With out African adventure quickly coming to a close, as we fly home to Australia in under two weeks, we drove ourselves south of Durban once again at booked ourselves into Aliwal Rest & Dive in the quaint little town of Umkomaas. Kevin and Debbie have been running the outfit here since June ‘09 and have a stellar setup. Located at 39 Moody St (off the main road) Rest &  Dive has two excellent little self contained doubles, all with ensuite and kitchen inside. Outside there is a braai area, outdoor showers with piping hot water, and a 4m training pool that budding young scuba instructors in the area rent from Kevin and Debbie for their pool sessions.

The 7m rigid hull that parks itself in the driveway is impressive. Being slightly smaller than your standard duck means that Bruce and Wise (the training skipper) can manouvre out of the Umkomaas river mouth, through the shallow sand banks and out onto the shoal.

After talking with Kevin we lined up two dives for the following day, first out to their secret spot to play with Raggies (not Raggie cave, but further out into the shoal) and the second dive up onto the touristy cave sites. An early morning wake up call of 5:45AM and coffee saw up slide into our neoprene and doning our tanks out on Aliwal Shoal. With vis of around 10m and a current of at least a few knots we struggled to keep on the bottom to see the sharks, but once we stuck ourselves to the rock, we had an incredible experience with the mighty fish.

Countless Ragged Tooth Sharks swam around and through us, one alpha male cruising past me slowly to show off the fishing hook that was slowly rusting its way free of his jaw. After chewing through our air overly fast we took a surface interval next to a shark diving (chumming) boat and stuck our heads under the surface to check out over 40 Blacktip Sharks and somewhere, even through we couldn’t see  him, a BIG Tiger Shark chilling near the chum bucket. Our second dive took place on the tourist route, outside Raggie Cave. Again, hardcore currents helped us chew through air but we were welcomed once again by a huge family of sharks.

Seeing these creatures in their own habitat is awe inspiring and anyone who has preconceptions of sharks and how they behave in the presence of humans MUST come and dive here at Aliwal Rest & Dive. No cage, and in their natural habitat. Check this video of us on our surface interval, incredible.

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Now with two sets of potential buyers for Helga once we finish up our travels, and knowing that our new friends from Hluhluwe were rustling up as many funds as they could before giving us a formal offer, we left Sodwana Bay happy and relieved.

Driving back along the N2 through Pietermaritzburg and out to Underberg, we camped the night out at Sani Lodge for a second time. If you are planning on coming out to South Africa you must visit the Drakensberg, and Russell and his crew at Sani Lodge, located on Sani Pass road just out of Underberg are tthe best in the business. Having written the ‘Backpackers Guide to Lesotho’ and helped create many of the walking trails and activities in the Underberg area, Russell is an endless knowledge source on everything to do in the mountains. We picked his brain the next morning after chowing down on cereal with fresh Jersey milk that Sani Lodge produce onsite (also you can’t pass up buying a block of the stunning Jersey cheese from the Giants Cup Tea Garden, next door to Sani Lodge) and started Helga for the mission up Sani Pass.

For those of you that haven’t heard about the Pass, Sani Pass is the only entry point into Lesotho for the Kwazulu-Natal region of South Africa. It also happens to be one of the most hectic 4×4 roads in Southern Africa, so much so that the road is sponsorsored by local 4×4 clubs and tour guides take travellers up Sani Pass as a dedicated expedition. Knowing all of this we were keen to tackle the road in what may be the final mission in our beloved Helga.

It was just around lunchtime that we received a phonecall from our friends in Hluhluwe. Chris and Joanna has scrapped together some funds and gave us their final offer on purchasing Helga, our 1983 Toyota Landcruiser. Before we could agree, they also threw in a night at the Hluhluwe River Lodge… we couldn’t refuse! With the deal done, and the money transfers underway we took off along Sani Pass road towards the South African border post. Receiving our exit stamps for South Africa we started the climb up the Pass just ahead of a number of minibuses and ultra-heavy laden bakkies (‘utes’, in Australian language). The drive in low-range the whole way, gentley and slowly edging up the twisted rock faces, being careful to dodge the boulders and slippery gravel the whole way up. Watching the temp gauge for the entire 5km we stopped several times to allow crazy minibus drivers to  scoot past us and also to admire the stunning views back into the Drakensberg. After the most intense 2 hours of driving (yes, 2 hours for 5 kms…) that we have ever had the pleasure of completing, we made it to the Lesotho border post, at the top of the Sani Pass.

It was here that we learnt a very valuable detail about the Toyota Landcruiser. After making our way through customs we noticed a decent amount of smoke billowing from Helga’s exhaust on startup. Now normally on a cold startup the 4×4 will smoke for about a minute and then stop (an issue with the cold startup solenoid running rich) but we had just driven the most intense 4×4 track in South Africa. Ben almost had a heart attack, especially given we had just sealed the deal on the vehicle sale! We drove on to the highest pub in Africa (although I have heard that there is a pub in Ethiopia that may challenge this!) just over from the border post and sank a Savannah cider, thinking about our options, watching the Basotho people wearing their thick blankets and tending their goats, all while taking in more stunning scenery on the mountian ranges. After lunch we walked back to the our vehicle and noticed something odd at the right front wheel. Looking closer, we found that the rough terrain and intense rock hazards of Sani Pass had snapped one of the leaves in our suspension! Not suprisingly, we made the decision to head back down the Pass to camp the night out at Sani Lodge again before finding a suspension house that could repair Helga’s suspension.

But back on the exhaust smoke and the Cruisers. Once back on level ground we had a phonecall from friends in Durban. We explained the unlucky events of the Pass; the suspension and of course the smoke. Before we could explain anymore Trevor said in passing, “Oh yeah, its just altitude, all Toyota Cruisers run extremely rich as you climb up in altitude. A small adjustment to the fuel by leaning it out fixes it every time.”. Thank god for that. With our minds slightly more at ease we arranged Midland Springs in Pietermaritzberg to replace our springs in the front (which they did an excellent job, for around R700) and started our drive down towards the coast. Funnily enough the lower we came down in altitude the less the car blew smoke, and once at sea level there wasn’t a sign of any unburnt fuel making its way out of the exhaust. There’s a trap for young players. Remember, if you own a Cruiser and are heading into altitude, don’t stress about unburnt fuel blowing out.

With our failed mission into Lesotho now over, the suspension fixed better than new, and the smoke being no issue we both decided to head towards Umkomaas to try and take a break from the four wheel driving and dive with the resident sharks of Aliwal Shoal!

We received the call from Rory at Rory’s Garage that Helga has been fixed up and is ready to roll. Saying another goodbye to Jan and Trevor (it must be the sixth by now!) and Tim and Annarosa we piled into our rental Opel Corsa come go-kart and made the distance back to Pinetown. We collected Helga and after checking out Rory’s handy work on the propshaft, engine mounts and powersteering unit, we made tracks for St Lucia, for a few nights stopover before hitting the diving scene with Coral Divers in Sodwana Bay.

Helga was running beautifully on the cruise up to the St Lucia wetlands which is located 2-3 hours north of Durban. Turning off at Mtubatuba we wove our way through the massive pine and eucalypt plantations and into the rather surfy town of St Lucia. There are a few places to stay here in the town but we really enjoyed Bibs, on the main road just up from the fruit and veg market and across from Wimpys. Although the decore is becoming a little tired, the place is clean and staff are ace, with free morning walks of the wetlands to check out hippos and crocodiles as well as table tennis and pool in the bar. They do have an outdoor pool but it currently looks like the amazon river (it is a fair guess to say the filter is broken) and there is quick internet in the lobby.

The next day was our chill day, and we spent it wandering the town and scouting hippos from the shoreline, and heading out on a river cruise to find more wildlife. To be honest, I could take or leave the cruise. It was nice but everything we saw on the cruise we’d seen on our 3 hour walk around St Lucia. But it does give you the chance to see hippos up close and personal as well as the odd fish eagle hunting its prey from the trees.

I swear the sun starts shining hard at 5:00am here in Africa and after a few cups of instant coffee we loaded the tent and strange battery light contraption that Ben has created back into Helga, enroute to Sodwana Bay. Heralded as the best dive site in South Africa we were keen to see what all the fuss was about. After paying our park entrance fees (R20 per person, per day) and camping costs (R65 per person per day plus a community tax of R5 per person) we chose a stellar spot just south of the Coral Divers outfit. Now, we had heard previously that the dive operations here are very similar to a business production line, pumping divers in and out of the water, and mass producing both PADI Dive Masters and PADI Instructors. But we were to find that this only made them more professional and reliable. Both of us being competent divers we checked into the 7:00PM briefing and signed ourselves up to do 7 mile reef and 1/4 mile reef which had just been reopened after the raggies had fallen pregnant.

Eager to get wet we trekked back to Coral Divers from our campsite the next morning and loaded our gear onto the beach shuttle. Well actually, not all of our gear made it on. Ben, being daft as he is, left a plastic bag and wandered off to check something random out. The vervet monkeys in the park have adapted well to human behaviour and are always on the lookout for a freebie. Having spied the lone bag, one brave monkey dropped down from the wooden beams and threw his hand inside, digging out a fresh box of seasickness tablets with a wad of R40 (South African currency) tucked inside. In an instant the money was swiped by another monkey and taken off to their treasure trove in the jungle, while the original perp took a strip of tablets out of the box and gently popped out a single tablet, sticking it in his mouth. It didn’t take long for the little guy to realise it held no taste and the whole packet came raining down from the roof as he spat the tablet straight out!

Glad he didn’t get his hands on anything of real value, we made tracks for the beach and started kitting up. The curents had turned and the vis had been reported as being below par on 1/4 mile, plus the raggies were all hiding out getting ready to give birth, so we all agreed that our second dive would be on Stringer, a set of elongated reefs in close to shore.

7 mile was a great dive. Although the vis was average and the currents mild to strong we saw a great array of sealife: sleeping turtles, trumpet fish, angelfish, nemos, and loads of nudibranchs. The reef topology is gorgeous as well, with lettuce leaf corals and sponges making the scene quite spectacular. The second dive was just as epic, with a myriad of smaller fish and similar reef design, while the front of the group (which was six strong) missed the sight of a huge Raggie swimming underneath us at the end of the dive, just after a large Leopard Ray spooked and glided out into the distance.

But we didn’t come up here just for the diving. It just so happened that the young couple from Hluhluwe a month earlier who had seen Helga and were interested in doing a similar trip to us, were here in Sodwana as well. Chris and Joanna were keen to take a closer look, and now that there had been interest in their bakkie they wanted a test drive and to see what Helga could do in the deep sand and rocky tracks just outside of the park. Taking it in turns to drive her, Joanna and Chris led us out to Lake Sebaya where we knocked back a few beers and watched the sun set over the crocodile filled lake, listening to the grunt of an irritated hippo in the distance. More than happy with how the 4×4 handled the sand and dirt Chris and Joanna agreed to get back to us with an offer, just in case our other sale from guys in the UK fell through.

Not a bad trip up to the coast in the end; great diving and a potential sale on Helga for when we finish our trip, which is now less than 17 days from ending… Crazy!

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Leaving the vehicles behind at Mikadi Beach in Dar es Salaam, we joined the Danbys, and Jan and Trevor for a ‘holiday’ over on Zanzibar. It was to be a dive and no-drive holiday, sort of like a family vacation now that we had travelled together and shared so many similar experiences. We all bordered the ferry and after enjoying the onboard Christian/Nigerian soap opera repeats for about two hours we arrived at Stone Town, received our passport stamp from immigration (did you know that Zanzibar and Tanzania are separate entities, joined as a federation? Great for building up the visas in your passport!) before making our way to our quaint little accommodation run by a just as quaint man called Jimmy.

If you have heard of the spice tours of Zanzibar you have probably heard of the famous Mr. Mitu. The man behind the magic in most of the country’s spice tour trade. The following day saw us boarding the minibus enroute to a spice farm just south of Stone Town and it was here, in the following three hours, that we learnt the origins, history, and plantations of  nutmeg, vanilla bean, cardamom, cinnamon, pineapple, chillies, peppercorns, jack fruit, custard apple, and an array of other mouth watering spices and fruits. I had no idea that cinnamon was bark peeled directly from a tree. Or that pineapples grew one-a-piece from a bush!

The tour took us through several farming areas around the island and finally to one of the most significant landmarks in Zanzibar; the slave cave. Set just back from a secluded beach on the South Western coast, the cave sits around 15m from the surface and stretches over 3kms inland, to where over 900 slaves would sleep and rest  prior to their secret transportation off to the Americas and beyond. From inside the cave you look west and see the secret passages that led to the cliffs on the sea and marked the start of a horrid life of slavery for the unfortunate chosen ones.

We made it back to the capital, Stone Town, before dark and set about meandering through the back streets, through the Arabic and Colonial blend of architecture that towered above us. If you make it to Stone Town then you have to wander down to the fish market stalls at sunset. Overlooking the magic of a crimson setting sun you can immerse yourself in dozens of seafood stalls and opentop kitchens, selecting the freshest and best looking crayfish, prawns, kingfish kebabs, garlic naans, and endless calamari pieces and then having it cooked in front of you on the burning coals. All for a few dollars.

As enticing as it was to stay in Stone Town, the purpose of our Zanzibar family holiday was to dive the reefs. We piled into a minibus the following day and made tracks up to Nungwi, in the island’s North West. The ride cost around Tsh60000 (less than $60 Australian for all 8 of us) for the 1.5 hour ride which was a steal.

The next five days were easily filled. After speaking with Carlos from East Africa Divers on the Northern end of the Nungwi beaches we planned out four dives each and Katie took the chance to complete her Advanced Open Water certification in preparation for our upcoming weeks in Mozambique. The diving is great. Our first two dives where completed around Shane’s Reef and Home Reef (once the tide is right). Rolling back into the blue from our sailing dhow we were hit with a plethora of nudibranchs, butterfly fish, grey morays, stonefish, puffers, and blue spotted stingrays that lined the ocean floor. We have never seen so much fish life on any other of our dives, albeit our experience has been limited to the sub-temperate waters of Tasmania! Even though the sea life seems abundant, locals told us that there is a severe problem with overfishing told us stories of giant groupers and sharks who used to frequent the waters but due to the lack of fishing control they have all but disappeared.

After relaxing on the beach the next day and snorkeling Home Reef at low tide we sprinted off to the famed Mnemba Atoll on East Africa’s speedboat. Katie had snapped up Carlos on these dives to complete here narced session (deep water dive) and the remainder of her advanced licence while we were joined by an Israeli instructor for our swim around the atoll. The visibility wasn’t crash hot, peaking at just over 10m, but we caught a glimpse of a few loggerhead turtles, giant rays, loads more nudis, paperfish, lionfish (firefish if you are a native South African!) and glowing yellow trumpet fish. Both dives were great, although we still haven’t had our ‘blown away’ African diving experience yet. Maybe our expectations are a little high, or maybe we need to try a different time of year to grab the stellar vis. We still have Mozambique and South Africa on the dive list, so we’ll have to wait and see.