Driving 'The Beast' through Africa
'Lekker' South Africa
by Isabelle Demaeght, October 31st, 2025
Our stay in Cape Town is rounded off with the replacement of the Senegalese ball joints – the rubber boot on the right had come loose and the desert sand, river crossings, and extreme 4WD trails did the rest. Adriaan also hears a suspicious noise in left-hand corners and has both Guatemalan front wheel bearings replaced. We can continue for a while longer.
We drive south – I occasionally follow travel tips and YouTube videos and really wanted to drive the Garden Route: the southern coast that seems to deserve nothing but superlatives: rugged coastlines, soft beaches, scenery to dream away.
Our first destination is Agulhas National Park at the southernmost point of the continent, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. It is less touristy than the Cape of Good Hope, but just as impressive. The seas show their untameable side there.
When he sees the old lighthouse at the tip, Adriaan immediately exclaims: “I want to go up there!” One hundred and seventy-one? No – seventy-seven... or was it one hundred and seventy-one? Anyway, we climb many wooden steps on ladders. The wind has free rein at the top: we have to push to get the door open. If that tower from 1852 could talk, it would have volumes of stories about ships to tell.
Next, we head for the Garden Route, with a stop in Bredasdorp for essential supplies: farmer's sausage from an impressive butcher's shop, complete with a cheeky slogan that not everyone will appreciate, but which made us laugh out loud.
Mossel Bay (the official start of the Garden Route) immediately takes our breath away: campsites full of tents, neighbors right next to each other. Wilderness National Park is also busy. We choose a spot, but first we want to go to a restaurant. We put down a chair and hope that the spot will still be ours when we return from our meal. We devour 18 delicious oysters at ‘Oysters-R-Us’ – probably the biggest we've ever eaten. The Wilderness National Park has a walk to a waterfall, which we do the next day.
After two nights, we move on and find a (probably officially prohibited) wild camping spot in a forest that resembles the Ardennes so much that it is almost surreal. Until we are surrounded in the morning by baboons loudly performing their morning ritual. During a walk across a suspension bridge on the Otter Trail the next day, we decide to skip the rest of the coastal route. The Garden Route offers many places for paintball, zip lines, bungee jumps, 4x4 cross-country tracks, pizzerias, and fast-food joints. The area feels almost European—only the high-rise buildings (and the rush) are missing. It is school vacation in South Africa, and this walk (and the previous one) can probably be found on Tripadvisor and YouTube. We meet a young Dutch couple and a family with teenage daughters, but we pass most of the other hikers.
My right knee reminds me that my enthusiasm does not always keep pace with my age; since climbing Table Mountain, it makes itself felt on every slope.
The National Park distinguishes between ‘residents’ and day tourists. The start of a slightly easier walk (for some knees) is at a parking lot that cannot be used by day trippers. We pretend we haven't seen that sign and... for the second time today, we cross paths with Andries and Sariëtte, a South African couple with teenage daughters. We recognize the smell of boerenwors: these day tourists are cooking their lunch on a small Weber BBQ next to their car.
Andries is a hunter and makes his own sausages from kudu meat—a South African antelope. With some persuasion, Adriaan is convinced to wait a moment to taste the sausage, but he politely declines the brandy and cola that Andries is generously offering. Getting kudu meat in Europe: impossible. But I set my sights on a bag of boerenwors`` spices after Andries tells us how he makes sausage. We're going to make our favorite sausage in Europe ourselves!
Leaving the coast behind, we head into the rugged interior: Baviaanskloof. There we drive along a designated 4x4 trail with breathtaking views; valleys like folds in the earth. Using the iOverlander app, I find a unique spot: Chris, a farmer with 4,000 hectares of land, has created a unique camping spot six kilometers from his home at the end of a valley under an overhanging cliff with an open-air shower and toilet. The place matches what attracts us: nature and silence. The spot has been visited by overlanders before, but it has also been ‘tackled’ by baboons. Chris solved the problem with his own pragmatic, tough approach that made us swallow hard for a moment – “we just shoot them, then they stay away.” We book two baboon-free nights.
In places like this, we use our solar panels. But they don't work well and don't provide enough power to keep our electrical equipment running in this heat. The Beast's alternator comes to the rescue for an hour. It's time to solve this problem (too).
We want to make the most of our Wildcard (“our frugal side”) and visit Addo Elephant Park. On the first day, we enthusiastically set off on a 4x4 trail. We crawl along at less than 10 km/h, but there are no elephants to be seen because the terrain is densely overgrown. In the evening, we still haven't found a place to sleep, so we knock on the door of Ian's farm (8,000 hectares!), who kindly allows us to camp on his property. He even takes the time to discuss the situation in South Africa with Adriaan. They each have a different view.
Today, we see large numbers of the elephants that were hiding in the bushes yesterday. The landscape here is more open, more expansive, with scattered waterholes that sometimes appear natural, sometimes man-made. They move through their habitat as they please – even across the road. We are not yet experts, but we are learning to read their behavior. When a large elephant turns towards us and shakes its head and trunk, we drive back a little out of respect. Two (female) rangers (of color – yes!) drive around the group (through terrain where we are not allowed to drive). They tell us that driving through the group of elephants is dangerous and that we had better wait. We have been here for 45 minutes – we decide to drive back quite a few kilometers.
Further inland, we drive through the Drakensberg area, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape with dramatic mountains, cliffs, and valleys. We have to make a detour of several kilometers, but it is more than worth it. We drive part of the Sani Pass almost to Lesotho and later see Cathedral Mountain up close.
We eventually end up at Cheryl and Ian's, friends of Veerle (my best friend), who run a chicken farm at an altitude of 1,200 meters, together with three lovely dogs. The planned hikes literally fall into the water: one downpour follows another. But it's a perfect place to rest and recuperate.
We dive into another life: that of a South African farm with 68,000 chickens. It is fascinating to see how everything works here—from feeding to ventilation, from the morning routine to the silence after work. And in between all the hustle and bustle, we simply enjoy each other's company, doing nothing, just being together.
On Monday, the two of us go out. Adriaan buys the same panels Ian has – they fit into our custom-made Brazilian rack under the roof and (theoretically) have enough capacity for several days. The 4WD candy store has many things he also wants, but we limit ourselves to a second folding chair.
Meanwhile, I wander through the baby departments – what an unexpected pleasure! At the beginning of next year, I will become a grandmother: the two youngest sons (their partners, rather) are expecting. And no matter how hard I try to remain level-headed, I find it difficult to ignore all those tiny clothes and soft blankets. We have promised that I will be back in mid-February 2026 – in The Beast if possible, otherwise by plane.
On Tuesday, we say goodbye to Ian and Cheryl. We could easily stay here, but the road calls. In two days, we will drive to the Blyde River. In 2017, we took a trial trip through South Africa in a rental car. At the time, we wanted to find out whether this way of traveling was right for us. Adriaan thought the walk in the Blyde River Canyon was the highlight. We are creatures of habit too: we choose the same resort and walk the same path (albeit in the opposite direction). The walk is labeled “advanced,” and to be honest, my knee agrees. We walk on the edge of a canyon with the Blyde River meandering below us. The view, the silence, the space... we realize why we're doing this.
Adriaan's hearing isn't great, and when I'm not in his line of sight, communicating isn't always easy. But he can hear the slightest strange noise coming from The Beast. Adriaan listens, frowns, listens again. Eventually, we end up in Mbombela (formerly known as Nelspruit) and find someone who again thinks there's play in the bearings. But the noise is probably something else. They'll continue searching on Monday.
We spend the weekend at Klipspringer Lodge (a private reserve with free-roaming wildlife and a campsite) south of the city. There we are far away from everything, surrounded by nature, with only the wind and birdsong. We test the new solar panels and they work great. For a moment I think: if we had had them five years ago, our journey might have been a little different. But then I smile. Maybe it was just meant to be, step by step, sound by sound, until we got here.
When the VOC (Dutch East India Company from the Low Countries) ruled this area, they brought their language (Dutch) with them. That language has evolved into Afrikaans. We can read it, but understanding it is more difficult. However, we recognize spoken words. One of them is “lekker.” In Dutch and Flemish, this mainly refers to a taste sensation, but here it is also the answer to “how are you?”. “Lekker”. We like this country.
See more photos and the route taken.