SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa is a beautiful country, with a magnificent scenic diversity. It ranges from desert plains carpeted with spring flowers, mountains towering above valleys and vineyards, to rolling farmlands, cosmopolitan cities and quaint villages. The coastline, is dotted with charming resorts and includes some of the world’s best bathing and swimming beaches, with a great coastal climate. Nineteen national game parks, eight transfrontier conservation areas, and many more private reserves, teem with the BIG FIVE of elephant, rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion and many more other exotic species of animals and birds.
South Africa is home to about 8% of the world’s bird life and over 9 000 indigenous flowering plant species. It is known as the botanical kingdom of the world. The Table Mountain National Park has the richest single floristic area on the planet.
Most first time visitors are amazed at the cosmopolitan nature of the country. It has a rich tapestry of peoples, languages, religions and geographical contrasts and state of the art infrastructure, literally thus “A WORLD IN ONE COUNTRY”.
Sir Francis Drake said the following about the Cape: “This cape is the most stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth.”
Cape Town has with very good reasons been described as “the tavern of the seas.” The silhouette of Table Mountain is one of the most recognised in the world. It was in the shadows of Table Mountain where the famous surgeon dr. Christian Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant.
MAIN TRAVEL ROUTES:
China is approximately 9,596,960 sq km, while South Africa is approximately 1,219,090 sq km.
South Africa is about one eight the size of China. Meanwhile, the population of China is ~1.4 billion people while ~58 million people live in South Africa. South Africa’s main points of entry are at the International Airports of Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. The main towns and cities including the tourist destinations are connected by daily flights which make touring in the country easy to arrange.
South Africa’s long coastline – some 2,800 kilometres – influences much of the climate. On the west coast is the cold Atlantic Ocean, and the warmer Indian Ocean on the south and east. Starting at the hot and arid desert border with Namibia in the northwest, South Africa’s coastline runs south down the cold Skeleton Coast, around the Cape Peninsula to Cape Agulhas. This is the southernmost tip of Africa, said to be where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. In fact, it’s here, slightly offshore, that two coastal currents meet, currents that determine the different coastal climates. The cold Benguela current sweeps the west coast, and the warm Agulhas current the east.
From Cape Agulhas the coastline moves east and slowly northwards, and the climate becomes warmer and wetter. The Western Cape’s pretty green Garden Route gives way to the forested Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape, and then humid subtropical KwaZulu-Natal coast, famous for its beaches. In the northeast, the coast reaches the border of Mozambique. Running along most of the coast is a narrow low-lying strip of land, which soon gives way to a higher plateau – the Great Escarpment. The high altitude of South Africa’s interior means the country is generally much cooler than southern hemisphere countries at the same latitude, such as Australia.