South Africa Blog

When planning your next visit to the KZN Midlands take a look at our new website at www.Tamakwa.co.za and see what Tamakwa Country Lodge can offer you. Situated just outside the village of Rosetta in the Kwazulu Natal Midlands. Tamakwa has a dramatic outlook towards the Drakensberg Mountains and the bordering, Mooi River. It is an area that offers beauty and tranquility, yet is accessible on tar roads and is well positioned relative to a range of sights and activities.

Hosts Wendy and Adrian Wilson offer you a choice of luxury dinner, bed and breakfast or self catering accommodation. All units are individually decorated and offer fireplaces, electric blankets, DSTV, and in certain units, under floor heating. Rooms are serviced daily and have many special touches. Warm friendly service and attention to detail have made Tamakwa the firm favourite of many a traveller.

The Rose @ Tamakwa provides fine dining and serves a 4 course set menu, which varies nightly. Resident chef, Jonathan Crawford, will titivate, captivate and stimulate your taste buds with his dishes. Jonathan’s style can best be described as cosmopolitan and incorporates both South African and international influences. The food is complemented by a high quality wine list.

Now I am quite sure that the world is going crazy. I co-manage a well known South African Travel Site and we have a small section on the site featuring Travel to Namibia.

Today I received a mail from an editor of a well know international magazine asking if we had information on Brad and Angie getting married in Namibia. Why on earth would we be privvy to this information? Because we know enough about Namibia to include it on our web site honestly doesn’t mean that Brad and Angie even know our site exists, let alone feel compelled to write and share their wedding plans with us. But the media’s obsession with this super hot couple does not end there.

This week I bought a popular local tabloid (yes I do read it occasionally – where else would I get my “Brad and Angie” info from, if Brad and Angie don’t keep me informed?). Imagine my surprise when the 4 page spread featuring the famous couple holed up in Namibia has our Namibia Map taking up a sixth of the page to indicate the couple’s location. A blatant copyright infringement. Obviously they were in a rush to get their “scoop” out so never asked permission, never wrote to request its use in the publication and didn’t even try to hide the fact that it is our map. I can’t actually believe what levels are being stooped to to get out the latest news on this couple.

The couple are holed up in a Longbeach resort which they have booked out completely just to get some privacy. Longbeach is situated on the coast, midway between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. (See the location on the now famous Namibia Map) The Namibians say they hope Brad and Angelina will be allowed some privacy during their stay in the country. The stars’ private security detail is keeping journalists at a distance, and one government official warned that any foreign paparazzi found working without official approval would be kicked out of the country.

Article by: SouthAfrica.info Reporter

South Africa regularly hosts major international sporting events, and since 1994 has successfully managed some of the biggest – including the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the Women’s World Cup of Golf in 2005 and 2006 and, in January 2006, the only street race in the inaugural A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport.

But the Football World Cup, the world’s biggest sporting event after the Olympic games – in terms of television audience, bigger than the Olympics – is in a class of its own. For four weeks in 2010, South Africa will be the centre of the world. The 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan was the most extensively covered and viewed event in television history. Germany 2006, and South Africa 2010, promise to draw even bigger audiences. The eyes of billions of television viewers, an estimated three million international visitors and the cream of the world’s sporting media will be focused on the southern tip of Africa.

WE DON’T AIM TO DISSAPOINT!!

INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES:
In choosing South Africa to bring the World Cup to Africa for the first time, Fifa was not only looking at what the country already offers – world-class transport, telecommunications, tourism and sporting infrastructure, and a people renowned for their hospitality and passion for the beautiful game. They were looking ahead. In 2010, football fans will enjoy the benefits of a host of multi-billion rand infrastructure projects recently announced by the government.

Between now and 2010, South Africa will spend in the region of R5-billion on building and renovating 10 World Cup stadiums, R5.2-billion on upgrades to the country’s airports, and R3.5-billion on improvements to the country’s road and rail network. The country will also be working to tight deadlines to ensure that the Gautrain, a high-speed rail link between Johannesburg, Pretoria and Johannesburg International Airport, is up and running in time.

TEN STADIUMS:
Five of South Africa’s football stadiums will undergo major renovations for 2010: Soccer City and Ellis Park in Johannesburg, Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, the Royal Bafokeng stadium in Mafikeng in North West province, and Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein in the Free State. New stadiums will be built at Mbombela in Mpumalanga and in the Nelson Mandela Metro (encompassing Port Elizabeth) in the Eastern Cape.

Peter Mokaba stadium in Polokwane in Limpopo will be rebuilt, as will Kings Park stadium in Durban and Cape Town’s Green Point stadium. Kings Park and Green Point stadium will become completely new multi-sport facilities, Green Point complete with a retractable dome to protect fans and players from the Cape’s unpredictable winter weather.

BOOST FOR THE ECONOMY:
According to consulting firm Grant Thornton, the World Cup will pump around R21.3-billion into South Africa’s economy, generating an estimated R12.7-billion in direct spending and creating an estimated 159 000 new jobs.

The country’s tourism industry will benefit from the estimated three million visitors expected for the tournament, while construction and engineering companies will look to a slice of the billions to be spent on infrastructure in the lead-up to the event. However, the indirect spin-offs of an improved image abroad could have an even greater impact on the economy.

“There will be a big direct injection for the economy”, Standard Bank economist Goolam Ballim said after Fifa announced the 2010 host. “But the indirect impact may be more meaningful for a sustainable economic lift in subsequent years … it will help change the perceptions that a large number of foreign investors hold of Africa and South Africa.”

In his 2006 State of the Nation address, President Thabo Mbeki said the World Cup would make a huge contribution, not only to South Africa’s socio-economic growth, but to the development of the continent as a whole. “In return for these irreplaceable benefits, we owe it to Fifa and the rest of the soccer world to prepare properly for 2010,” Mbeki said, challenging South Africans to work together to ensure that the country hosts “the best Soccer World Cup ever”.