My brother is building a holiday home there and he invited me along for a quick trip to have a look at how the building work is coming along. It was a quick trip – we left on Monday morning at 6.30am. It is a long drive of about 8 to 9 hours depending on traffic.
The trip there was fairly pleasant. We stopped off for brunch at a town called Piet Retief. Piet Retief is probably around 350km from Johannesburg – about 4 hours taking traffic into consideration. Im not going to say too much about this little town and will perhaps leave this for another time.
After Piet Retief we drove around the bottom part of Swaziland and then headed up towards Mozambique. We pass through 2 towns called Pongola and Jozini and I will do a separate post about them. The roads are not too bad for the most part. There are quite a lot of road works happening and one has to be careful of cows and goats crossing the road.
We got to the Kozi Bay border post at about 2.30pm so we made really good time. Getting through the border post is quick and easy. The border post also sees the end of tarred roads so you need to have a 4×4 to get to Ponta Malongane after that. My brother is building in Tartaruga which you can see on the map below. It is only about 13km’s from the border post but takes about 40 minutes as it is off road through soft sand.
We got to Ponta Malongane at about 3.15pm . We stayed at the same house as my last trip. The moment I got out of the car and walked inside, the rest of the world just melted away. It was like nothing else on this planet exists.
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| View from the pool deck |
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| View from the door leading out from the lounge |
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| View from my bedroom |
After relaxing and unpacking cooler boxes, we did a quick trip to the building site to meet the builder. There is nothing in this part of the world – there are no shopping centres or grocery stores so you need to come fully prepared. You can buy the very basics at the Barracas (huts) if you are lucky.
Then my brother and I went for Sundowner drinks at the Sunset Shack. The favorite drink in this part of the world is called 2M.
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| Sunset Shack |
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| Looking out over the lake |
After drinks, we went for dinner to a quaint little place. There is limited selection of food on the menu in this part of the world – generally chicken or prawns are served. There is very little else.
We met with the owner of the restaurant who was recouping after an operation. Her little son took a licking to me and before long he was fast asleep on my lap.
At about 9 and a few drinks, I was ready for bed. We went back to the house and I was asleep in no time.
I woke early the next morning – lifted the blinds so I could look out to the sea. I just could resist putting on my bikini and going for an early morning walk on the beach.
My brother eventually got up and we had to meet with the builder, the carpenter and we had to go looking for paint.
The Plascon paint shop was in the centre of Ponto D’Ouro. Behind a cafe called The Love Cafe. And of course we couldn’t resist have a few more 2M’s.
After this we landed up at Fernando’s. Fernando’s is famous for his R&R’s – Rhum and Rhasberry.
Then we to a restaurant just up the road and had a late lunch. Didn’t take pics here I’m afraid – think my brain was swimming at this point.
Felt a little more normal after lunch and we headed towards a bar referred to as Jenni’s. It is run by a little old lady. The deck overlooks the sea and the view is breathtaking.
Then it was back to see the builder late afternoon as we would be leaving first thing in the morning. After we chatted to the builder, we headed back up the road to have a few more drinks at Lourenco’s Bar (Yeah, you are getting a gist of the lifestyle here)
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| View from the bar |
The wind picked up while we were there and we found it quite unpleasant so we headed back to the house after this. We relaxed for a little while and then we headed to the Sunset shack for some more chicken for dinner.
After dinner I headed straight for bed – it had been a long day.
The following morning I woke early and packed the cooler box and the few things I had with. We did a quick trip into Ponto D’Ouro to see the carpenter and then we headed back to the border to come back home.
It is so hard to leave a place like this and it makes you think about life and your expectations. What could be better than getting back to basics and living in this paradise.
