"Keep Left, Pass Right" - Driving The Garden Route
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2007
1
11
83
Trip End
May 09, 2008
Port Elizabeth, South Africa
Thursday, November 8, 2007
We got the el-cheapo rental, a "Chico", the Volkswagen rabbit of S.A... and after spending a night in King's Beach in PE, we headed up to Addo Elephant Park the next day.
SA is one of those weird countries where you have to drive on the left side of the road. Beside this annoyance, we noticed some different things about driving around here compared to in the States:
- Truck drivers here don't tie down their loads, looks like stuff could fall off at any time. Any time we came across one we would immediately switch lanes!
- In addition to the truck loads, there are also people hanging out on top of the truck loads while the trucks are speeding down the highway.
- There seems to be many people walking alongside the highway with cars whizzing by at 120 km/hr (~80 mi/hr). Crazy!
- People also seem to be coming from nowhere and going to nowhere, so it seemed. One guy we saw walking with a case of bottled beer, with seemingly no town anywhere close by.
- You really need to be on your toes driving in S.A. People also come out of nowhere crossing the multi-lane highways too!
- We always being passed on the highway even when we were going 130km/hr (85-90 mi/hr).
- When passing on highways, the passee moves into the shoulder on the left, and after the passer passes them, the passer flashes the passee a "thank you" with their hazard lights.
- However, the quality of the main roads in the Garden Route was superb. No potholes, very smooth riding, very little traffic. Very nice driving between towns.
