The Whale Trail, a five-day, 55-kilometre wander through the De Hoop Nature Reserve, has rapidly become one of the South Africa’s iconic hikes, so popular you need to book months in advance if you want to walk it during the peak whale season from August to October. Even if you walk out of season, when whales are few, it remains one of South Africa’s most incredible walks.

 

Lying 240 kilometres east of Cape Town, the De Hoop Nature Reserve covers around 34 000 hectares, but the offshore marine protected area is just as important. Stretching five kilometres out to sea, it is one of the largest protected ocean areas in Africa and provides a sanctuary for an array of marine life.

 

For the full article on iafrica.com, click here.

Two million tickets sold for 2010 World Cup

After three of five ticketing sales phases for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ in South Africa, two-thirds of the available tickets have been sold.

The third ticketing sales phase, which will conclude with a random draw for oversubscribed matches on 1 February, saw a total of 1,206,865 applications received from 192 countries. Six matches are currently oversubscribed (in all categories), among them the semi-finals and the final. In total, 55 matches are oversubscribed in at least one category.

The next ticketing sales phase will start on 9 February 2010 and end on 7 April 2010. During these 58 days, more than 400,000 tickets will be made available on a first-come, first-served basis via www.fifa.com/2010 or in FNB branches (in South Africa only).

For the full article on fifa.com, click here.

Expats flock to SA

 

South Africa is the sixth best country in the world to live in, according to expatriates based here. This was revealed in a massive global survey commissioned by global finance house HSBC Bank International. The study was conducted by UK-based research company FreshMinds. Results were released in late November 2009.

 

Over 3100 expats, from more than 30 industries and living in 50 countries on four continents, took part in the study earlier in the year. In the end 26 countries made the rankings. South Africa came in behind the top five of Canada, Australia, Thailand, Singapore and Bahrain.

 

As an expat favourite it eclipsed highly developed nations such as the US, France, Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK, as well as other emerging nations including Brazil, Mexico, China and India.

 

In addition to making the top 10 overall, South Africa scored highly in the categories of making local friends (2), organising schools (3), finding somewhere to live (3), social life (3), quality of life (3), and accommodation (4).

 

South Africa was the top-ranked country for hobbyists, as well as the top country for settling down, beating Thailand and Canada which took 2nd and 3rd place respectively. More than half of those questioned — 55 percent — have lived in South Africa for more than five years.

 

For the full article on iafrica.com, click here.