27th February – 4th March 2013
The next night we offered to cook for Derryn and Mark, the only token of appreciation we have to offer everyone that helps us out on our incredible adventure…and they already had dinner plans which they invited us along to.

We spent the night in the company of about 15 of their friends, we ate sushi, drank a shed load of wine and went to a comedy club, we had such a great night and it was the perfect way to end our stay in Durban.

Of course we felt it the next day and although we had a lot to do we couldn’t engage our brains enough. We were trying to get a plan together to visit some more of Africa. Our plans had changed for the better due to lending the Bobo-camper and we had seen far more of South Africa than we could have anticipated but we still wanted to travel a little further afield.

We hit the Bean Green and tried to get the caffeine to do the work for us…to no avail, we decided it was not meant to be and hit the road after saying some sad goodbyes to Derryn and Mark and set off to see a little bit more of SA while we made up our minds.

We decidied to drive over to Winterton in the Drakensburg peaks and stay a night there, it was on our way to our drop off point for the camper which was due back the next day in Johannesburg. As we drove a massive electrical storm brewed above us, the lightening show was magnificent but as the storm came to a head the driving conditions were not so great. The rains came from all directions and it was the mother of all storms right above us, I swear I could see the yellow brick road through the swirling clouds and rain! We had to stop and wait for it to pass but it showed no signs of clearing up so we crawled along at a snails pace with the windscreen wipers frantically trying to clear a little of our vision. It was dark and loud and scary as hell and it lasted for HOURS! We eventually came to our turn off and took the dirt track which we presumed would only be a couple of miles long…how wrong were we! This mini adventure suddenly turned into a nightmare as we battled blindly through bright orange puddles and bouncing rain…now in the total darkness.

We arrived at the campsite in the early hours of the morning and sat in the car exhausted and relieved to have made it. We had considered wild camping but for the fear of someone not seeing us and driving into the back of us we daren’t risk it. We had made it…all there was for it now was to put up the tent in torrential rains…we counted down and forced ourselves out of the car into the sheet of water. We struggled for a little while before looking at each other and laughing hysterically. We were drenched, exhausted and absolutely on the verge of major histrionics. We set off and walked to the reception area having decided that once you were as wet as we were, one could NOT get any wetter.

We called the late night number and booked into a small chalet, we stumbled through the doors, got showered and collapsed into bed…without even considering setting our alarm for the morning.

We woke up the same moring in a blind panic, we were due to be up at 6am to set off to get Myrtle back to Jo-burg on time! We had gotten into bed around 3am and were so wiped out hadn’t even thought about it, we were just glad to be alive and dry.

We quickly dressed and went to get online and pushed back Myrtle’s drop off date to the Monday…of course it was the weekend so we had to wait until Monday.

We made the most of the down time and relaxed a little, we thought hard about hiking but the rain never let up for a minute and we had been wet enough that night to never want to be wet again and instead we hogged the sofa and watched movies late into the night as the thunder and lightening cracked all around us. We also had a few run ins with the local monkeys…one scared me to death while I was washing up daydreaming looking out of the window when a little monkey face appeared pressed up against the glass! I jumped out of my skin and dropped everything…luckily the pan I was washing and the cloth were unharmed unlike my racing heart!

We managed to get the next leg of our African adventure arranged and with a flight booked to Kenya we began to hot foot it across to Jo’burg to drop Myrtle off and head straight for the airport. It was a long 5 hour drive but made all the more pleasant by the stunning scenery. We drove by the Amphitheatre and soaked up the views all the way into the big city.

We had booked into a cheap hotel for the night so that we were well rested for our long day travelling and settled into our lovely room and enjoyed yet another hot bath…I have never known a place so keen on bath tubs as in Africa!

Super relaxed we decided to head out into the town for dinner that night, we both craved a repeat of our bunny chow experience before we left never to see it on a menu ever again!

Alex wandered out to bring us a bunny chow take away, but of course, silly us, it was Sunday, everything was closed!

Alex wouldn’t let that get in the way of us having a bunny chow and being the perfect specimen of man that he is returned to the hotel room with all the ingredients to make our own…in our hotel room…on our camping stove!

You can see it with your own eyes right here! It was SOoooooo good and we ate it while watching Disneys Robin Hood…because we could!

We slept soundly and woke up to the smell of breakfast wafting into our room, sadly it wasnt as good as it smelled, cold chicken livers, raw eggs and hard bacon was a great start to the day.

We set off into town with a few errands to run. We had to get Elbeth her wedding dresses back and had planned plenty of time to go to the post office and have them posted back, we felt like we were so organised, it was definitely Monday so it would be open, we had looked up online where the Post Office was AND we had time! Alex dropped me at the door while he went and had Myrtle washed.

I queued with my neatly wrapped parcel, all ready to go…and I queued and I queued…everyone was speaking Xhosa so I couldn’t understand what they were all chatting about but stood and waited until it was my turn. I was beckoned to the desk and asked if I could post my parcel please. Now, you all know how our lives go, nothing is simple, so it is unlikely to surprise you when the womans cheery response was that ‘no parcels are going nowhere ma’am as they are on strike’.

I laughed on the outside but died a little on the inside…I asked if the parcel could be put aside until the strike was over, nope. I asked if there was a courier nearby, nope. Nope, nope, nope.

I left disgruntled and went and explained to Alex what had happened. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem but we were going to be backpacking a little AND we had restricted baggage on our already EXTREMELY expensive flight to Kenya! We decided there may be somewhere to post the dresses from the airport and after the van had the best clean of its life ever (they really took some pride in cleaning the car…it took 40 minutes AND we left before they had finished) we made our way to Mrytles depot.

We met with Manon who had been kind enough to lend us the van and we had a good laugh at how small but how well layed out the van was. We had missed out on a few integral instructions on collecting the van and of course now on returning it we learned that the fridge pulled out and all kinds of secrets to make life incredibly easy. Once we had completed all the nescessary paperwork we were telling Manon about the postal strike. She came to our rescue and offered to have the dresses delivered by one of her drivers who was due to return a camper to Cape Town that very same week.

We hugged and thanked her for everything and she even gave us a lift to the airport where we sat and waited to board our flight!

We were sad to leave South Africa and our new friends behind but we were excited to see another side to this incredible continent that had already opened our eyes so very much.