Day 13 – Giant’s Castle to Durban – 21 September

As we had quite a tight schedule, we got up early and got ready for breakfast at 7:30. We were planning on doing the Main Cave walk to go and look at some rock paintings, and the first guided tour started at 9:00.

Getting there for 9:00 meant we had to leave about 8:15 as it is supposedly a 45min walk. Breakfast was good, with more stunning mountain views from the deck.

Suitably fed and watered we set off for the caves, and got there just as I started panicking, thinking we got lost somehow. It is absolutely a 45min walk even though we took it fairly easy and stopped for pictures a few times. There are supposed to be a lot of wildlife in the park, including eland, but we never spotted anything bigger than small birds and lizards.

The paintings were interesting and I enjoyed looking at them though of course the symbolism, or rather, possible symbolism mainly escapes me!

After spending a bit of time in the caves/overhang we headed back while taking even more pictures….

The trip to Durban was quite uneventful, though the road was very busy and I found it quite strange, and not in a good way, being back on a busy and loud highway after quite a few days of peace and quiet in small towns and wildlife camps. In Durban we found our hotel (Florida Park Hotel, unpacked and went to the beachfront to have a look around and take some pictures. The hotel had very reasonable WiFi (about the only good thing about the place!) and we spent some time updating blogs, doing admin etc as we haven’t had proper internet access for days!! Durban and the beachfront wasn’t that impressive, though the fact that the weather was overcast and cool probably didn’t help.

For dinner we headed out onto Florida Road with its numerous eating and dining options. As it was Durban I had to have curry and insisted we go to House of Curries, where I had a lamb curry, chips and cheese, all rolled up into a roti, like a GIANT burrito. I ate a surprisingly large amount of it before giving up and it was very tasty indeed! We then went to Dropkick Murphys a little bit down the road to find Brian something to eat as well!

Florida Road and the surrounding area is very nice – old houses that are mostly done up and looking smart, with Florida Road itself filled with bars and restaurants with many options to choose from. When I was doing my research for the trip I initially booked a hotel on the seafront, but I’m glad we ended up in Florida Road in the end.