doug as well. Despite spending over four months here, we still didn’t see everything this beautiful country has to offer. Eventually though, we had to leave. It was time to move on to the next stage of our trip: South East Asia.

World Trip >> Africa

Last updated: Sunday August 27, 2006