We packed our bags and went on a little road trip…for 9 months.
The story of Stray Along The Way
Hi! We are Bevan and Jill.
We got married in November 2015.
Shortly afterward, we decided to pack up our lives and head out on a road trip around South Africa.
This is Thomas by the way.
He’s our 1.6 litre, ’95 Suzuki Vitara and the third member of our expedition team.
Together we explored South Africa for 9 months.
Growing up in Durban meant weekends surfing at the beach, holidays hiking in the mountains, and camping trips tucked away in the bush. If there was a chance to be outside exploring, we took it!
A childhood spent in these kinds of surroundings cemented in us a deep love for South Africa and a desire to explore all of its hidden treasures.
South Africa is one of the most diverse and beautiful countries in the world.
It’s home to 10 Unesco World Heritage Sites and one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. Its a veritable wonderland and up until now, we’d only seen a small part of it for ourselves.
So, one day we decided to do something about that.
We had just gotten married and took it upon ourselves to take the opportunity to pack our lives up into our 4×4 Thomas and hit the road to see what we could see.
There was no grand goal or ultimate purpose, we just wanted to explore our home.
So, on on 7 September 2016, with no real plans on where to go, we put rubber to road on what was to be our greatest adventure yet.
Here are all the places we went to…
We started off in Durban and headed north toward Zululand and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
After passing through the Hluhluwe iMfolozi Game Reserve and Sodwana Bay, the road turned to sand which meandered over undulating coastal dunes all the way to Kosi Bay and the Mozambican border.
From there we made our first foray westward tracing rivers and gorges through hills, mountains and battlefields until crossing over into the Mpumalanga Province.
We continued pushing northwards through the Panorama Route and the Kruger National Park, all the way to the top of the country, only to rebound at the border and head back south towards the big city of Johannesburg.
Still further we roamed over the Drakensberg mountains and through the Klein Karoo to the West Coast where we explored a wild and wonderful coastline.
Having found the farthest western reaches of the country, we turned ourselves back onto the N2 and followed the coastal freeway through the Garden Route, Sunshine Coast, and Wild Coast, all the way back to Durban.
We started our journey on 7 September 2016 and 9 months later, we returned home to Durban…with a few new memories…
We discovered a glowing ocean near Cape Town…
…spent 5 days on foot with the Big5…
…explored an ancient fig forest…
…went searching for the last of the Knysna Elephants…
…and even found 400-year old treasure.
Exploring South Africa has been one of the greatest adventures of our lives.
Every place we visited blew us away in a new and unique way and if there’s one thing we learned from this trip, it’s that 9 months is just not enough to fully explore South Africa.
We count ourselves extremely fortunate to have been able to explore our beautiful country as we have and will always remember our time on the road with joy and fondness.
Check out our full trip video right here:
9 months…
…many thousands of kilometres…
…1 mission…
…explore our home.
We’d like to thank all the amazing people who helped us along the way.
To those of you who gave us a place to stay, showed us around your little neck of the woods, or just gave us a wave as we drove by.
You guys really made this trip amazing and we couldn’t have done it without you.
Thanks for one heck of a ride!
