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HOEDSPRUIT - A shiny new Premier Classe train service between Johannesburg and Hoedspruit has been launched, providing an added attraction to Limpopo's big-five reserves.

The Premier Classe train offers visitors to Limpopo's game belt a five-star service including private cabins, five-course meals and spa facilities.

The service began on July 9 and operates once a week, leaving Park Station on a Thursday evening and arriving mid-morning on Friday in Hoedspruit. It returns on the Sunday evening, arriving back in Johannesburg on the Monday morning.

Premier classe

One of South-Africa's well-kept travel secrets, Premier Classe trains have been getting great reports from travellers who have used them on other routes.

Premier Classe started out in 1998 as an affordable deluxe service from Cape Town to Johannesburg, originally running once a week attached to the regular Shosholoza Meyl 'Trans-Karoo' train. But in May 2006 it was made into a completely separate train and increased to twice a week. In October 2008 they introduced a twice-weekly Durban-Johannesburg train, then a weekly Cape Town-Port Elizabeth train in December 2008.

Hotels on rails

Premier Classe trains are hotels on rails. They use standard South African railways sleeping-cars (in fact, the same 1960s-1970s type used by Shosholoza Meyl) which have been refurbished to deluxe standards, and passengers are given twice the normal amount of space per passenger: Solo passengers get sole occupancy of what would have been a 2-berth coupé, two passengers get sole use of what would have been a 4-berth compartment and so get two lower berths.

The sleeping-cars aren't air-conditioned, a big advantage for photographers as the windows open!

There's a deluxe Premier Classe restaurant car serving 3-5 course meals and a Premier Classe lounge car with armchairs, sofas and a bar. The fare includes all your meals and complimentary tea/coffee, although alcoholic drinks cost extra.

If you can't afford the famous Blue Train, but still want safe, civilised deluxe train travel at ground level through superb South African scenery that you can't see from 30,000 feet, take a Premier Classe train.

PRICES AND BENEFITS

Current prices are from R980 per person one-way to or from Johannesburg to Hoedspruit, around 30% cheaper than flying, but bear in mind that this also includes decent accommodation on the train and food (which you might otherwise pay for).

It also enables local visitors to leave after work with ease without wasting time, and caters for international arrivals coming in after the last daily Hoedspruit flights have departed Johannesburg after noon.

On a similar note, the evening Sunday return from Hoedspruit provides for more time in the bush and no accommodation worries in Johannesburg.

Premier Classe passengers can use the luxury 'Blue Train' VIP lounges at Cape Town and Johannesburg stations.

Comment

Viwe Mlenzana, CEO of Shosholoza Meyl, which owns Premier Classe, said the schedule was aimed at the weekend market. "The service allows guests to get away to the bush for the weekend but still arrive back on Monday in time for work."

He said the service was launched in response to demand from customers who wanted a new travel experience and was aimed primarily at the domestic market.

The train has been recently refurbished and Mlenzana said the product would continue to be refined, including a new point-to- point service for passengers to Johannesburg's Park Station.

Later this year further coaches catering to a more exclusive market would be added. However, Mlenzana said, the aim was to make the service affordable to a range of passengers.

Labels: blue train, hoedspruit, johannesburg, premier classe, Shosholoza Meyl, train, travel

It's all systems go for today's Super 14 final between the Bulls and the Chiefs at Loftus. The battle between the top two teams of 2009 gets underway at 17h30 South African time.

South African President Jacob Zuma visited the Bulls squad on Friday in Pretoria to wish them well ahead of the Super 14 final.

The southern hemisphere rugby union championship climax is scheduled for Saturday evening before a sell-out 52,000 crowd at Loftus Versfeld, where the recently elected leader met the players.

Zuma is following in the footsteps of the first democratically elected South African President Nelson Mandela, who frequently visited South African teams ahead of major fixtures.

Home advantage, partisan support, playing at 1,800-metre altitude and a team packed with experienced stars are among the reasons why the Bulls are favoured to win a second Super 14 title within three seasons.

The Chiefs who are one of five New Zealand teams who compete annually for the trophy, are appearing in their first final and are hoping to become the fifth 'away' team to triumph in the 14-year competition.

Labels: johannesburg, rugby, sport

I dare you to visit Johannesburg, the city for softies

It’s the least frightening place on earth, yet everyone speaks of how many times they’ve been killed that day

By Jeremy Clarkson

(SUNDAY TIMES, LONDON) - Every city needs a snappy one-word handle to pull in the tourists and the investors. So, when you think of Paris, you think of love; when you think of New York, you think of shopping; and when you think of London – despite the best efforts of new Labour to steer you in the direction of Darcus Howe – you think of beefeaters and Mrs Queen.

Rome has its architecture. Sydney has its bridge. Venice has its sewage and Johannesburg has its crime. Yup, Jo’burg – the subject of this morning’s missive – is where you go if you want to be carjacked, shot, stabbed, killed and eaten.

You could tell your mother you were going on a package holiday to Kabul, with a stopover in Haiti and Detroit, and she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But tell her you’re going to Jo’burg and she’ll be absolutely convinced that you’ll come home with no wallet, no watch and no head.

Jo’burg has a fearsome global reputation for being utterly terrifying, a lawless Wild West frontier town paralysed by corruption and disease. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the past three years and I can reveal that it’s all nonsense.

If crime is so bad then how come, the other day, the front-page lead in the city’s main newspaper concerned the theft of a computer from one of the local schools? I’m not joking.

The paper even ran a massive picture of the desk where the computer used to sit. It was the least interesting picture I’ve ever seen in a newspaper. But then it would be, because this was one of the least interesting crimes.

“Pah,” said the armed guard who’d been charged with escorting me each day from my hotel to the Coca-Cola dome where I was performing a stage version of Top Gear.




Quite why he was armed I have absolutely no idea, because all we passed was garden centres and shops selling tropical fish tanks. Now I’m sorry, but if it’s true that the streets are a war zone, and you run the risk of being shot every time you set foot outside your front door, then, yes, I can see you might risk a trip to the shops for some food. But a fish tank? An ornamental pot for your garden? It doesn’t ring true.

Look Jo’burg up on Wikipedia and it tells you it’s now one of the most violent cities in the world . . . but it adds in brackets “citation needed”. That’s like saying Gordon Brown is a two-eyed British genius (citation needed).

Honestly? Johannesburg is Milton Keynes with thunderstorms. You go out. You have a lovely ostrich. You drink some delicious wine and you walk back to your hotel, all warm and comfy. It’s the least frightening place on earth. So why does every single person there wrap themselves up in razor wire and fit their cars with flame-throwers and speak of how many times they’ve been killed that day? What are they trying to prove?

Next year South Africa will play host to the football World Cup. The opening and closing matches will be played in Jo’burg, and no one’s going to go if they think they will be stabbed.



The locals even seem to accept this, as at the new airport terminal only six passport booths have been set aside for non-South African residents.

At first it’s baffling. Why ruin the reputation of your city and risk the success of the footballing World Cup to fuel a story that plainly isn’t true? There is no litter and no graffiti. I’ve sauntered through Soweto on a number of occasions now, swinging a Nikon round my head, with no effect. You stand more chance of being mugged in Monte Carlo.

Time and again I was told I could buy an AK47 for 100 rand – about £7. But when I said, “Okay, let’s go and get one”, no one had the first idea where to start looking. And they were even more clueless when I asked about bullets.

As I bought yet another agreeable carved doll from yet another agreeable black person, I wanted to ring up those idiots who compile surveys of the best and worst places to live and say: “Why do you keep banging on about Vancouver, you idiots? Jo’burg’s way better.”

Instead, however, I sat down and tried to work out why the locals paint their city as the eighth circle of hell. And I think I have an answer. It’s because they want to save the lions in the Kruger National Park.

I promise I am not making this up. Every night, people in Mozambique pack up their possessions and set off on foot through the Kruger for a new life in the quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets of Jo’burg. And very often these poor unfortunate souls are eaten by the big cats.

That, you may imagine, is bad news for the families of those who’ve been devoured. But actually it’s even worse for Johnny Lion. You see, a great many people in Mozambique have Aids, and the fact is this: if you can catch HIV from someone’s blood or saliva during a bout of tender love-making, you can be assured you will catch it if you wolf the person down whole. Even if you are called Clarence and you have a mane.

At present, it’s estimated that there are 2,000 lions in the Kruger National Park and studies suggest 90% have feline Aids. Some vets suggest the epidemic was started by lions eating the lungs of diseased buffalos. But there are growing claims from experts in the field that, actually, refugees are the biggest problem.

That’s clearly the answer, then. Johannesburgians are telling the world they live in a shit-hole to save their lions. That’s the sort of people they are. And so, if you are thinking about going to the World Cup next year, don’t hesitate.

The exchange rate’s good, the food is superb, the weather’s lovely and, thanks to some serious economic self-sacrifice, Kruger is still full of animals. The word, then, I’d choose to describe Jo’burg is “tranquil”.

Labels: celebrity, comment, johannesburg, press