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4 Lane Divided National Highways near large cities
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Some of the National Highways are Toll Roads
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Most of the time even the National Highways are 2 lane roads
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This road is a national highway between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth along the Indian Ocean Coastline. Vegetation is dense and almost forms a canopy over the road. It is called the "Garden Route."
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Another pic of a national highway going through the KwaZulu Natal Province
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Just like the Chicago Toll Roads or Pennsylvania Turnpike - An "Oasis" for gas, food, etc.
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Inside on of the Shell Fuel Oasises
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No Self-Serve in South Africa - One of the petrol station attendants
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Lots of road work in South Africa
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A good dirt/gravel road
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LOTS of potholes in this gravel road - a very common sight
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Many of the roads we went on were strewn with fist sized rocks ... or larger
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This Gravel road had an "S" designation. That meant it was a State Road. So, although no better than an Indiana County gravel road, it was their equivalent to Indiana 38. In an area with virtually NO roads ... this one is pretty good!
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Whoa Nellllly! Down a 35 degree incline with potholes, ruts, a water crossing at the bottom and then up a 25 degree rocky, bumpy road on the other side. Kind of like a real life "Disneyland ride,"
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This is a logging road through a pine forest grown for lumber to build with in the country. Every road that isn't on private property is used in a country with so few roads outside of urbanized areas.
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This was a typical road through one of the grassland areas of many of the Nature or Game Reserves.
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Please don't make me fly. I don't want to work that hard!
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This area of the Gauteng Province was largely "Good Georgia Clay" as we would say in America.
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This is the concrete water crossing on this road. These were common sights because most of the parks are next to or have creeks running through them. The concrete keeps the roadbed from washing out everytime there is a heavy rain.
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Oho, it's starting to get muddy on this road which is about 30 feet (on the left of the picture) from the swollen Orange river in the Tulles die Riviere Nature Reserve
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Following a very rainy summer (December and January there) the Orange River is still flooding the lowlands along its banks.
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Here is a place where the roadbed has washed out at some point in time. They have just placed a bunch of large rocks in the hole to fill it back in.
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This isn't a dirt road; clay road or gravel road - it's a rocks road. A road like this just beats the snot out of the underside of a car.
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We took this "State Road" to Stutterheim. It was one lane virtually for 30 miles. It was a good thing we never met anyone coming the other direction - backing up for 20+ miles is probably pretty tough!
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The Stutterheim Road - The road was like driving on one of those old "jiggle the fat off"machines that were around in the 50s. Plus the left side was a shear drop off of 400+ feet for most of the way.
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Are we in the Highlands of Scotland? The picture can't do justice to the wine purple flowers covering the hillsides. Irene is pretty sure the plants are in the same family as the heather in the Scotish Highlands.
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A Closer view of just one of the "heather" covered mountainsides on the way to Stutterheim. It was amazing and beautiful.
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Still on our way to Stutterheim.
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Golden Gate Highlands and Royal Natal Nature Reserves 417
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Golden Gate Highlands and Royal Natal Nature Reserves 424
