Cruise Part II

First glimpse of Madagascar  

It promised to be a sweltering hot day on the morning of the 31^st when we cruised into the harbour of Madagascar’s Fort Dauphine (named after the 6 year old French prince who would later become Louis XIV, the Sun King of France).

View of Sinfonia - lens misted up due to high humidity

New harbour built by Rio Tinto

 I do not think I would have been able to get Hennie on deck that early if it was not that the competition of the company he works for had a big ilmenite mine there and was actually responsible for building the port where we would dock.  In the past passengers were ferried by means of dinghies to the shore, but thanks to Rio Tinto we could now disembark with dry feet on the newly built ore export port.

Bay of Galleons

Market in Fort Dauphin

Baguettes - previously a french colony

 Madagascar, though rich in biodiversity, is quite a poor country with approximately 90% of its 22 million inhabitants living on less than 2 dollars a day.  The arrival of the cruise boats is thus a big event and you could see the cars streaming to the port to do business as we were still trying to manoeuver into the single berth.  Lots of people became impromptu guides for the day. 

T-bone for anyone?

We did a quick tour of the city.  It was quite dilapidated with pot-holed streets and shacks abound.  We drove through a typical African market and it was amazing to see all the different types of grains and rice on offer.   

Village life

Mr Crocodile

King Julien - ring tail lemur

 

Afterwards we paid a visit to a botanical garden - a virtual Garden of Eden.  Beautiful!  The variety of fauna and flora was spectacular and also saw some of the flesh-eating plants that are endemic to the area.  We were lucky to see two different types of lemurs, out of the more than 100 different species, including King Julien XIII of the Madagascar Movie fame (ring tail lemur).  The beaches of southern Madagascar are not called the Cote d’Azur of the south for nothing.  The finest sand draws you to the clear blue warm water of the Indian Ocean at the Bay of the Galleons.  After a quick stop to buy vanilla pods we were on our way back to the boat for an afternoon nap and necessary "charging of the batteries" for the New Year's party(ies).

Get the party going

Bread sculptures

Food, glorious food

No, he has not yet drank anything!

Count-down to NY!

The New Year’s Eve party was a blast.  We sipped on our bottle of Pongraz, which by the way probable cost close to what you would be paying for a bottle of Dom or Veuve in France.  Since Madagascar is 1 hour ahead of South Africa, we celebrated Madagascar New Year at 24h00, then South African New Year at 01h00, but I am sad to report by the time they celebrated New Year in Italy (02h00) Hennie and I were safely tucked up in bed.

24h00 - 2013 in Madagascar

01h00 - 2013 in South Africa

Going back the ship was going much slower, and it was either that or some kind of tropical storm around Mauritius that caused the swells to grow bigger and everyone, sober or not, developing a silly little side-step.  Sleeping felt like being in a rocking chair.  Obviously the movement of the boat instantly turned the pool into a Lost City Wave pool to the utmost delight of the kids.  I think you would have been able to surf in the pool.  As the cruise director said, “we must be getting closer to South Africa, thus the increase in the number of potholes we are striking”.

Disembarkation was a picture of efficiency, and because we have booked a shuttle to the airport, we were issued light blue labels for our luggage, thus allowing us to be some of the first people off the ship.  By 08h00 the morning we were already at the airport, and met sis and family for brunch before catching the flight home!  It was fun, but “been there, done that!”.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Cruise Part I

MSC Sinfonia

With the wonderful knowledge that only the internet can bring, we headed for the airport knowing that parking in the carport parking lot will cost us slightly less than using the Gautrain – even with the Gautrain’s R1/day parking special for airport users.  Thus being afforded an additional 30 minutes of valuable sleep we set off to OR Tambo for our Second Holiday.  A cruise - something we promised ourselves we will never do!

In comparison with all the tales we heard we did well by only spending one hour in the queue to board the ship, starting to feel the excitement building.  Linked to my extreme claustrophobia and a lack of money we settled for a sea-view suite – unfortunately not a veranda but at least being able to tell night or day without having to leave the room.  It was more spacious than I expected, with lots of small spaces to pack things away. 


Collecting the Pilot

I can also now understand when people say they get lost on the ships.  There are a myriad of lifts and stairs, some taking you exactly where you planned to go, whilst others take you exactly where you do NOT want to go.

After participating in the obligatory emergency lifeboat drill, the ships horn sounded a few frightful blasts and we set off into the sunset.  Well, not quite, it was three o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was still high.  There were no streamers and no crowds with handkerchiefs wiping away tears on the pier, as I remembered from the scenes of the TV show “The Love Boat” (oops, giving my age away).

Fruit sculptures

After recovering from the shock of the price of a cocktail we promptly opened the tab with a “tequila sunrise” and “pink mojito”.  After a few of those we must have sailed into choppy waters as it suddenly became much more difficult to walk a straight line…

With no room to negotiate we have been placed in the second dinner seating, meaning we could only enter the dining room at 20h45.  When you normally have dinner around 18h30 this was quite a long wait.  Looking forward to make new friends and meeting new people at the dinner table, Hennie and I spent a miserable dinner alone at our table for eight.  Whilst next door 4 couples having just met was having a swell time.  Story of our lives...  Seems the second seating was too late for our dinner mates, and they decided to have the buffet, raid the pizza station or settle for room service.

Crew performing a scene from "Ghost" for the Movie Quizz

 

Spectators to the medical airlift

Next morning Hennie and I were having a bit of debate on where the sun rises as I seem to have too good a sleep and not realising its strange to have the sun hanging low on the western horizon at 08h00 in the morning.  Our puzzlement were soon resolved when an announcement was made that the end of the world is still not nigh but that we have turned around late last night and is now heading back to Richards Bay.  This was not happening to me!!!!.  Well, I could count my blessings when we heard that there was a medical emergency on board that required immediate hospital care and that we are heading for the coast on order to have someone airlifted of the boat, and it was not one of us.  This helicopter evacuation was planned to happen at around 11h00 that morning, and there after we will turn around and make like a speadboat to Madagascar to still make our rendezvous there for the morning of the 31^st.  

The airlift created quite a spectacle and raised the excitement levels.  Strange how we crave sensation as everyone was on deck to watch and take pictures, moi included.  Had a bit of a chuckle when I heard some women wisely telling her companion that it was lucky that we already had a practice drill for a helicopter airlift shortly after the boat departed – obviously not knowing that was when they picked up the pilot when we left the harbour. 

Country line dance lesson

They day was spent in the sun next to the pool as we were not up early enough to reserve a lounger in the shade.  Due to the speed we were travelling at there was quite a breeze and it did not feel that hot.  Both Hennie and I was covered in 40+ sunblock but still managed to get sunburnt.  But compared to the other lobsters running around we did well and the ship shop was doing a brisk trade in after-sun lotion.

Blue-blue sea

That evening Hennie reluctantly agreed that we can go to the Bingo.   And so a Bingo monster was born.  Hennie absolutely loved it, and it was a fun way to while the time until our dinner seating.  Speaking of which, the second night at our dinner table we met two very young, beautiful, 24 year old women.  We must have been a bit of a disappointment for them as they were hoping for a ship full of eligible bachelors wanting to have fun with them.  I must admit it was a bit of a disappointment for us as well.  There was virtually no topic that we could converse on and after hearing the tale on how the blonde bombshell burst out in tears because on their recent trip to Europe the ugly flight attendants told her her hand luggage was too big for the cabin, and had to be stored in the hold.  But her very previous make-up and hair straightener is in the bag and she would not be who she is without it.  After a lot of tears, and the male flight attendant scolding her for ruining her make-up, they made a plan to keep her and her bag in the same cabin and she could relax.
Phew.

Delvillewood

Since Hennie loves history, we decided to visit Delville Wood. Both of us remembered reading books about it, but neither of us could recall much of the detail. Joretha and her mother was keen, thus on the Thursday we embarked on our road trip to Longueval, the little town closest to the wood.

At the end of the day we had to conclude it was one of the best days of the whole holiday, and highly recommended for fellow South African visitors to France!  And to publish this on the 95th anniversary of Armistace day seems, somehow, appropriate.

Bernafay Wood Cemetery

On our way there, the road led us through lush green surrounds dotted more and more with the bright red of the poppie flower.  We drove past various cemeteries, where we stopped and were increasingly becoming more subdued reading about the large waste of lives in WWI, specifically in relation to the very small advances that were gained during those battles.  What specifically struck us where how well these cemeteries were maintained.  Beautiful.

Finally we arrived at Delville Wood. They say that ghosts still haunt the wood where a massacre took place in 1916.

For most people the Somme is transfixed in the amber of July 1st, 1916, when in the bombardment along an eighteen mile front 60,000 men lost their lives. To South Africans it can be narrowed down further, to the six days of July 15th-20th when in the uninterrupted and intense fighting for Delville Wood, the 154 acres of trees and scrubland became a byword for valour. It was a six-day massacre of nearly 2,500 young men.

The battle of Delville Wood is the first major engagement entered into by the South African 1^st Infantry Brigade on the Western Front in World War 1. Though there are some discrepancies in the numbers for casualties across the internet sources I searched, the fact remains that the numbers are frightening. The numbers that seems to have the most credibility indicates that 123 officers and 3032 other ranks entered the wood on July 15^th, 1916. Six days later only nineteen officers and 600 other ranks walked out unscathed. (Data from the SADF unit service cards and archived sources). Other sources indicate an even higher casualty rate.

Delville Wood was an important area in the war as it provided a position from where the Allied forces could launch attacks on the Germans. Even though the battle was considered a victory for the Allied forces, the tragedy is the very high casualty rate considering the marginal gains achieved.

In 1920, the government of SA purchased the site to serve as a memorial to those of that nation who fell, not only in France, but also in Flanders and Belgium. The memorial was erected in 1926. Above the entrance Arch the following words are inscribed: “their ideal is our legacy, their sacrifice our inspiration”. A large stone was later (1952) added in front of the memorial to commemorate those that died in WWII.

A: Car park/Information centre

B Main Entrance
C Memorial
D Museum and cross of consecration
E The last tree
F: Davies-Hill tree memorial
G: Site of the SA HQ

H: Point of entrance on 15 July 1916

 

South African memorial

A museum was later built on the site (1984-1986), behind the memorial, based on the design of the Castle in Cape Town. 

 

Bronze frieze inside museum

The museum has an engraved glass window depicting the wood after the battle, and striking sets of bronze panels featuring the work of four South African artists. The panels show SA’s involvement in World Wars I and II and the Korean War. 

 

The most heart rendering is however the panel showing a group of Soldiers leaving the Delville Wood after six days of hell. In addition, there are several displays within the museum, including battles relics found during the museum's construction.

 

It felt totally weird to read Afrikaans script in the middel of France.  The descriptions inside the museum is in both Afrikaans and English.

 

The last tree

When the battle was over, all that was left of the wood was burnt-out stumps and a single hornebeam tree. Today this is the only living witness of the battle.Cuttings were taken from this tree and planted in SA, inter alia at General Smuts’ home in Irene.

The forest was replanted, and this holds also an interesting story. Back in 1688 when the French Hugenots arrived in South Africa, one Jean Gardiol brought six acorns to South Africa which was planted. From the trees that germinated from those seeds, new seeds were collected. These were used to plant a double row of Oak trees to line the path to the Memorial and Museum.

 

One of the old bridle paths

Stone marker with the "name" of the street

The memorial and museum stand within the re-grown wood, and it is possible to walk along the same "rides" or tracks that used to exist before and during the war. As was customary, these tracks were given street names, such as Princess Street and Rotten Row.   Walking through the solemn wood the remnants of the trenches are still clearly visible. The whole time it felt as if we were walking on sacred ground and the conversation remained hushed.

Remnants of the trenches still clearly visible

 

 

The Delville Wood Cemetery is opposite the memorial. 

View from the museum towards the cemetary

 

Entrance to the Delville Wood Cemetery

 

The cemetery was created after the armistace and is thus not a war-time cemetary. It is madu up by the concentration of graves from a number of smaller cemeteries from the area, but mainly from burials of those recovered from the battlefields. It is the third largest British cemetary on the Somme, with 5523 graves. Nearly two-thirds (3593) of the burials are unknown, probably because of the time that has elapsed since the battle and when the bodies were recovered.

"Two South African soldiers of the Great War" 

Three bodies were found during the building of the museum at Delville Wood in the 1980s, and they were also buried in the cemetery. Despite the proximity to the Delville Wood, there are relatively few South African graves in the cemetery. There are 160 South Africans buried in the cemetery, 56 of which remained unidentified.   Apparently the wood was never cleared, thus the wood remains the final resting place for a majority of the men, most probably due to the state the bodies were in after the severe bombardments.

WE SALUTE ALL OUR COMRADES WHO DID NOT RETURN.
AGE SHALL NOT WEARY THEM
NOR THE YEARS CONDEMN
AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN AND IN THE MORNING
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!!
SALUTE!!