The Road Traveled To Cradock

Its rather a long journey to Cradock by car,  taking about 9 hours from Johannesburg and about 10 hours from Durban.  Its usually hot and windy and the road seems to just go on forever.  After much family discussion it was eventually decided that I would fly down to Durban and do the road trip with the oldest daughter to Cradock, meeting up there with the rest of the family coming from Johannesburg. And for the return trip I would travel with the youngest daughter back to Johannesburg. 

Now there are truck strikes going on at the same time and a lot of petrol stations have run out of fuel, as well as "Stop and Go's" on both routes.  So we plan carefully and map out the best routes.  Late Wednesday night I fly down to Durban and in the early hours of Thursday morning we pack the car and set off to Cradock.  Our route starts in Umhlanga and travels to Port Shepstone, Kokstad, Matatielle, Mount Fletcher, Maclear, Elliot, Cala, Lady Frere, Queenstown, Tarkastad and finally into Cradock.  We stop at all the little towns filling up the car as we go and already some of them have no petrol, but we manage to keep the tank almost full the whole way down and only encounter two short "Stop and Go's".  It's single lane road most of the way so slows down the distance we cover per hour. All in all it takes us 10 Hours 50 minutes to travel about 793km. 

The trip is quite picturesque and I take photos from the car on the way....

 

 

And all too soon Sunday arrives, its time to head on back home, gathering all our possessions we load the vehicles, say our goodbyes and get back on the road again.  Now there are plenty of "Stop and Go's" on the main road home and we have got directions to get past them by using the secondary roads.  So leaving Cradock we travel past Hofmeyr, Steynsburg, Venterstad (going past Gariep Dam), Bethulie, Springfontein, Trompsburg, Edenburg and then meeting up with the main highway to Bloemfontein, past Kroonstad and finally Johannesburg.  And yes, we miss all the road works. Its hot!! The temperature gauge in the car registers 35 degrees Centigrade just past Bloemfontein.  It takes us 9 hours and 47 minutes to get home, having covered a distance of about 814 km.

 

Here's some photos form the trip back to Johannesburg.....