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Sunday July 23rd, Champagne Lane, Winterton, Natal, South Africa We arrive back at Jills in Joburg. by 8:00PM Wednesday evening. As she is leaving South Africa for China next week, most of the furniture has now gone. In the morning, we are off to a local mall for a cell phone (South Africa - 027, 82 510-8130 - call at your peril), and a chance to hook up to the net again. Not a total success. Damn Microsoft "Proxy Server" crap gets in the way again. What would take me 20 minutes at my office through my e-mail processor, takes 4 hours via the web based methodology (how do you folks put up with it?). I do manage to ftp the photo pix to the web site, so a reasonably productive day. Still, I believe I get some form of message out to everyone, saying (essentially), "sorry for the delay". I wonder whether anyone really needed any tech support from me, and realise just how impossible that idea was.
Friday - we are off to "Champage Lane" time shares we organised while in Toronto in the Drackensburg mountains 350Km South East. Time to do the farewell bit. We head out to the rest of Africa - finally going totally solo. On the way to Winterton, as we drive down, just South of Harrismith, there is a car stopped on the side of the road, we see 3 black guys beating the shit out of another (black) guy - boots and belts thrashing around. We stop. No one else does. Stupid tourists think that every where they go, it's the same as home. Not even sure how to call the cops on the cell. I decide not to take on 3 large guys, who do not need any insight into western liberal social niceties. We drive on, not sure what to do about this, feeling guilty that we ran away. Heading down a side road to the time share, an "African Curio Factory Outlet" has a guard complete with the standard issue pump action shotgun at the ready for tourists without a valid VISA card. We drive on down to our next weeks resting place.
Not as luxurious or well organised as Kruger Park Lodge, but gloriously rustic and homely, no barbed wire on the fences (no real fences actually). Its great to be here. Arrive after all (both) the local stores are shut. So it's down to "Dragon Peaks" restauarant.Great curry - everyone can live on this and, except for Aiden who always wants a steak, we inhale the stuff. Really good meal all round. Security does not appear to be such a problem out here. Not even barbed/razor wire on the fences. Quite open to all comers here:
maybe we can breath a sigh of relief now we are out of Joburg. Walks: lots of hills, rivers, woods to hike around. We choose a 2 hour ramp around the resort, passing a Zulu kraal or two. The kids prefer the ever present trampoline, and soon make some new friends. Sunday, cold for here - looks like snow! It actually misses us, but everyone in the area is inside. This is winter after all. Cream tea over the 'Berg for a quick excuse to get out. Enough of this, inside with the fire & a glass of wine. Distance travelled this entry: 500 Km. Distance moved on trip this entry: 325 Km |
Out to dine, and we stop at the first restaurant that has a guard in the car park. We are learning the ropes of travelling in South Africa.
