A holiday of a lifetime: My visit to South Africa in 1982
 THE BIG HOLE at the Kimberly Mine in the Northern Cape has become a major South African tourist attraction. By the time mining ended on August 14, 1914, the mine had yielded 2,722 kilograms of diamonds, extracted from 22.5 million tons.
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 MAUREEN Kitson and her sister Lilian visiting the cheetah enclosure.
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 DURBAN is located on the Indian Ocean and has a city hall almost a replica of Belfast City Hall.
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 TWO BULL elephants fighting for territory outside Port Elizabeth.
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 ERIC KITSON with his son Brian in the Kruger Park in 1982.
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 AN ostrich farm outside Oudtshoorn where workers rode on the back of one of the birds.
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By ERIC KITSON
The World Cup now taking place in South Africa brings to mind the time I visited that country in 1982.
My wife Maureen and I each had sisters living there so we thought we'd go see them. When we announced our plans to the family our son Brian, who was then 28 and single, said he would like to come along.
After much planning and arranging, we flew to London and as we had a few days stopover, rented a car and drove up to Ripon, Yorkshire to visit my other sister and my nine adult nephews and nieces.
A few days later we boarded a South African Airways plane and flew to Johannesburg where we were met by Maureen's sister Lilian, who drove us to her house adjacent to St. John's College, where Jimmy, her husband taught.
We spent a few days in Johannesburg where we visited the Indian market where I had my first samosa. We took an elevator to the viewing area atop the Carlton Centre, the highest building in Africa (50 stories), where you could see the gold mines in the distance, and visited some of the city’s large modern shopping malls.
Lilian always took the rotor out of her distributor when she parked as there were a lot of car thefts. The country was still under apartheid, and at the end of the day the black workers mostly headed out to their “township” of Soweto, itself a large city of more than a million.
Jimmy was involved in a school production of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, to which we were invited and enjoyed immensely.
My in-laws had a surprise for us. They had booked a five-day safari at Kruger Park. Two of their friends also came along, so we duly set off in two cars out of Jo'burg through Pretoria, the capital and a very beautiful city, and on to White River where we spent the night.
The next day we entered the park. The next few days we spent driving between the enclosed camps throughout the park.
Our accommodations had been reserved for us, they took the shape of a circular hut with a thatched roof. But inside they were as modern as any hotel. Each had a campfire outside where you could have a braai or barbecue.
There were stores and an outdoor area where the park wardens gave lectures on the flora and fauna to be seen in the park.
During the day as we drove, we were not allowed to leave our cars. The game was to see who could spot animals first. We saw elephants, giraffes, springbok, and other bucks, leopards, and all sorts of monkeys who would climb on the car looking for handouts. We were disappointed that we never saw a lion.
The only time we got out of the car was when we went to the hippo pool, and then we were accompanied by a warden with a rifle.
Jimmy had previously taught at a school in Swaziland and that's where we headed next.
Swaziland is an independent country ruled by a black king. In the capital Mbabane there was a fairly large European community and we stayed with a Scottish couple, friends of Lilian and Jimmy, who had a business there.
We were just in time to take in their local amateur theatre production of Cats. It was very well done and we enjoyed it. I was asked if I knew Dave Abbott, apparently he had passed that way before.
After doing the rounds of visiting old friends, we headed back to Jo'burg. On reaching the border to South Africa, I was dismayed to see a long line of black people applying to enter to find work. At that time being white had its privileges, and Lilian marched us to the front of the line.
It was time for me to head for Port Elizabeth to visit my sister. We got the use of a large Toyota from one of Lilian's friends and since Jimmy had to work, the four of us set out for the Cape.
Brian had got into the way of driving on the left so he and I took turns driving. We spent a day in Kimberly visiting the Big Hole which was manually dug by 50,000 small-hold miners in search of diamonds in the 1860s.
There was a museum there and one of the items on display was the deluxe private rail car owned by Cecil John Rhodes. It would have been a steam buff’s delight. All the locomotives I saw were old-fashioned coal-fired steam – not a diesel in sight.
One of Lilian's rich friends had a “flat” in Durban, so that's where we drove next.
Durban is on the Indian Ocean and has some very beautiful beaches. It also has a city hall that is almost a replica of Belfast City Hall.
Finally we reached Port Elizabeth where we met my sister Freda and her husband Bobbie and followed their car to their home in the suburbs.
It had been many years since we had seen one another so there was a lot of catching up to do.
Bobbie, an ex Harland & Wolff man, was the electrical superintendent at a car factory owned by General Motors and the next day he took Brian and I there to see the production line from start to finish It was very interesting. Afterwards we had lunch in the executive dining room.
The following day we drove to a local game park, much smaller than the Kruger Park, but we did see two bull elephants fighting, it was very scary but one eventually ceded the territory to the other and took off with no major damage done. Brian also got to pet a beautiful cheetah in an enclosure, the rest of us were too chicken.
Freda and Bobbie had lived for many years in Cape Town, so we took off next day in two cars and followed the scenic coast road.
At Mossel Bay, we visited the Post Office Tree. In the days of the sailing ships going from Europe to the Indies – a journey of several months – they would put in to the bay for fresh water and supplies. Eastbound ships would leave letters at the tree for westbound ships to take back to Europe and vice versa.
Cape Town is a beautiful city with terrific beaches and Table Mountain in the background. We took the cable car up to the top and view was spectacular, including Cape Point, the most southerly point in Africa, which we later visited.
Also in view was Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned at that time.
The hotel we stayed in was an old-style colonial type for the ridiculous price of fifteen rand per night. The buffet breakfast was something else and I first tasted guava juice and drank it by the litre. A short drive away we visited Paarl, in the centre of the wine country and we had a tasting session at one of the wineries.
Time to move on. In the hills beyond Cape Town we met a troop of baboons looking for a handout but we kept on driving, they looked pretty dangerous.
We took the inland road going back and visited the Cango Caves and from there we visited an ostrich farm outside Oudtshoorn. We saw the huge eggs these birds lay and one of the farm workers rode on one’s back. They offered for us to try it but we declined.
Back to Port Elizabeth where we visited awhile until it was time to say goodbye. We took a different route going back and at the border of Transkei, a so-called black “homeland” we had to bribe the officer a few rand to speed our entry.
Our first stop was the capital Umtata, which looked like an old time western town with its unpaved streets and shanty buildings. Luckily, we found of all things a Holiday Inn and spent the night there.
Jo'burg again, we had one last barbecue with all our new friends then it was time to leave the beautiful country of South Africa.
We had planned to return via Rio de Janeiro with a two-day stopover there. We got a nice hotel right on Copacabana Beach and visited the huge statue of “Christ the Redeemer” and took in a carnival show. We also got robbed, but that's another story.
We flew out on Varig Airlines to Miami, then Los Angeles then back to Vancouver having enjoyed the holiday of a lifetime in South Africa.
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