101 Things to do before you die

Time’s up. That strange swelling on your big toe has been diagnosed as lepto-something-or-other and the prognosis isn’t good – you’ve been given a year to live. You take the news in your (limped) stride and decide to spend your precious last days exploring Southern Africa. What are the ultimate places to go and things to do? Here are 101 suggestions from the Getaway team.

David Bristow, editor
“You’ve got just one year to live.” Gulp! I’d better make good use of my time then, Dr Faustus. Sell the house, pawn the silver, tell my boss to stick it, and pack the trusty old wagon – I’m Okavango bound.

This is a fantasy I’ve had for decades, so there was no dawdling when posed the question for this month’s cover story. I first saw the Delta in the early 1970s: no safari camps, only one (private) airstrip, no communications or chance of being rescued in the event of getting chomped by a hippo, croc or lion.

We were a group of teenagers who’d hitchhiked our way right into the middle of the Okavango: our parents had very little clue about where we’d gone. That raw wilderness and overwhelming complexity of boundless nature gripped me like nothing had before, or has since. We played castaways on ‘our’ little island until our boatman arrived in his mokoro to collect us at the appointed time and place, to return to our urban lives.

Since then I’ve returned umpteen times, once to live and run a safari camp in the Moremi Wildlife Reserve (how I became a prohibited immigrant is the subject of another story). In the meantime I’ve travelled the world over but still, when I dream of the most pure of paradise escapes, it’s always the Okavango that first comes to mind.

How: For the very best value deal, contact Moremi Safaris and Tours in Joburg on tel 011-465-3842/3, e-mail info@moremi-safaris.com or visit http://www.moremi-safaris.com. There are direct flights to Maun on Air Botswana from Joburg and Cape Town.

David’s top 10
1. Last stop Okavango Delta;
2. Drive the entire Mozambique coast, scuba diving wherever possible;
3. Ride the Pioneer mountain-bike trail, from Durban across the Karoo to the Cape;
4. Do all or part of the Drakensberg ‘grand traverse’ hike;
5. White-water raft or kayak the entire Batoka Gorge, from Victoria Falls to Lake Kariba;
6. Tour all the mountain passes of the Cape;
7. Throw everything into my wagon and take a long, slow drive through Namibia;
8. Camp out on the Wild Coast;
9. Take a sailing-diving-fishing-surfing holiday at Nosy B, Madagascar;
10. Do a guided wilderness trail in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe.

Narina Exelby, sub-editor
It’s a long road, quiet. The sun’s just risen and light flitters off the arced dust on the windscreen. It’s also trapped in the spiders’ webs that reach between strands of barbed wire fences. Arno Carstens blares from the speakers while I – tone-deaf – sing along. “From a galaxy of blooooo; to a universe we choo-oose.”

It’s an Eastern Cape road, the R63 between Somerset East and King William’s Town. There are fields and ostriches and aloes and cactuses and big, big open skies. My oldest friend sits beside me. We’re seeing places we never knew existed: Kroomie, Middledrift, Cookhouse, Uitkeer and Bedford. We stop at Fort Beaufort and meet a man called Moose who shows us yellow newspaper cuttings from the time aliens landed in a farmer’s field not too far away.

Another trip, another traveller. We’ve circumnavigated Lesotho – ‘discovered’ towns such as Zastron and Lady Grey, stumbled across a secret canyon, slept in a valley sacred to sangomas and in a cottage built under a rock. Now we’re driving – slowly – down the Barkly Pass on the R58; it’s a view to take your breath away.

That’s when the decision’s made: to focus on the journey and travel South Africa’s back roads. There is a whole world away from the N1, N2, N-whatever. I’ll be taking the time to see it.

How: Pick a road, any road . . .

Narina’s top 10
1. Drive the back roads of South Africa;
2. Spend a year travelling through Southern Africa, sleeping in my tent and drinking fire-brewed coffee;
3. Mountain-bike the Imana Wild Ride along the Wild Coast (for the scenery), then ride the Cape Epic (for the distance);
4. Swim off Mozambique’s Benguerra Island at sunrise, then learn to dive at Two-Mile Reef;
5. Camp at Monk’s Cowl in the Drakensberg;
6. Wander the dunes of the Namib Desert, completely alone;
7. White-water raft the Batoka Gorge again and again – and then conquer it in a kayak;
8. Do a wilderness walking trail in Kruger;
9. Take a mokoro trip through the Okavango Delta;
10. Fall asleep under a Karoo night sky.

Jazz Kuschke, photojournalist
I’d probably go in search of fly-fishing water if I knew my life-tide was on the ebb. And when it comes to fly-fishing, having a leervis (that fish-king of the tidal river, also known as a garrick) smash a speedily retrieved foam popper clear out of the water of an Eastern Cape estuary, is near the ultimate moment.

Combine this fish-fuelled rush with tropical sunshine, azure water, dhows dotting the horizon and that Forrest Gump factor – not knowing exactly what is going to come after your fly – and you’ve arrived at the Quirimba Archipelago, off Mozambique. The Quirimbas is a Robinson Crusoe-esque chain of 36 islands and islets (many of which are uninhabited except for the seasonal camps of local fishers) stretching along the northern Mozambique coast towards Tanzania.

More famous for deep-sea big-game fishing, it’s on the shallower lagoons and sand spits where the real sport is to be had. Hunt greenspot kingfish, barracuda and even the elusive bonefish with lighter tackle. A nine-weight rod, a few surface-poppers and a variety of Lefty’s deceiver flies are all you need to be laughing. It’s a pretty cool place not to fish at, too.

How: Contact Kaskazini Tourism Services on tel +258-272-2-0371, cell+258-82-309-6990, e-mail info@kaskazini.com or visit http://www.kaskazini.com.

Jazz’s top 10
1. Fish in the Quirimba Archipelago;
2. Forget what day it is at Cape St Francis;
3. Take my surfboard and fishing rod and walk the Wild Coast;
4. Go game viewing at Timbavati Private Reserve;
5. Mountain bike the forest at Harkerville, Tsitsikamma;
6. Do a mokoro safari on the Okavango Delta;
7. Drive the Shipwreck 4×4 Trail out of Noup;
8. Trout-fish the rivers of the northern Eastern Cape;
9. Hike in the Cedarberg;
10. Catch a brown trout in the upper Witte River.

Scott Ramsay, photojournalist
I enjoy black and white photography so vast, contrasting landscapes appeal to me. Although Qolora in Transkei and Malongane in Mozambique are my choices of holiday spots, it’s Loeriesfontein in the Northern Cape that would top my list of must-see places – purely for personal and photographic reasons.

A few years ago I set off in my Landy from Cape Town, following a random route up to Namibia. I’d left Calvinia early on a January morning, travelling west, and arrived at Loeriesfontein when the sky was crisp blue and before the heat had set in. On driving into town, the windmill museum caught my eye -a conglomeration of old and out-of-use windmills, all crammed together in a small field. I popped a red filter onto my medium format Pentax to darken the sky and accentuate the silver metals, and spent most of the day finding interesting compositions.

No-one else was around and before I knew it, the hours disappeared and the sun was well into the afternoon sky. I didn’t want to leave this photographic gem, but I had to get to Kamieskroon before dark.

How: Loeriesfontein Windmill Museum, contact Hetta Nel on tel 027-662-1104. There’s no entry fee – just a donation is asked for.

Scott’s top 10
1. Photograph Loeriesfontein;
2. Skinny dip in the warm water at Qolora in the Transkei;
3. Admire the view from Mountain Mist in Aurora, Western Cape;
4. Stare at the stars in the Richtersveld;
5. Stand in a winter storm at Cape Agulhas;
6. Scuba dive at Ponta Malongane, Mozambique;
7. Canoe on Lake Sibaya;
8. Drink a beer in the Kamieskroon Hotel bar;
9. Watch the sun rise over Dead Vlei, Namibia;
10. Have a braai at Olifants Camp, Kruger National Park.

Robyn Daly, photojournalist
Every time I go to Vic Falls, a rafting trip is on my list of things to do. Somehow it never gets done. I once got pretty close: going down rapids one, two and three backwards in a jet boat. It’s a long story, but we hit rapid one wrong and a wall of water killed the engines. So we rolled and pitched down two and three with no control or power. By a stroke of luck we caught an obliging eddy to the shore and missed tackling the fourth, called the Toilet.

It’s top of my list of things to do before I die because it looks like it could be the ride of my life. But I keep putting it off in case it is the last thing I do before I die.

How: Contact Shearwater Adventures on tel +263-13-4-4471/2/3, e-mail reservations@shearwater.co.za or visit http://www.shearwateradventures.com.

Robyn’s top 10
1. Raft the Zambezi;
2. Cross the Namib on horseback;
3. Tour the Kgalagadi for the first time;
4. Visit Ilha de Mozambique;
5. Miraculously acquire sea legs and go on a pelagic birding trip off the Cape Peninsula;
6. Go on a mokoro safari in the Okavango Delta;
7. Learn to distinguish the cisticolas by call (it’s a wish-list, okay);
8. Eat all the prawns I can at Costa do Sol in Maputo;
9. Find leatherback and loggerhead turtles hatching and flippering seawards on the Maputaland coast;
10. Return to Zimbabwe when there’s fuel and a new, nicer president.

Gillian Scoble, photojournalist
Seen from above the earth, the watery paradise of the Okavango Delta resembles a heavenly, lush hand print of abundance upon the dry Kalahari sands. It’s a wellspring of miracles and wildlife. The highlight of all my years of travel was a mokoro and walking safari in the Okavango with Delta-doyen Dougie Wright of Botswana’s Ker and Downey. We explored palm- and fig-dotted islands, drifted through narrow hippo channels and gasped at magnificent wildlife, including Pel’s fishing owls expertly found on more than one occasion (see Getaway, October 2004).

How: Ker and Downey have three Delta camps: Shinde, Kanana and Footsteps – each is highly recommended. To book, phone +267-66-0375, e-mail safari@kerdowney.bw or visit http://www.kerdowney.com.

Gillian’s top 10
1. Mokoro trip through the Okavango Delta, Botswana;
2. Sail and dive round the Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique;
3. Watch the scenery unfold on a Rovos Rail train trip from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam;
4. Explore the wildest parts of the Wild Coast;
5. Gaze at hundreds of elephants, hippos and buffaloes from the Ichobezi houseboat, Chobe River, Botswana/Namibia;
6. Camp next to a stream in a remote part of the Cedarberg;
7. Gasp at the view from the rim-flow pool at Pamushana in Zimbabwe’s Malilangwe game reserve;
8. Watch fireflies and butterflies in the Garden Route’s indigenous forests;
9. Wine and dine at La Petite Ferme in Franschhoek;
10. Simply walk in the mountains – be it the Drakensberg, Magaliesberg or Table Mountain.

Peter Frost, assistant editor
Like those Russian Babushka dolls, the search for my most excellent spot started big and finished small. Doll one – big, empty, beautifully open space. No brainer. The Karoo. Doll two – a magical, hidden valley in that large space. Nieu Bethesda. Doll three – an unselfconscious old house with a ratty roof, three-metre-high ceilings, warped doors, a donkey, uithuis, eaten wooden floors, candlelit bathroom, an Aga, a stoep and an 18-carat past. Number 7 New Street. Doll four – a 70-year-old, overstuffed Graaff-Reinet junkshop wingback chair next to a full-length sash window with a sun filter view of the clang-clang windmill and the Sneeuberg peaks. Add anything to read by Jonathan Rabin or Laurie Graham and the picture is complete. It’s a vision I keep close that sustains me through those clogged urban days too fast and too noisy to be anything but necessity. Number 7 New Street.

How: Contact Nieu Bethesda info on tel 049-892-4248.

Peter’s top 10
1. Stay at Number 7, New Street, Nieu Bethesda, in the Eastern Cape;
2. High tea at the historic – and very 50s – Belmont Hotel in Ceres;
3. Travel the R61 from Beaufort West to Graaff-Reinet at dusk, watching the grasses of the Camdebo shine gold and the flat tops of the Valley of Desolation glow pink;
4. That moment at the Cango Caves when you’re standing there in the dark and they (dramatically) turn on the lights in the Grand Hall. Hokey, but it works every time;
5. Stand quietly with someone you love among the huge, other-worldly, quiver tree forest outside Nieuwoudtville;
6. Full moon on top of Lion’s Head with a glass of wine and a guffaw of friends;
7. Watch the lammergeiers catch eddies and play at secret Karringmelkspruit Gorge near Lady Grey;
8. Fill my water bottle from the Lotheni River near its source, deep in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park;
9. Collect petrified geckos from the Maree Salt Pan, near Askham in the Northern Cape;
10. And of course, be let loose in a classic Citroen DS with hydro-pneumatic suspension on the straightest, most brilliantly undulating road in South Africa, the R27 between Brandvlei and Kenhardt in the Northern Cape.

Justin Fox, photojournalist
For me, Arniston combines so much of what I love about the old Cape. There’re the traditional fishing boats drawn up on the beach and the hard, thatched and whitewashed cottages overlooking Kassiesbaai, ancient Strandloper fish traps and an unspoilt coastline lapped by pale green waters.

It’s also the site of my first holiday as a four-year-old boy, climbing the dunes and learning to boogie board in the warm onshore slop. Childhood holidays imprint themselves, and returning to places of early happiness is an instinct in all of us.

Arniston is a place of play: surfing, windsurfing, hiking, exploring nearby De Hoop Nature Reserve. But it’s also a place to write, paint, think. The meditative, creative aspect of the town seems to come from its history and its geographical position at the tip of a continent. With tales of shipwrecks, pioneering 18th century farmers and fishers who never returned, Arniston is infected with a compelling ‘spirit of place’.

If I had a year to live, I’d spend it there, in a thatched cottage, living off the sea, swimming each day before the southeaster gets up and braaing each night under a blanket of southern Cape stars.

How: For accommodation, contact Arniston Seaside Cottages on tel 028-445-9772, e-mail cottages@arniston-online.co.za or visit http://www.arniston-online.co.za.

Justin’s top 10
1. Live in Arniston;
2. Explore Hartmann’s Valley, Kaokoveld, on a quadbike;
3. Stay in the old Portuguese colonial town on Ibo Island, Mozambique;
4. Chill out at the cliff-edge lodge at Tshukudu Camp, Pilanesberg;
5. Hike the mountains around the old mission village of Wuppertal, Cedarberg;
6. Mokoro polling and game viewing from boats in Moremi, Botswana;
7. Camp at Storms River Mouth;
8. Windsurf and kitesurf at the hamlet of Churchhaven, Langebaan Lagoon;
9. Go slow in the banana republic of Port St Johns;
10. Snorkel, sail and scuba dive off Benguerra Island, Mozambique.

Don Pinnock, associate editor
As the dirt road leads you deeper into the Cape Columbine reserve towards Tieties Bay, capes and bays appear, the sea growls unceasingly, gulls scold overhead and the smell of kelp assails your nose. Domed granite boulders punctuate the shoreline like giant exclamation marks and, as you approach, you hear the chatter of mermaids – or could it be the ghosts of drowned sailors No, it turns out they’re thousands of Cape fur seals basking and gossiping or lying in the surging surf, one flipper raised, seemingly asleep.

From the main track smaller ones peel away, meandering through the fynbos and leading to protected coves or small, private beaches where you can pitch your tent and luxuriate in perfect solitude for a week, if you like, or more if you don’t run out of food. As the sun peeps over the rim of the earth you can slide a kayak into the water and paddle out among the boulders, surprising seals, visiting southern right whales if they’re around and hoping the great white sharks don’t mistake you for food.

Here comes the ultimate experience. Quite often, in this area, pods of dusky or spinner dolphins appear, sliding silkily through the water, flipping you with a tail splash or leaping clear of the surface to see who you are. A great peace comes upon you, strangely, as though in the company of angels. And who knows, maybe you are.

How: You can book a camp site at Tieties Bay through the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve (tel 022-752-2718), or a tent with a bed and self-catering facilities at The Beach Camp (tel 082-926-2267, e-mail info@ratrace.co.za or web http://www.ratrace.co.za).

Don’s top 10
1. Visit Cape Columbine;
2. Spend a week in Elim among this honest, simple thatching community to get my life back to its roots;
3. Retrace the Drakensberg hike I did as a youngster up Cathedral Peak and spend a few days in the hut at the top, if it still exists;
4. Go mountain biking through the forests and dales of Hobbit country, Hoggsback;
5. Hire a rondavel overlooking the river at Olifants Camp, Kruger Park; wake early and game watch, eat a brunch then sleep until late after cool then watch the sun go down with a good wine in my hand and my best friend beside me;
6. Use the caravan park at Mountain Sanctuary Park in the Magaliesberg as a base to explore the secret canyons of the range;
7. See the Matobos come alive and blossom again under a benevolent administration;
8. Take a mokoro from the Panhandle to Maun through the maze of water-girded islands in the Okavango Delta;
9. Trek Namibia’s strange, haunted Kuiseb Canyon by camel;
10. Overnight on Table Mountain’s cliff tops and watch the jeweled city come alight beneath me.