Back on another plane for our 16 hour flight to South Africa via Doha, luckily with good seats thanks to Stu reserving them ahead of time. It was an exciting journey knowing that a very different continent lay ahead of us for the next part of our trip, and we were also looking forward to seeing Stu's family and my family in South Africa too.
Joburg (28th Nov - 7th Dec 2014)
Arriving at Johannesburg airport at 9am on Friday morning, we were picked up by an excitable Fallon (Stu's cousin) and had a much needed catch up whilst she drove us to get some breakfast at a nearby cafe called 'Mugg and Bean'. Post breakfast, Fallon had to head to work and dropped us off at her house which is on her family's plot of land, where we could get unpacked and relax. It was nice knowing we had a base in Joburg thanks to Fallon and her family, and could spend the next couple of weeks getting sorted for the next few months of camping in Africa. We needed that time to buy a car, insurance, all of our camping equipment and a few Christmas presents too! That same day we arrived in Joburg, Fallon's dad Kelvin who has his own workshop on the plot, was around to welcome us and informed us that he thought he had found us a suitable car for our trip, and he had it right there on the plot for us to take a look at. We followed him to a white shiny looking number nearby - a 1999 Isuzu KB 280 (whatever that means!) and was in pristine condition. We liked the look of it, and Kelvin took us through the details and condition of the car, all that was left to do to convince us this was the car for us, was to test drive it. After a drive around the plot, we were sold. It was the perfect vehicle to take us on our 15,000km drive around Africa. Kelvin could service it at his workshop before we left for our big trip and we were able to sort out insurance that week too, so lucky for us....on day 1 in Africa, we'd bought a car and were set for the weeks ahead.
#Proud
On our first night in Africa, we had a huge Braai (aka BBQ) at Fallon's house where we met all her lovely friends and had some of the best steak I've tasted, then retired to bed in Fallon's spare room where we were staying for our time in Joburg, to get some sleep after our long flight and the excitement of our first day.
The next 10 days in Joburg were amazing, Fallon and her family looked after us so well....we had some fantastic meals at Sonja's house (Fallon's mum), went to all the malls to get some serious shopping done (Stu's favourite shop being the camping shop - think we went in approximately 18 different camping stores!) and got all the documentation and servicing sorted for the car - insurance, tinted windows for the back canopy, windscreen crack filled and cleaning. I have to say, I've never seen Stu so pleased with a purchase, sometimes I'd find him simply staring out of the window looking at the car and admiring it, and I think he washed the thing at least once a day. As I'm writing this blog a few weeks down the line, he's outside washing it again!!!
During our time in Joburg, we also went to visit Stu's auntie Sandy and cousin Taylor who live just 40 mins away from Fallon. It was really good to see them again, we had a lovely lunch out in the sun, and a couple of days later went round for a monster Braai which was so good. Sandy also insisted on ransacking her cupboards to give us a huge pile of pots, pans, cutlery, cups and utensils that we could use when camping. It was such a kind thing to do and a massive help to us. The pile of 50 magazines she gave us too will definitely be keeping me awake on the long drives we have.
Our time in Joburg wouldn't have been complete without a big night out, so one Saturday we headed out to a lovely Asian restaurant for dinner with Fallon and friends, before heading out to a bar for party time. I have never in my life seen a group of people sink so many shots on a night out. I got away with only accepting around 5 shots ( approximately 1/5th of the number that some of the guys were doing.) How they were still standing at the end of the night I will never know! It was a really fun night though and we escaped with minor head injuries the following morning too which was a bonus.
Route to Cape Town (7th - 8th Dec 2014)
At 4am on the 7th December, we woke up, packed up the car and set off on our 1600km journey to Cape Town. My parents and sister were arriving the following day for a 2 week holiday and we were picking them up from the airport and spending the 2 weeks with them. I was so unbelievably excited to see them, we'd been travelling for almost 4 months at this point, so to have a bit of home come all this way out to see you was amazing. But first...we had to get there. We split the driving over 2 days. Day 1 we drove for 900km, which took approximately 8 hours. The roads through South Africa are soooooo long, we'd have hundreds of kms on just one straight road, with little to look at other than the little sprouts of bushes coming out of the sand and hills at the side of the road. Every couple of hundred kms we'd pass a petrol station that had toilets and food places, so we'd stop for breakfast/ lunch and also share the driving between us. With no radio signal, we relied on the one Maroon Five CD that we had in the car, playing it on repeat until we knew all the words of every track! At the end of the first day of driving, we stayed in a little beach town on the south Coast called Jefferies Bay, not far from Port Elizabeth. We had a really nice little room to sleep in, and headed out for food that evening to a seafood place called Ocean Basket for some sushi. Walking back to our guest house later that night, the whole town went into darkness due to a power cut. We were worried we weren't going to be able to get back into our guest house as you have to enter through an electronic gate, but luckily the owner was able to let us in and gave us an oil lamp to take back to our room. We showered by oil lamp and went straight to bed for a good nights sleep to prepare us for the 2nd stint of driving the following day.
The next day, we had to clock up 700km to get us to Cape Town, so we set off at 7am to get it started. We took the scenic drive along what's known as the Garden Route - excellent roads along the coast of South Africa with beautiful views. After another long day of driving, we finally reached Cape Town around 4pm and headed to an area called Hout Bay which is where the apartment we were all staying was. All we had left to do now was wait for the Cunninghams to arrive!
Cape Town (8th - 20th Dec 2014)
At 10.30pm that same day, we drove to the airport to pick mum, dad and Pippa up after their long flight from Manchester. It was such a good sight to see their weary jet lagged faces come out of the arrivals gate! We introduced them to our car (at first pretending one of the smaller cars in the car park was ours, then showing them our real beast of a car! We drove to Hout Bay and everyone was so impressed with the 3 bedroom apartment we had overlooking the sea. However some fake rubber snakes that were placed on some netting near the front door did give my mum a fright when I told her they were real! We all had a good catch up over tea and coffee that night and retired to our beds after a long day for everyone.
On our first full day together in Cape Town, we decided to stay around our local area of Hout Bay and explore. We took a walk along the beach in the morning, and we found that it was quite a windy, cool day. We'd been told that Cape Town weather can be a little unpredictable and you can experience up to four seasons in one day, so I hoped this wasn't going to be the climate we had for the whole 2 weeks! At the end of the beach was the fishing habour which had a really seaside feel about it, fresh seafood restaurants, fishing boats everywhere and a small craft market selling African trinkets. We decided to take a boat trip to 'Seal Island' that afternoon, so after a coffee in a local cafe, we jumped aboard a boat that took us to a small nearby island, full to the brim with hundreds of seals. It was a great trip out seeing all the seals showing off, jumping in and out of the water and making some fairly unusual noises keeping us entertained. The water was a little choppy and it was a close call when mum nearly became seal food when the rocky boat nearly sent her overboard! Once feet were firmly back on land, we headed to a nearby restaurant called 'Delish' that served amazing food and had lunch there. Afternoon naps were in order, and some shopping in the nearby supermarket for supplies before heading to a beachside restaurant called 'Dunes' that evening for dinner.
We woke up the following morning to bright sunshine, Pippa was especially happy as it meant she could get her tan on! We headed to the popular V&A waterfront which is a beautiful harbour full of atmosphere, with shops, street artists, bars and restaurants. We spent the morning exploring the waterfront, soaking up the sun and had lunch in a delicious restaurant overlooking the sea. We looked around an amazing market and saw the iconic Table Mountain, as well as enquiring about shark cage diving, which we proceeded to book for later that week. Time was spent that afternoon getting our tan on at Hout Bay beach, and more great food came that evening when Stu and I cooked a Braai for everyone on the balcony of our apartment.
The next day, Stu set off to meet some rugby friends from the UK at the V&A waterfront, whilst me, mum, dad and Pippa drove to a nearby area called Simons Town to see some African penguins who live on the beach! We had a wander around Simons Town first, a nice sleepy little harbour town with market stalls and plenty of seafood restaurants to choose from. We then headed to the penguins home of Boulders Beach nearby to see the mass of chilled out penguins relaxing in the sun. It really was quite a unique sight and the penguins weren't phased at all by the humans being so close. We headed back to the habour for lunch and ate gigantic prawns at a seaside restaurant where we had live African entertainment from local street artists / singers passing by all the restaurants. Driving back to Hout Bay, we passed through a coastal road called Chapman's Peak, a road built into the cliff face with the most extraordinary views of Cape Town and the sea. We were so high up above sea level, driving right next to the cliff edge that mum had to shut her eyes for most of the journey as she thought we were going to go over - I didn't think my driving was that bad (she even taught me!!!).
Chapman's Peak
We went to an amazing Italian for dinner that evening, Stu joined us a little late after a 1 1/2 hour bus back from the V&A and possibly a few too many beers with his rugby friends in town! The pizza and wine were a perfect end to a great day out for us all.
The next morning we woke up early to climb up Table Mountain. We drove to the cable car point where mum and dad chose to take the easy way up, and then me, Pippa, Stu, plus his 2 friends from rugby...Duane and Emma, started the 2 hour hike up the mountain. Lucky for us the weather was a little cooler that day and we didn't see any snakes on the way up. Getting to the top was a great feeling and the views were incredible. We met mum and dad in the table mountain cafe and joined them for a cold drink to toast our achievement. Whilst Duane and Emma decided to walk some more and tackle another mountain known as Lions head, we all jumped in the cable car back down to soak up even more incredible sights. We went to a incredible sea food restaurant for lunch in a nice beach area called Camps Bay and spent some time there sunbathing, before heading home to a lovely home cooked spaghetti bolognase for dinner and watching the Nelson Mandela movie together.
The Long Walk to....Table Mountain!
The next day we decided to have a more relaxed day spent in Hout Bay. We spent some time on the beach, chilled at the lovely apartment, did some supermarket shopping and went to a tasty Mexican for dinner that evening.
A trip to Robben Island was in store for us the next day, and we drove to the V&A waterfront where the boat trip across to the island began. We took a wobbly one hour boat across, and we were all feeling a little bit worse for wear when we arrived. Especially mum who was already dreading the return journey back. The tour around the island was well organised and we all went on a trip via coach around the island with a tour guide telling us exactly what had taken place there. We got the opportunity to go into Nelson Mandela's old prison cell and had an ex-inmate takes us through the prison and tell us exactly what the conditions there had been like. Conditions on the boat trip back to the mainland were a different story - with a toilet on the boat full of puke (luckily not ours!) it wasn't the most pleasant trip back, but the travel sickness tablets meant that everyone including mum made it back in one piece. Pizzas were the best remedy to help get over the motion sickness, so that evening we went back to our favourite Italian for some more gigantic pizzas for dinner.
The next day was Christmas! Well....fake Christmas seeing as Stu and I were going to be away for the real thing. On our fake Christmas morning we headed to a secluded beach called Landudno to catch some rays and have a picnic lunch with sandwiches, coffee and beers. On the way home we stopped at a local supermarket to stock up on our Christmas grub! Mum pulled out all the stops with the most perfect meal- chicken, stuffing, Yorkshire pudding, all the trimmings, crackers and presents. It was a great evening and Stu and I got some great presents, new clothes etc to use on the rest of our trip. Thanks to everyone from home who sent this across for us too - it made our fake Christmas very special! Christmas drama followed as the thick glass window in mum and dads room (that was permanently locked shut) managed to smash open due to the strong winds! Luckily dad managed to temporarily fill in the gaping hole with some odds and ends in the apartment so they were still able to get some sleep that night!
The next morning we had an early wake up as we were spending the day with sharks. We drove to the waterfront to get picked up by a company minibus, which then drove us 2 - 3 hours to a place called Gaansbai where the Sharks would be out in force. We had lunch provided when we arrived, then followed our shark guide to the boat we were taking out for the afternoon. We spent 2 - 3 hours out at sea with a boat of around 20 people. Stu was one of the first into the cage as the Sharks swam right up to us following the rotting fish scent that we were trailing behind the back of the boat. Whilst Stu was in the cage on one side of the boat, a shark decided to flap itself into the otherside of the boat, giving the woman sat by that edge a huge fright and sending a wave of water over the deck. Me, dad, Stu and Pippa each took turns along with others to go into the cage - the water was absolutely freezing, and the visibility wasn't great. So actually a lot of what we saw looked better from on deck, but it was an amazing experience being in the water with great white sharks just a foot away from your face. After a dinner and wine served to us back on land, we jumped back in the mini bus for the long drive back to Cape Town. By the time we got back to our apartment, it was pretty late and after our long and adrenalin filled day out, we all hit the sack.
On the family's last full day together in Cape Town, we spent the day in Hout Bay, sunbathing and shopping for souvenirs and having lunch in the nearby retaurant Delish. We met Stu's cousin Mark and his wife Kate for dinner that evening giving my family an opportunity to meet them and having a delicious final meal together.
The following day was the day mum dad and Pippa were flying back home, but as their flight wasn't until later that afternoon we decided to take a trip out to the Vinyards. Pippa stayed sunning herself at the apartment, but Stu, mum, dad and I had a great day out sampling the wines and getting a tour around the wine cellars. We ate at an amazing restaurant in the grounds of the vinyard and were served by an usually named but lovely waiter called 'Pardon'. It was the perfect day to end the trip, with sun, great food and great wine. We had an amazing holiday together and Cape Town was the best place to have all met up together. It was sad to drop them off at the airport later that day, but as we said our goodbyes I know it's not too long before I'll be seeing them all again.
Cape Town Part 2 (18th - 20th Dec 2014)
Back on our own again, Stu and I had planned on spending 2 more nights in Cape Town to see Mark and Kate again and help them celebrate their baby Pippa's first birthday. Stu's aunt and uncle were also coming down from Zimbabwe for the party so we were looking forward to seeing them too. My parents had brought our tent we'd purchased in the UK, so for the next 2 nights in Cape Town we decided to test the tent out. We found a decent campsite in a place called Kometjei outside Cape Town, so bought a few camping supplies before pitching up there for 2 nights. The first night we went out for nice meal at a nearby restaurant, but the following night we had enough camping equipment to cook up a storm ourselves. We'd been shopping that day and bought a gas grill, and so that evening we made our very first Braai whilst camping. It tasted so good, and it was evening followed by a decent home made cup of coffee too!
On the morning of the 20th we packed up camp before heading to Mark and Kate's house for Pippa's party. She's the similiest little girl we've ever met and we had a great morning seeing the family and being entertained by little Pippa. We had to say our goodbyes early afternoon as we got back on the road for our 2 day drive back to Joburg.
Route to Joburg (20th - 21st Dec 2014)
Heading back to Joburg we decided to take a shorter route via a place called Beaufort West. We set off full of party food and cake and drove approximately 600km to our hotel in Beaufort West. A nice hotel with comfy beds to ensure we got enough sleep for our 900km drive the next day. We arrived back in Joburg on the 21st around 4pm greeted by Fallon, family and friends and had a delicious braai that night to welcome us back.
Joburg (21st - 29th December 2014)
We spent a few more days in Joburg before setting off to Nambia. We went and did our 'BIG' camping shop, spending a good few hundred pounds on things like ground sheets, gas lamps, tables, chairs food etc and had a few more delicious meals a la Sonja's house. Christmas Day was a lovely family affair, with 17 people, all friends and family of Sonja and Fallon who came over for a delicious meal and everyone exchanged presents. It was surreal it being such a hot day, all sitting outside in the garden knowing how cold it was back in the UK! Stu and I dropped Fallon and her friend Nicole off at the airport that same afternoon as they were off to Thailand on holiday. When we got back, Stu, his cousin Thor, Thor's girlfriend Jen and I all had a few drinks into the evening to finish the celebrations off. Boxing Day saw another food shopping trip to buy all our fresh food and meat for Namibia. We had prepared all we could - the car was ready, packed, and we were on our way heading for Namibia! We set off at 4am on the 28th and first were driving to a South African town called Upington to break up the journey. We stayed in a nice guesthouse there for the night, where we had a huge chalet all to ourselves. We cooked at our place that night and enjoyed a few sundowners before heading to bed. The next morning, we drove to the Namibian border and had our passports at the ready to really start our African adventure!
Photos look great!
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