I should at least tell you about the parts where there was no camera. Like when we were confronted by the military and police who were very friendly considering it all. For the rest of it pictures speak better than words.
We picked up a friend from Amsterdam at the King Shaka international airport close to Durban in South Africa and stayed the night in Mtunzini which is the most amazingly beautiful part of Zululand. The next day set out to Swaziland.
Driving via Jozini I favoured a border post I have not tried before and since there is a road on the map that seems to cross the border, we followed the map. We should have been deterred by the flimsy cattle gate but I am so used to just letting myself through those. We had to penetrate thick bush over growing what may have been a road once. Thorns and branches screeching on the windows and enamel paint. I bundubash out the front of the car checking the road between the 100 meter + drop to the right and the ditches and rocks.
A spider web bounced me back and revealed the monster in the following images.
Stefan Silke behind the wheel there brought us here in his own monster which soon broke the web after I passed through underneath to get these shots. Stefan wants to travel all over Africa and got this Prado for the purpose. get in touch with him if you want to tag along for part of the way. The 4x4 gives you access to places you would not usually get to. Like this adventure/madventure for example.
Facebook sucks for making access to content difficult especially for non-subscribers and here is an attempt to share some of those images, let's see how it lasts. For now just click cancel if it prompts for a login:
Shortly after that view and getting stuck on a big rock on the uphill from which we had to dig ourselves we reached the border consisting of a few huge rocks which I found impossible to move. An old cattle herd who looked like a bushman, short, suncrumpled and amazingly skinny, wedged himself in between the rock and the ground and leveraged them out of the way. His body the lever! Big red hairy spiders took a defensive stance towards us but I followed suit when he simply stuck his hands under the rock and we rolled it out of the way. The fact that my hand was there meant nothing when he simply bumped the rock over.
As we drive past the rocks and thank the old bushman, other men dressed in civilian clothes arrest us: "Hi. Do you know where you are?" ... "Do you know who we are?" ... "If it was dark, we would have shot you" ... and so on and so forth. So dear world do not use this road into Swaziland: Link to google map
We ended up being processed by military and police who in the end treated us much better than any European authority treat people subjected to them in difficult scenarios. It did take 4 hours and fortunately the police officer phoned our accommodation and ordered food which was ready when finally arrived there very late.
More photos on public facebook album
Better photos on picasa:
