Today is the last day of Xtractor’s thrilling South African adventure, and it comes to a close in perfect style – we arrive at the Italian Embassy in Pretoria accompanied by an impressive motorcade of South African police officers on motorbikes that make us feel like real stars! Thanks to their skill, we get there perfectly on time for the function kindly hosted by the Italian Ambassador, and without wreaking too much havoc on Pretoria.
Today we have yet another busy day. It starts out with a quick stop at the Italian Sporting Club, one of the meeting places for Johannesburg’s dynamic Italian community. There’s only time enough to honour the memory of Antonio Bianco, a Para trooper from the Tuscania regiment who died in a tragic accident in Pretoria in 2015, and we have to move on. Our second rendezvous takes us to a township just out of Pretoria, accompanied once again by Riccardo Bianchi. It’s a tiny orphanage housed in very basic premises where two sisters, both of them volunteers, started taking in orphaned and abandoned children, often HIV-positive, abused and mistreated kids not even the usually outreaching black community would take care of.
We have reached Johannesburg, the country’s and the continent’s economic hub. Known to South Africans as Jo’burg, its Zulu name is more telling – eGoli, the place of gold, hinting at both its gold rush origins and its present-day affluence. Many come to this 8-million plus megalopolis in search of an all too elusive fortune that seldom arrives, which might explain Johannesburg’s extremely high crime rate.
Xtractor’s final days are chock-full of wonderful satisfactions. The day starts yet again at dawn, quite a chilly, damp early morning at that, but the fog luckily dissolves by the time we reach our destination, the black suburb of Sebokeng, at the outskirts of Johannesburg. The Kuthlo-Tharo school complex encompasses five institutes spanning all grades, for a total of over a thousand learners.
The sun is back this morning and it’s shining on the South African farming community’s most important event by far – Nampo, a huge yearly fair showcasing anything to do with farming and country living. A rainy day would have spelled disaster, as it’s an open-air event attracting visitors from both South Africa and abroad by the tens of thousands. We could not miss it.
It’s mid May and South Africa is heading towards winter - we know. At the Kruger it didn't feel like that, but here in Balfour we are suddenly forced to face the grim reality. We are back onto the central highlands, where altitude weighs in - and it's over 1,500 m above sea level.
We reach the outskirts of Pretoria, one of South Africa's three capital cities together with Cape Town and Bloemfontein. We're just passing by today, on our way to Balfour, but we'll be back in a week's time for Xtractor’s official closing ceremony. Right now, though, there are a few more important things we need to attend to. One of them we would gladly have done without, frankly, and it's our first police check.
In Toitskral, Limpopo province, thanks to Amref we get a glimpse at South Africa’s farming from the perspective of the mainly black labourers who toil on land belonging to others. It’s a poor community. Many are illegal migrants from other African countries who work as hired hands for a pittance.
At the usual meeting with the local farming community kindly arranged by the McCormick dealer, last night, we received an invitation to a truly unmissable activity which amply deserves an extra early start. It's still dark when we leave a fast asleep town. Then the sun slowly rises over the horizon, casting its pale rays on fields shrouded in mist, dew drops shimmering on the grass, and it's as if the curtains were rasing on nature's stage.
We leave the Kruger, climbing the mountains one last time to go back to the central plateau, bound to Johannesburg and the finishing line of our great journey by tractor. Back to cooler, gentler climates tempered by altitude, we reach Tzaneen.
Private game reserves are very common in South Africa, and they are often located so close to national parks as to be almost indistinguishable, even though separated by fencing. Being smaller, they generally offer an easier game viewing experience, considering that touring the whole of the Kruger, for instance, might take weeks. We have been invited to visit one such private reserves, Thornybush, one of the best, and we enthusiastically accept.
Established as early as 1898, the Kruger holds several records - it was South Africa's first national park, and it's the country's biggest (as well as one of the continent's largest). At 350 km long and 67 km wide, it really is vast. Its surface encompasses six different ecosystems spanning from the acacia and sycomore woods to the South -East, to the central region's savannah, more or less where we are now.
The moment we had all been waiting for has arrived at last. We are right on the doorstep of world-renowned Kruger, South Africa's largest and best known nature reserve. As if that were not enough, the area also offers some of the country's most scenic drives and quite a few breathtaking vistas, as the mountains once again tumble down to meet the rolling savannah plains known as lowveld in afrikaans.
We enter Mpumalanga province, one of the nine South Africa is subdivided into (at the end of our journey we will have visited all but the North West province). We have reached sufficiently far to the North as to have entered the sub-tropical zone, and it shows - the road is flanked by lush vegetation and large plantations.
Today it's back to the gravel, for our tractors. The dirt road winds its way through rounded hills and green pastures where cow herds graze peacefully. It feels almost like being back in Europe, and maybe that's why a small German community sprung up around a Protestant mission...
Out of Saint Lucia, we head North away from the coastal plain, once again crossing the mountains to climb into the interior plateau, bound for the Kruger park.
The iSimangaliso park stretches from the village of Saint Lucia, to the south, up to the Mozambique border, to the North. It's vast and outstandingky rich in biodiversity, as we could witness during our safari in the reserve, yesterday.
About 300 km North East of Durban along the Indian Ocean shore, Saint Lucia is a small seaside resort which is very popular in South Africa, and quite understandably so. The tropical vegetation, the flowers and the relaxed atmosphere lend it an almost Caribbean flair, but that's only half of the story.
Making an early start is never nice, granted, but today's is extra tough: wake up call at 5.30 and leave by 6 without even the comfort of a cup of coffee (too early for breakfast). It's still dark and the dim streetlights, always weak in this part of the world, are drowned out by a chilly fog.
We dash in and out of Petermaritzburg, the former capital of the short-lived Boer republic of Natalia, later incorporated into the South African Union in 1910 under the name of KwaZulu -Natal.
Today we are entitled to one last, indulgent rest day - our schedule henceforth won't allow for any more. We savour it, filling it with peaceful routine activities we actually don't feel like doing all that much, as it's always the case when there's not much to do and even the little there is feels like a chore.
As we move farther away from the mountains,, the highlands gradually give way to green rolling hills stretching out by the thousands down to the coastline. We once again venture down gravel roads and dirt tracks snaking up and down the slopes, cutting deep into pine and eucalyptus forests out of a fairy tale by the Grimm brothers.
Our long drive around the Escarpment has taken us to the very same point where we would have landed had we come by way of Lesotho, i.e. Underberg, a pretty little mountain resort laying in the shade of the Drakensberg where in the afternoon we'll have a function with the local farmers at the McCormick dealer's. To us, though, Underberg is synonymous with Sani Pass, which was one of the reasons why we meant to visit Lesotho in the first place.
Off we go for our second day driving around the Escarpment, the steep flanks of the Drakensberg. Rising up to mark the border between the small independent highland kingdom of Lesotho and South Africa, geologically they are a deeply eroded residue of the ancient African plateau.
The team unanimously opted to go a different way than the scheduled one, a rather impulsive decision we made after hearing marve!s about the Escarpment area which can enjoy to the max if we drive around Lesotho instead of across it.
When we booked it we had no clue that the lodge where we would stay tonight was a rather special place nestled at the foot of a ridge. The dirt track leading there was lit up by the most beautiful sunset when arrived.
After spending two days there, the petrol station feels like home. At the fast food restaurant where we've been taking all our meals we've made friends with everyone.
We have a wonderfully satisfying morning today. It's Sunday and we have the very welcome opportunity of visiting a township, a community where black South Africans live.
When we wake up, early in the morning, the small farming town of Bothaville looks like just any other place in the the low-lying countryside of Northen Italy. There's a fog as thick as in the plains of Lombardy, and muted fall colors.
The new drivers who joined us yesterday are going to be sorely tested today. We are having breakfast at 6.15 and leave as soon as we possibly can because we'll be running on a tight schedule.
Kimberley has always been known for diamonds - the De Beers company's involvement in the mines made it the largest town in the region in the mid 19th century.
We have a lot of distance to cover today. From the desert (not that we have seen much of it) we will gradually move towards much less arid farmland. Mining is big in the area we have moved into, as can be inferred from the large lorries carrying mineral that lumber past. Today it's going to be tar all day long, or so we thought.
Although the sun is shining when we take our leave of Hotazel, the puddles on the gravel road haven't dried out yet, but then we've got used to mud by now. Today we are supposed to push deep into the Kalahari, the Great Thirst to the San people who first inhabited it.
We spent a somewhat restless night at the camp deep in the Kalahari where we are staying. A furious storm broke out around dinner time with lightning and a deluge that went on until dawn.
To North of the Orange River lies the actual Kalahari, the arid wasteland the first khoe-san inhabitants called "Great Thirst" - this is according to the guude books.
No travelling today, it's going to be a rest day, but we'll keep busy anyway.
We are fortunate that rain actually came last night to wash away some of the mud. We have to set off very early today as we'll have to cover more than 280 km along gravel riads,which to us translates into 8-9 hours at the wheel.
The day sets off to a good start, with a breakfast even bigger than usual. We have eventyally got used to having eggs, bacon and sausage at 7 am, especially since there's the (very real) risk of not having time to stop for lunch.
If yesterday’s traffic was light, today we have the road virtually to ourselves. And the arid plain stetching as far as the eye can see is just as empty. Not even a sheep. Nothing.
Today’s journey takes place among the typical Karoo landscape, an arid plain dotted with flat topped, low reliefs, that vaguely resembles some pictures of the old West.
Today marks the start of the leisurely trek northwards that will lead us through the semiarid region of the Karoo and evenually to the Kalahari desert. The day starts on a happy note, the road is good and the traffic light.
Today we had a wonderfully relaxing day in the greater Addo Elephant National Park, one of South Africa's major parks, which was created in 1932 to harbour the few elephants that survived a slaughter ordered by the Cape authorities in order to protect the local farmers' crops.
Autumn Is over in a flash and it's back to Summer. The sun is shining and we feel great because today's leg is short and tomorrow we'll have a well deserved rest day we can spend enjoying one of South Africa's most celebrated nature parks.
Today it's raining at last,a piece of good news to this region plagued with a drought that has been going on for years, and it's a situation that extends across the border from Western Cape region into Eastern Cape.
Oudtshoorn may have been a properous town at the turn of the 20th century, but today it looks a bit down at heels and riddled with little black beggars. The ostrich farms are still there, though, as well as large tobacco fields and lots of arid countryside.
Our second day on the road starts among vineyards and Mediterranean looking countryside, apparently familiar to us except for the signs warning to beware of baboons (we actually saw a couple) and the fact that kudu hamburgers and ostrich steak are menu favourites - quite tasty we must say.
Today is the big day: our exciting South African adventure is getting started. And it’s being launched in the best possible way, with a toast (strictly no wine, alas, as we’re driving) at one of the famed wine estates around Cape Town.
Only a few days left before the Xtractor Around the World South African mission heads for the starting line. The team are busy checking out the equipment, their Arma 1814 branded uniforms and technical materials.
A love for adventure is not something you can acquire. Driving a tractor, on the other hand, is a skill our Xtractor drivers will have to master if they are to cover 6,000 km across South Africa. Watch their baby steps as they learn to how to tame the massive horsepower of McCormick’s hyper technological iron steed.
In the very special setting of the Salvo d’Acquisto Barracks in Rome, the Carabinieri Corps and Xtractor staff announce the April 2018 departure of the new Xtractor challenge bound for South Africa.
Insights, curiosities and all the real-time events of the South Africa Mission
TRACTORS
PEOPLES
pick-up vehicles
CHEF
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