Travelling Tim

« South African Rail | Main | Its Nice in Namibia »

June 22, 2007

Backpacking in South Africa

Hi to all my readers. I am now back in Cape Town, after a few weeks spent backpacking around South Africa.

As a big fan of travelling by rail whenever possible, especially long journeys in sleeper trains, my choice of route through South Africa, and how long I spent at each place was largely dictated by the frequency of trains. Unfortunately, since privatisation, the railway network - especially the number of stations and trains - have suffered substantial cutbacks. From a traveller's point of view, this means that although there are some excellent long-distance trains, they do not run very frequently: in some cases, even on very major routes they might only have one train a week! This makes it difficult to plan a circular schedule, but after a visit to the railway station for time-tables, and a lot of head-scratching, I came up with a route that, whilst not perfect, at least allowed me to see a bit more of South Africa and its countryside before I had to head back to Cape Town.

There are a variety of different train services in South Africa, but the ones that are safe and suitable for tourists are called Shosholoza Meyl. They offer comfortable sleeper coaches with compartments for 2 or 4 people. The sleeper coaches are very comfortable, and have all the usual modern facilities, including a hot shower! On the train there will also be a restaurant car that serves a range of food and snacks, and even a bar/lounge car, where you can drink a glass of wine or beer whilst watching the excellent South African scenery go by past the big picture-windows.

The route I ended up with was as follows:


Cape Town to Pietermaritzburg by train: 36 hours (2 nights) Timetable

Pietermaritzburg to Durban by coach: 1 hour

Durban to Port Elizabeth by Baz-Bus: 15 hours

Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg by train: 21 hours (1 night) Timetable

Johannesburg to Pretoria by coach: 1 hour

Pretoria to Johannesburg by coach: 1 hour

Johannesburg to Kimberley by train: 8 hours Timetable

Kimberley to Cape Town by train: 18 hours (1 night) Timetable

The above, coupled with the places in South Africa I had already seen on the Dragoman truck, and the time spent in and around Cape Town, whilst not extensive, have certainly given me an excellent introduction to South Africa.

I took a few photos of the trains, much to the amusement of the staff. You can see them on my new South Africa Rail page.

Whilst the trains are very nice, and quite safe for foreign travellers in my view, the same cannot be said for the stations. Many along the way have been abandoned,vandalised, stripped, and left to rot. Those that are in use are more often than not more like a battleground than a friendly places for passengers to come and go. If you have a ticket you can safely pass the security guards and go through the big steel gates to the relative comfort of the platform, but the station concourse itself is often quite a threatening environment, and I was always glad to leave it behind.

One exception to this, surprisingly enough, is Park Station in Johannesburg. Jo'burg these days has a terrible reputation for crime and violence, so I was rather nervous arriving by train, knowing that as the local Metro trains are definitely off-limits to foreigners, I would have to transfer to a coach for my onward journey to Pretoria. I need not have worried. Park Station concourse is clean and modern, with plenty of security guys everywhere you look. The booking offices for the coach companies, such as Greyhound, Interstate and TransLux, are right on the concourse itself, as are the coach-departure platforms, so it is not necessary to leave the station at all when transferring from train to one of the major coach companies. There are even some cafes near the coach offices - this is more than can be said for the platforms, which are clinical and bare of any amenities. The same is true for all of the other stations, and I just can't understand the reasoning behind this. Surely its better to rent out the buildings to people who want to run cafes and shops to serve the travellers, rather than trash the buildings and turn your stations into Stalingrad-lookalikes !! Its certainly a good way to put off potential travellers - I almost get the idea that Spoornet would much rather be a freight-only company!

As there are no rail-links between Durban and Port Elizabeth, I decided to give South Africa's famous Baz Bus a try. The Baz Bus is a service especially targetted at backpackers, and is designed to get let you backpack safely around this not-always-safe country. When you book your ticket, you tell them which hostel you are staying at, and which hostel you wish to go to in your destination-city. You then wait at your hostel at the pre-arranged time, the doorbell will ring, and there will be the driver waiting to escort you to the safety of the Baz Bus, which is usually a largish minibus with trailer for the bags. You spend your journey with like minded backpackers, and then at your destination they drop you off at the required hostel. Very handy indeed. No need to get a taxi from the central bus station. No need to get dropped in the middle of nowhere. The driver will even stand next to you while you use an ATM.

My question is, why does South Africa NEED a service like this? What has happened to society here that causes so much violence, so much unease, that such a service is required by visting foreign backpackers? Answers on a postcard, please, to The President, Government Buildings, Pretoria RSA.

On to pleasanter topics. What's South Africa got for the backpacker to look at? Actually, quite a lot, no matter where your interests lie.

For a start, they've got the world's only complete Dodo skeleton - its in Durban's Natural History Museum. They've got real-live sharks and piranhas swimming around in Pretoria Zoo's aquarium (different tanks, though. I wonder which would win in a fight?). There's lots of great architecture, in Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and elsewhere. They've got some great museums and galleries. Quite a bit of wildlife. Some amazing scenery, too, though if you are only travelling through the Free State on the way to Johannesburg you wouldn't think so. Rather too much scrubland that no one knows what to do with - I guess that's why the 'Blue Train' is so popular!

For backpackers, besides the hand-holding of the Baz Bus, there are a LOT of really excellent hostels. You would be well advised to book your hostels in advance, and to help with that, there's an excellent FREE guide that can be picked up at most hostels here. You can also download the latest edition from the web - just visit the Coast To Coast website.

In planning my travels, I estimated on a budget of 16 UK pounds per day. As is often the case, that turned out to be not quite enough - I seem to be averaging 280 Rand per day, which is about 20 UK pounds currently. This includes a single room, 3 meals per day, snacks, internet access, and all my travel expenses. OK, you could do it a bit cheaper than this if you tried, and I would have met my estimate if I had always stayed in shared dormitories, but I prefer a single room for privacy, security, control of the light switch, and an absence of snoring!

My advice to anyone thinking of backpacking around South Africa: book your accomodation and travel beforehand, stay out of the cities at night, and always ask at your hostel for advice on which areas are safe and which are not. Get a good guidebook, get a copy of 'Coast To Coast', but above all, YES, do come - you'll have a great time, see some great things, and meet a lot of great people.

Well, I've got a few more days here in Cape Town, so will use it to see a few of the places I haven't yet managed to visit. I'm staying at the Zebra Crossing hostel again - you should too - its really nice there. Here's what Footprint have to say about it:

Zebra Crossing Backpackers, 82 New Church St, Centre, T/F 021-4221265, guest phone T 021-4239841, zebracross@ intekom.co.za Started life as a relatively small place, now expanded into house next door with more spacious rooms. Several spotless dorms plus double rooms, good views of Table Mountain, internet and travel centre, café and bar serving great breakfasts, snacks and meals, helpful management, but can be a bit too quiet.

As far as I am concerned, quiet is good! No doubt there will be plenty of noise next week when I join my second Overland Trip, this time with Kumuka, a new company for me. The trip, for which you can see more details here, departs Cape Town in South Africa on the 24th of June 2007, and takes 21 days to journey via Namibia and Botswana to the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, where it arrives on the 14th of July. Once again, an Overland Trip is ideal for travelling through Namibia, as there are many wild and desolate areas to see that are well outside the range of public transport.

I'll stay at Victoria Falls for a few days, and will probably have time to add a new blog page before flying back to London on the 17th of July:

BA6282 d 1350 Tue17Jul07 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe a 1530 Tue17Jul07 Johannesburg,South Africa
BA0056 d 2015 Tue17Jul07 Johannesburg,South Africa a 0620 Wed18Jul07 Heathrow Terminal 1

Posted by travellingtim at June 22, 2007 07:28 AM