The South African restriction is Rules of the Air, not licence privilege
Thank you bookworm - most interesting.
As for the cloud separation above 3000ft, I must get myself one of those laser measurement thingies that builders use, and point it out of the window at the nearest cloud
Oh and I also fly at 138kt IAS, at ~ 60% power, LOP. Funny that!
VFR above cloud is a wonderful way to do long legs across Europe. Just have to be very careful about the far end. And if going east of the UK one does tend to be reliant on getting transits through CAS, which is a lot more common than in the UK but is far from 100%.