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- News – April 2015 (Nelspruit/South Africa, 5/1/2015)
- Website statistics: 'Webalizer' has been shut down definitively in February 2013. 'Logaholic' is the current counter.
- 'Logaholic' shows now the following figures in April 2015: 20'085 visits / 91'439 pages
- 'Google-Analytics' showed 28'044 pageviews during April. The visitors come from ~232 countries!
- ('Logaholic' March = 22'588 visits / 94'427 pages; February = 23'260 visits / 82'107 pages)
- ('Google-Analytics': March = 29'620 pageviews / February = 31'068 pageviews)
- Record day since 12/17/1998 = the birthday of our website: on 11/5/2007 = 13'407 visitors and 787'456 hits ('Webalizer')
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- We issued our "News March" shortly before our departure to the Kingdom of Lesotho. Four days later we left South Africa at
- Wepener and arrived soon afterwards in Mafeteng, the second biggest city of Lesotho. Immediately we felt transferred to the
- "real black Africa" – it's over with the orderly way of life of South Africa. It's pretty difficult to describe this briefly: Life generally
- happens on the road. Moments later we were on our way to Malealea, the first destination for the day. It's a neat and beautifully
- situated tourist resort – probably a bit too commercially – from where hiking, riding and 4x4 trips can be made into the hilly
- surrounding. The following day we left this place already again and reached Roma, where also the University of Lesotho has its
- faculties.
- However we were eager to move on, and because the South Africans and Chinese built recently a new tar road towards the East
- we followed this achievement. Via Rambanta we reached the village of Semonkong where a 610 ft. tall waterfall plunges into a
- impressive gorge. The track there was a challenge (completely eroded), the fall itself however magnificent. Two days later we
- started to climb up via the Mohale Dam to the Katse Dam, both very big "water reservoirs" for "thirsty" South Africa and
- simultaneously power plants. The mostly paved mountain pass roads exceeded often 10'000 ft. – we counted within almost 200
- miles totally nine of such passes.
- We departed from Lesotho after eight days (488 miles/550 pictures) and re-entered South Africa at Caledonspoort to continue
- straightaway to the beautiful "Golden Gate National Park", where we experienced the following morning for the first time freeze.
- The cold – even more the icy wind – forced us to continue the journey to Ladysmith, where we had to buy four new tires.
- "Unfortunately" our choice had to be the Chinese brand 'Yatono', because we insisted to get steel belted radials with 14 plies.
- Hopefully they won't disappoint us like those Chinese 'Boto' that we bought on July 3rd, 2010, in Jakarta. Although the wear of
- the tread could be labelled as "very good", we had to throw away three of the purchased five tires in Indonesia due to fabrication
- defects. We visited another three "Game Reserves" on the way to Swaziland: Ithala, Madaka and Phongolo, the first two lying
- next to each other. Ithala and Phongolo are run by the province of KwaZulu-Natal (Madaka is privately owned) and offered
- pretty much "small game": Numerous kinds of bucks, giraffes, zebras, wild hogs, etc.
- On April 23rd, we entered at Lavumis the Kingdom of Swaziland for the second time – the first time was 9/12/1992 as country
- No. 55. Our target was the "Hlano National Park" in the Northeast, where there are also lions, elephants, rhinos and hippos. On
- April 24th, at noon, we spotted 11 rhinos around the Ndlovu pool. Mlilwane Park near Lobamba in the Ezulwini Valley is
- classified also as a National Park but resembles rather a amusement park where children are feeding nyalas and where the
- warthogs romp about the tents – in our view not anymore a "big game park"! However the Malolotja Nature Reserve along the
- road to the North of Swaziland has been spared from the overflow of tourism. Beautifully situated on an altitude of about 5'000 ft.
- it offers a big range of bird species.
- Swaziland ended on April 28th, at Jeppe's Reef (228 miles/300 pictures) that lies a bit south of the South African Kruger National
- Park. It was our 10th and probably final entry into South Africa. The country has currently two public holidays and simultaneously
- school holidays, what makes that the world known wildlife park is hopelessly overcrowded. While searching in the area, we
- coincidentally found a quiet campsite near Kaapmuiden along the old road from Nelspruit to Mozambique – away from the many
- South Africans using this break time to "let off steam".
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- Coming May 4th, the bustle will be over – once more. The Kruger National Park will have space again, and the life on the
- campsites will be quiet. That's the time when we intend to have one look more into some of the animal parks, before we have
- definitively to leave the Republic of South Africa on May 15th, 2015 (instead of April 22nd). The new immigration laws prevent
- car tourists from remaining more than three months in the country (tit-for-tat response to Schengen?). However there are
- fortunately still more beautiful countries in the region that welcome car tourists too!
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Tongatapu Island |  |
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Rarotonga Island |  |
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Temples, Pagodas, Shrines | |
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| The visit of 6 countries with and 1 island without our LandCruiser | Middle East | |
| The visit of 10 countries with and 1 without our LandCruiser | Southeast Asia | |
| The visit of 4 countries with and 1 islandl without our LandCruiser | Indian Ocean | |
| The visit of 4 countries with and 1 without our LandCruiser | Far East | |
| The visit of 14 Pacific Islands with and 1 without our LandCruiser | Pacific (Febr. 2008-Jan. 2010 + Aug.-Sept. 2010) |
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| The visit of 13 Caribbean Islands with our LandCruiser | Caribbean (June 2003-Dec. 2004) |
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| + added from the United Arab Emirates: | Fairytale Wedding in Dubai (March 1999) |
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| + added from a earlier visit to the USA: | Las Vegas (Millennium change) |
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| + added from our Arabian Peninsula round trip: | Pictures from Yemen (May-June 1996) |
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| + Flashbacks of our Worldrecordtour: | Pictures from "all the continents" (Oct. 1984 - April 1997) |
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