By Dianne Bayley

The internet is the single biggest communications event of our lifetime and - if you’re as old as me - you still remember thinking fax machines were the best thing since sliced bread, after the old, noisy telex machine. (Send me a note for an explanation, youngsters - or just Google “telex machine”.) (more…)

By Dianne Bayley

Don’t let the news confuse – Voltbet.com is legal

If you’re a sports better, here’s what you need to know: Online gambling is illegal; online sports betting is not.

Internet or online gambling, as per the notice from the National Gambling Board and the recent High Court judgement, refers to online casino gambling, including online poker. Powerbet Gaming, the official operator of Voltbet.com, is a South African operation fully licensed by The Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board to offer internet sports betting and online bookmaking services.

Odds are you’ve been confused by media statements. Here’s a tip from the Voltbet.com team: As a sports better, you’re in the clear.

We’re a nation of sports lovers, and every one of us “knows” who is going to win . . . so now South Africans can turn their passionate sports knowledge into winnings on Voltbet, the country’s premier locally licensed, designed and legally-operated sports betting website. Group marketing and sales director Daniel Kustelski believes Voltbet.com will change the face of online sports betting with its ease of use and variety of betting options. “We had good traffic through the Soccer World Cup and are backing ourselves to capture around 10% of the R700-million South African online sports betting market in the next two years,” he says, citing best returns and fast payouts as two of the reasons for an excellent sign up rate so far. David Manaway, CEO of Powerbet, the proudly South African online gaming software supplier that designed and built the Voltbet.com proprietary software, says the online sports betting market in South Africa is a very young industry and one that is full of potential. “It’s about having an excellent product that our market trusts and giving online betters options across all sports and all types of bets. Besides the user-friendly interface that makes getting started exceptionally simple, we also have a customer call centre and a team with over 20 years of experience in trading, support and sports marketing.”

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This simple South African fruit chutney recipe is one of the easiest to make - well worth the slight effort to prepare it, and fantastic with curries.

Ingredients

1 lb brown sugar
½ lb dried apricots
½ lb dried pears
½ lb sultanas
½ lb dates
½ lb dried apple rings
4 cups water
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 cups cider vinegar
½ tsp freshly ground ginger
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (more…)

Vistors to uShaka Marine World can get a close up view of some of the more unusual sea creatures at Sea World’s aquarium (Image: uShaka Marine World)

With school holidays coming up around September, Durban on the KwaZulu Natal coastline is a fabulous place to take the family. Being spring in South Africa, it’ll be warm and not as humid as the hot summer months. Here are a few things to do while you’re there . . .

Durban and the surrounding area is well-geared to entertain both locals and tourists, offering everything from golden beaches to game viewing and glimpses of authentic Zulu culture. The balmy, sub-trpoical  climate ensures that outdoor activities can be enjoyed throughout the year. The busy port makes Durban the second-most important economic area in the country after Gauteng.

Many of Durban’s top tourist activities are linked in some way to the bountiful Indian Ocean, but there is still much to do for those who have had done sand and surf and want a little extra.

Rickshaw rides

Sugar magnate Sir Marshall Campbell might be surprised to know that his two main legacies to Durban have nothing to do with sugarcane. His estate became Durban’s most-populous township, KwaMashu (place of Marshall); while the rickshaw - the transportation he introduced from India in the 1890s for his wife - is one of the enduring images of the city. (more…)

By John Carlin
Author: Playing the Enemy, the book on which the Clint Eastwood film, Invictus, is based. This article was first published by IOL.

It’s been a spectacular success. Everything according to plan, smooth as silk; South Africa successfully re-branded; no unpleasant surprises, and plenty of pleasant ones.

Not a cheep, for example, out of the ludicrous Julius Malema, who the ANC wisely locked up in the attic, as you do with the mad live-in relative when important guests come around.

No reports of any new Zuma off-spring, or even wife. As for the bigger and far more important picture, the games all started on time and were broadcast live around the world without a hitch (though I gather there were some power-cut problems in England “mercifully, perhaps” during one of their national team’s relentlessly hapless displays). No massacres of foreign visitors, either, as long advertised in the foreign press.

Crime generally seems to have sunk to Swiss levels of innocuousness during South Africa’s four-week World Cup honeymoon.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu famously declared on April 27, 1994, the day all South Africans went to vote for the first time: “It’s like falling in love!” Well, 16 years later, it was a renewal of the marriage vows; it was South Africa falling in love with itself all over again.

All those stories, promoted by Fifa, among others, about this being Invictus II, about 2010 being the 1995 rugby World Cup all over again, about healing racial wounds, uniting the fractured nation and so forth, were off the mark. It was much, much better than that.

What we saw was just how united and racially healed South Africa really is, how far we’ve advanced since the nervy Nineties 1990s. The word for what we have seen in these past few weeks is consolidation. Nothing new, these past years, to anyone who has walked about South Africa, done ordinary everyday things, in seeing black and white people getting along just fine.

All the racial tension stories that surfaced after the death of Eugene Terre’Blanche (”South Africa on the brink of racial war” etc), have been shown to be, as a British friend of mine who knows the country well, succinctly put it the other day, “just so much bollocks”.

I’ve been to watch loads of games at the stadiums, but by far the best memory I take away from the World Cup was the atmosphere at Melrose Arch, in Joburg, during the South Africa-France game. From what I saw there, and from reports of friends and fellow journalists who have taken part in identically joyous events of this kind up and down the country, I’d like to ask a question: “If South Africa is not a united country, then what country is?”

As I have written in these pages before, the thousands gathered before a big screen at Melrose to watch Bafana Bafana’s heroic exit from the competition knew in their hearts that it was a lost cause, that their team would not make it to the second round of the competition.

But the solidarity was absolute. People of all colours and religions, in what until not very long ago had been an exclusively white residential area, heaving and swaying and singing, celebrating their common South Africanness with proud, unforced energy: what a blow for the legion of dismal sceptics that flood the opinion pages of this country’s newspapers!

Never mind black and white, there were a number of Jewish people with yarmulkes on their heads at Melrose and a number of Muslim men with long beards and Muslim women wearing veils on their heads. Where else in the world would you see such people mingling without tension, their national identities trumping ancient religious divides? Not too many places, believe me.

And the great thing is that the world has got to see all this the rebranding really has kicked in.

Via 15 000 fellow journalists that have descended on this country (please, don’t anyone tell me ever again that the World Cup was a waste of money!), the entire planet has got to see South Africa’s best face - in my prejudiced view, the best face in the world.

I have spoken in the past four weeks to journalists from Mexico, El Salvador, the USA US, China, India, Britain, Germany, Spain - you name it. The first thing that has has surprised them has been the total absence of racial friction. Most of them being white, or white-ish, they concurred that the contacts they had had with black South Africans had been consistently civil, cordial, respectful, good-humoured, even fun.

As for the the panic in their hearts at the prospect of murderous hordes chasing them down dark alleys, the predominant sensation among those who acknowledged they had succumbed to these terrors was embarrassment.

I did a bit of work early on in the competition for a big US television channel, some on-air punditry about South African politics and society. The recording studio was at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, just above the big statue of the great man. About 100m away was the television station’s tented base of operations.

I and an American producer walked from the studio to the base camp and back half a dozen times. Our trajectory was through a crowded mall. The only potential peril I was aware of was that we might trip on the mechanical escalators and bang our heads.

But you know what? The television station’s rules required that on each of these strolls we should be accompanied by a beefy security guard - a dark-suited Nigerian, in this case. The producer I was with honourably squirmed at the timorousness of his employers.

The Nigerian kept a poker-face, but inside he was laughing, all the way to the bank.

Worse was the case of the English journalists covering the England camp. The bus they travelled in always had one security escort in front and one behind; four Afrikaner former police officers or soldiers kept watch on them everywhere they went.

At first the journalists were not displeased to have them around. I heard that before the World Cup the bosses of one major British newspaper (won’t tell which, but it wrote about the looming racial bloodbath following Terre’Blanche’s death) had the brilliant idea, in these troubled economic times, of hiring a security consultant to address the South Africa-bound troops.

A man with a briefcase appeared (presumably working for the same outfit that would later provide the detachment in South Africa) and rattled off the figures for violent crime in the purportedly benighted country, for murder, for rape - not excluding male rape. He put the fear of God into the poor journalists. Four weeks later what they feel is deeply embarrassed.

Talking of journalists, on a less foolish note, the way Fifa and the Local Organising Committee set up the bureaucracy of accreditation and general facilities was a dream.

Cleverly aware of how critical we often unsavoury characters would prove in the marketing of South Africa, they set up a wonderfully smooth operation.

Getting your tickets for games was straightforward and the staff were as cheerful as they were efficient. At the stadium media centres and the press seats the internet connections (journalists’ lifeblood these days) were excellent, whether you were in Rustenburg, Bloemfontein or Joburg’s Soccer City.

I covered the World Cup in Japan in 2002: this was incomparably more hassle-free. I heard the same from journalists who covered the World Cup in Germany four years ago.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Fan Walk in Cape Town, a two and a half kilometre 2.5km vaudeville show from the centre of town to that beautifully elegant Coco Chanel hat of a stadium, along which the massed hordes, thousands of children included, were bursting with bonhomie - so much so that for the semi-final on Saturday the love in the air breathed unexpected life into the sails of old Holland.

The long-buried historical connection with the Dutch (Jan van Who?) suddenly surfaced in the Mother City in a riot of orange. I went up to one orangeman and woman after another, a number flying Dutch flags, and, to my astonishment, all the ones I spoke to turned out to be South Africans.

They were happy Holland won, not least because they avenged Uruguay’s unspeakably cruel victory over Ghana.

The big lesson I take away from all this is one that I already knew but had forgotten, amidst the distracting babble we read about in the press and , hear and see in the broadcast media from the political classes, chatterers and newspaper columnists.

South Africa is much better, brighter and bigger-hearted than you’d think from paying attention to all that lot. The society is great, and it is the reason why (never mind the safari parks and the fairest Cape) so many of us foreigners who’ve spent time here find this country more beguiling than any other on Earth. Ordinary people have so much more wisdom, grit, resilience, invention, courage and generosity than you find in most countries.

And some of these ordinary people are to be found, for sure, in the ANC. Even in the upper reaches of the government, if you look hard enough. There are the looters, the hypocrites and the frauds, too, as we all know. We can just hope that the experience of the World Cup might have awoken their better angels, brought out the good that lurks in many of them, that sparked their commitment to politics in the first place.

Failing that, as a friend here says, let’s pray that they remain content with taking just five or 10 percent of the national cake, instead of 30 percent or the full damn monty.

Your Julius Malemas - and I use him as a generic term for all that’s rotten and silly about the South African political scene - are best ignored. Or rather, friends in the media, try, if you can resist the temptation, not to publish and broadcast what he says. Delve deep, rather, into what he and his like do.

As for Zuma, he is a nice guy and has many of the best instincts of the best South Africa. The problem is that he lacks gumption and sexual maturity. Not much we can do about the latter, but maybe we can prod him to show a bit of principle and character and lead the ANC back to what it once was, abandoning its lootocratic ways. A leader must not be a jellyfish, said PW Botha. Heed those words, Mr President.

Though, perhaps, he won’t. In which case, let’s take comfort in the knowledge that the country is, I repeat, bigger and better than the state.

If the state does not get in the way, if it actually helps, as it has done with this World Cup (notably the policing, but also the building of infrastructure) then great.

If not, well, South Africans have it in them to make a plan. The big message from this spectacularly successful staging of the greatest show on Earth is that, yes, South Africa can.

Now, with more confidence and pride and calm than ever before, get on and do it.

John Carlin was the correspondent for the London Independent in South Africa between 1989 and 1995. He has returned to South Africa frequently since then, including nine times in the past 18 months, chiefly to work on television documentaries. He wrote Playing the Enemy, the book on which the Clint Eastwood film, Invictus, is based. The book has been translated into 16 languages, including Spanish and Dutch.

To see the original article, please click here

By Dianne Bayley

Last week I went to Sandton Square to view the photographs in the exhibition called “Intimate Moments with Nelson Mandela”.Two of the photographs, in particular, moved me: The one is of Madiba kissing the hand of a small baby girl; and the other a picture of the back of his head.

His hair is no longer grey, but white. One picture shows his hands folded together, as if in prayer. It is the hair and hands of someone who has done the hard labour and came out the other side forgiving. In looking at the pictures, I had to ask myself: Would I have been as forgiving if my life - such as it was during apartheid - was reduced to a small cell on an island? I am Irish. I have no doubt I would have fought for any cause going . . . but I’m not sure that I could forgive as Madiba has.

There’s a picture of Mandela with FW de Klerk, and we shouldn’t forget, either, that at the time, De Klerk made choices that didn’t make him popular with many, but won him the Nobel Peace Prize along with Nelson Mandela.

Obviously, the World Cup Soccer was hot on everybody’s lips while we were at the exhibition - and what a tribute to Mandela’s vision it turned out to be. Way back, he was the man who knew that sport could unite our nation, and donned the Springbok jersey before we won that World Cup. The winning of the FIFA bid to bring the Cup to South Africa was another victory for Madiba’s vision . . . and the wonderful memories each of us will carry forever about where we were during the games must surely serve as a daily reminder that if we can be so happy and friendly towards each other for four weeks, we can do it for much longer.

Just like in any family, siblings start to irritate each other. Your brother says something that angers you; your sister does something you don’t agree with. But you are still family. And that’s what we are here in South Africa. We are a family that will irritate and annoy one another at times, but we must not let anyone convince us - ever - that we are NOT family. Those that try to do so - on the basis of colour, creed or even education or “you have not and I have” - are not worthy to be a part of the positive strides this country has made and continues to make.

Make a pact with yourself today, that YOU will take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth, pen or keyboard. If it’s negative and will stir tension, stop and ask yourself why it would be necessary to say it or write it. Make a pact that, just for today, you are going to forgive those you percieve to have harmed you. Guess who benefits? You do. They say that feeling resentful about someone else on an ongoing basis is like YOU drinking poison in the hopes that THEY will die! When a negative thought comes into my head, I am going to try to remember the feeling I had at Soccer City, our beautiful Calabash, on 11 June 2010.

Sunday 18 July is Mandela Day around the world, declared so by the United Nations. In honour of the man who gave 67 years of his life to the service of all people, we’re asked to give just 67 minutes of ours. Take a blanket to a street person. Visit your elderly grandparents and help them around the house. Spend an hour at an orphanage. Write a letter to a politician or policeman who has done a good job, and thank them.

Many think I am a nutter when I say that when we FEEL better about ourselves and our fellows, our country heals. I pay little attention to them, because I know it to be true. I also know that there are those who don’t WANT us to feel better about each other - they LIKE the tension and the racial agression. Then let them have it. Promise yourself that, for today, you’re not going to participate in that sort of destructive negativity. You’ll be amazed at the results!

Take a trip to Mandela Square - upstairs, next to the Standard Bank ATMs and above the ice cream store - and look at Madiba’s story in pictures. His steps are getting slower and fewer; he’s in the winter of a long, long lifetime. See the exhibition and be inspired by the quotes under each photograph . . . especially the one that says: “It is time for new hands to lift the burdens. It is in your hands now.”

Where and when . . .

The Nelson Mandela Square and VVM BPO, with thanks to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, launched the photographic exhibition entitled ‘Intimate Moments’. The exhibition, consisting of 19 everyday photos, will introduce viewers to the man behind the legend – a father; philanthropist; and humanitarian.

“The images, donated by various photographers, will take viewers through a rollercoaster ride of emotion. Some photos capture pure compassion while others will have you bite back tears. We’re hoping that the exhibition will inspire South Africa to realise that integrity; honesty; and humility can change the world and a society’s perceptions,” explains Sharon Swain, Nelson Mandela Square Centre Manager.

The Intimate Moments exhibition is free to Nelson Mandela Square shoppers and will be open from 18 June to 25 July during the following times:

• 18 June to 15 July, 09:00 to 21:00;
• Thereafter, Mondays to Saturdays, 09:00 to 18:00;
• Sundays: 09:00 to 16:00.

Join the Nelson Mandela Square and VVM BPO in celebration of the man who has single-handedly offered hope; forgiveness; and dignity to an entire nation. For more information on the exhibition programme, visit www.nelsonmandelasquare.com or phone 011 217 6000.

It’s a beautiful series of “villages” on the Eastern Cape coast of South Africa, starting with the Canals, the Village, Santarene and Port St Francis. It spends much of the year in serene peace and quiet – but the December holidays bring tens of thousands to its sunny shores.

Some say that nowhere in the whole of South Africa will you find a more pleasant sight than St Francis Bay. Leighton Hulett (of the Hulett Sugar family) started the town from a fishing camp of thatched rondavels, and friends who came to stay were so enchanted with the place that they asked to buy a piece of ground to build a place of their own.

The Canals and the Village feature mostly white, thatched homes, Santarene goes Mediterranean, with Spanish and Tuscan style homes. Port St Francis is the most recent property development and features marina flats and townhouses, as well as restaurants, shops and hotels nearby.

Now, one of the things St Francis is famous for is its surfing. While Cape St Francis, a few kilometres away, seems to offer “rougher” rides and bigger waves, only St Francis Bay can claim the joy of Bruce’s Beauties.

Back in the 1960s, film maker Bruce Brown was searching the world for the perfect wave. He found it at St Francis Bay, and named the waves “Bruce’s Beauties”.

It is said that Bruce Brown’s classic surf cult movie, The Endless Summer, launched many thousands of surfboards. The classic 1964 surf sensation opened up a whole new realm of surfing experience, and put surfing at St Francis on the map.

Situated midway between Port Elizabeth and Knysna, the picturesque holiday village of St Francis Bay lies nestled among green clad dunes that line the beautiful Bay of St Francis. Dolphins and whales play along the shoreline while the sounds of gulls echo lazily overhead.

The Kromme River, navigable for about 10 km, twists and winds its tranquil way down to a magnificent marina where the gracious white walled thatched homes are reflected in the quiet water of the canals.

With plenty of homes to rent within walking distance of the water, it’s a surfer’s paradise. Surf experts say it’s a hot, hollow wave that can be here today and gone tomorrow, requiring the right weather systems to pass through.

Bruce’s Beauties are listed as an A1, top class break - it cranks, it’s hollow, fast and - when big - pretty dangerous if you wipe in front of the rocks. While word of mouth sees surfers from everywhere rushing to Harbour Road for Bruce’s breaks, the area remains less crowded than Jeffrey’s Bay, a short drive from St Francis.

The world-famous Jeffrey’s Bay – just “J-Bay” to locals - offers surfing and beaches that excite travellers, surfers and groupies from around the globe. For those whose blood runs salty and who feel most at home on a board, Jeffrey’s is a “must-surf before you die” spot.

The Billabong Pro competition is held here in July every year, attracting both competitors and surf fanatics from as far afield as Australia and Hawaii. The world’s best surfers work their magic on the universally renowned waves during the R2.3 million (US $320 000) Billabong Pro, the fifth of 11 events on the 2008 ASP World Tour.

Supertubes, the venue for this year’s competition - the 24th edition of what has become Africa’s most prestigious and lucrative surfing tournament - is unanimously acknowledged as one of the planet’s top 10 high performance surf breaks.

If you’re in the Eastern Cape, stop by St Francis – and don’t forget to pop in at Cape St Francis, for the most exquisite sunsets on the beautiful, ragged rocks.

By Nthambeleni Gabara

The 11 June kick-off of the 2010 Fifa World Cup will coincide with the opening of the inaugural Festival of Africa at Johannesburg’s Melrose Arch, where a full programme of live entertainment from across the continent will fill the piazzas and walkways with music, dance and performance art.

The event, organised by the Regional Tourism Organisation of Southern Africa (Retosa), will run for the duration of the World Cup, with the exhibition lasting throughout June and the entertainment programme carrying on to 11 July.

Twelve southern African countries, as well as top regional tourism destinations, have taken up exhibition space in purpose-built stands woven into the fabric of the Melrose Arch Galleria shopping mall, so as to create an organic, African sense of space in a stylish setting.

Live World Cup football matches will be broadcast on giant screens in the square and piazza, while fan rides to and from stadiums will add to the World Cup vibe.

A workshop focusing on trade and investment opportunities in the 14 countries making up the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will take place on 24 June.

The Festival has received support from the Small Enterprise Development Agency, Gauteng Tourism and the national Department of Tourism, which is encouraging organisations with an interest in promoting Africa to get involved. Deputy Tourism Minister Tokozile Xasa was guest of honour at the festival’s media launch on 31 May.

“The Festival of Africa will be Africa’s signature event during the World Cup, our statement that the continent is ready to welcome the world for tourism, business and cultural exchanges,” Retosa executive director Francis Mfune said at the launch.

“The festival will help change perceptions of Africa, conveying a positive image about our diverse people, cultures and unrivalled landscapes and wildlife.

“The festival is also endorsed by the African Union and Nepad, which sees it as an important 2010 legacy project,” Mfune added.

Source:  http://www.buanews.gov.za/

By Brad Morgan
Firts published on SAinfo
When the 2010 Fifa World Cup kicks off at Soccer City, Johannesburg on 11 June, all eyes will be on South Africa … and the country’s national football team. Can Bafana Bafana recapture the verve and fighting spirit of 1996, when they conquered Africa, and gave the world champions a scare in Johannesburg?
Soccer and democracy

South Africa’s national football team, known as Bafana Bafana (”The Boys”), has a relatively short international history. That’s because the first team to represent all South Africans only played its first match in 1992 – two years before the country’s first democratic elections.

Bafana’s first match was played in Durban, against Cameroon, on 7 July 1992. It proved to be a strong debut against one of Africa’s leading teams, which had made the quarterfinals of the World Cup only two years previously. Doctor Khumalo scored the game’s only goal to give South Africa a 1-0 win. (more…)

Nestled in the foothills of the remarkable Magaliesburg Mountains is the relatively small town of Rustenberg.  As a “host city” for the 2010 World Cup, visitors should see all they can of the area while they’re there. As the days take us closer to kick off, you may be heading for the area. Here’s what you should know . . . (more…)

Billed as a “concert like no other”, a stellar music line-up  headlines this year’s Gauteng ‘Pale Ya Rona Carnival’ music concert. Jonas Gwangwa, Thandiswa Mazwai,  Selaelo Selota and rapper Prokid are just a few of hot the South African artists making their way to Mofolo Park in Soweto, where the ‘Pale Ya Rona Carnival’ will celebrate it’s last day of festivities. 
 
With the Carnival kicking off on the 4th June, the festival will end with a concert like no other on Sunday 6th June, 2010. Gwangwa, Mazwai, Selota and Prokid will join the eclectic sounds of the Gauteng Jazz Orchestra and the impassioned sonic grooves of Spain’s flamenco music. (more…)

By Jacqui Thompson

Our city has so much to offer. There is a multitude of cultural, adventure and educational activities suitable for curious guest. It’s unlikely your American Gran-in-law would want to power swing across the Soweto cooling towers, or your surly teenage nephew admire the turn of the century architecture in Jeppe. But if I have visitors to Jozi who are only in town for a few days and want to get a feel for the place, these are the spots I take them to. (more…)

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South Africa’s history is largely one of increasing racial divisiveness. Today it can also be seen as the story of - eventually - a journey through massive obstacles towards the creation - from tremendous diversity - of a single nation whose dream of unity and common purpose is now being realised.

The earliest representatives of that diversity that we can name were the San and Khoekhoe peoples (otherwise known individually as the Bushmen and Hottentots or Khoikhoi; collectively called the Khoisan). Both resided in the southern tip of the continent for thousands of years before its written history began with the arrival of European seafarers. (more…)

By Jacqui Thompson

A visit to this iconic game reserve is a must whether you live in Stuttgart, San Francisco or Sasolburg. It is our largest and one of the most accessible reserves and has so much more to offer than spotted, maned and horned mammals. As a regular visitor to the Kruger this is my advice on getting the best out of your visit…

Kruger elephants have right of way photo: Mary Alexander/MediaClubSouthAfrica.com

On arrival buy the Kruger Map book. Apart from the road network it has information on the type of terrain in different parts of the park. Know what you would like to see and select your route accordingly. You are unlikely to find giraffes in riverine thickets or steep rocky mountainsides. Looking for leopards? Your best bet would be roads alongside riverbeds.

Plan your distances carefully, allowing ample time to stop and spend time at an animal sighting or watering hole. You don’t want to have to rush back to camp.

The faster you drive the less likely you are to spot something. Stick to the speed limit (50kmph on tar and 40kmph on dirt) or even better travel around 25kmph – an ideal game viewing speed. I took an entire day to travel less than 100 kilometres because I stopped to look at the small things. This often rewards you with a sighting you might not have seen. (more…)

Pick the flight you fancy, the land-based activity you love, the watersport you want … this province has pretty well got it all zipped up! (more…)

A delicious feast

It’s a feast of colours and flavours: Ask any South African what his or her favourite food is, and you’ll be blown away by the diversity of local choices: A braai (barbeque) is a big favourite, with meats like lamb, beef, wors (a type of sausage) being piled high on plates. Koeksusters (a sweet treat made of deep fried dough and syrup) rank high, as does melktert, another desert made with a delicate milk custard.

Travels around the country will offer you indigenous delicacies like pap and gravy, bobotie, biltong (a dried and cured meat treat), curry and rice in various temperatures, roasted mielies (corn on the cob) and even peri-peri chicken livers.

Because South Africa has so many diverse nations making up its colourful culture, there’s little in the way of food that can’t be found here. If your delight is African, Portuguese, Indian, Italian, Asian, French or any other, you will find a meal that caters to you tastes. (more…)

By Dianne Bayley

Rugged, intense and spectacular in its beauty,  it’s adventure heaven. And whatever your preference, South Africa has an activity to keep that adrenalin pumping. (more…)

By Kathryn Fourie

“Paaaadle! Paaaaadle!” my old man yells as we head for a tree half submerged in the rapids in front of us. “I aaaaaaam, I aaaaam!” I yodel in distress as my arms burn with fatigue and I imagine my body being impaled by the septic looking branches inches from my bottom. Paddling with your Dad who has done the Duzi can be rather hardcore. However, when your Doctor friends from East London invite you along on a paddling trip where the ‘what to bring list’ includes marshmallows and red wine, you know it’s going to be a lot more fun! (more…)

Blue Train

Don’t see yourself riding on the gauTRAIN? It’s OK, ride a luxury train! There are several excellent luxury train rides you can take in South Africa; from Cape Town to Pretoria or to the majestic Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, the Okavango Delta or the Kruger National Park, be spoiled and marvel at the great southern African scenery. (more…)