Friday, December 17, 2010

King Shaka Airport

The main departures - even Domestic - at the impressive new King Shaka International Airport in Durban, are upstairs. Currently there is HUGE room to expand - so different to the "Old" Durban International Airport!







What an improvement on the "old" International airport in Durban South! In time for the Soccer World Cup, at phenominal cost, the new airport just inland of Ballito was opened! Yesterday was the first time I went to the airport to drop off Christine to catch her connecting flight to Cape Town. It is unlikely she will be going back to Cape Town for the forseeable future, as her mom is relocating (again) to Johannesburg!


For a quiet Thursday (yet another Public Holiday in SA!) the airport was fairly busy, although not as crowded as the old airport out to the south of the city. One benefit for me at least is that the new King Shaka Airport is on the northern edge of the city, around a half hour (on a traffic free day!) closer to Mtunzini. On a map, it is just inland of the N2 freeway that runs from Empangeni past the city to the South Coast, just inland of Ballito and Umhlanga Rocks!
For a work free day (public holiday) the traffic to the airport was quite intense, although it in no ways compares to the traffic around Los Angeles, Heathrow or even Salt Lake City!
Building up for the Christmas influx from Gauteng (area around Johannesburg) there was quite a lot of traffic around, with maybe 1 in 2 cars with GP (Gauteng) numberplates! December is a busy time on the N3 freeway from Johannesburg to the coast, with traffic peaking at around
1 900 cars an hour - heading for Durban. December is THE BEST time to go to the Temple, because thre are NO cars on the freeways in Johannesburg at that time! The traffic jams there are all here when the lemmings migrate temporarily to the coast! I notice it most when there are many tourists walking past my gates! Usually during the year no-one walks far at the coast, as it is generally too hot to venture far from the pool!

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