after picking up dad, sis and a very overexcited/emontional mother from the airport we drove up to grabouw where the first 3 nights of our mini south afria tour would begin.
apon arrival rob (boss) gave the newcomers the health and saftey briefing where he went into great depth explaining the different ways you could die on the farm, and proudly hinting out all the recent snake siteting's, much to mums discomfort!
dispite the family being jet lagged from a 11.5hr flight we went to the country club where rainbow smileys had there christmas party, a braai (SA bbq) which was then follewed by fun and games, where the professor enjoyed high 5'ing everyone in style.
a grand tour combined with soup run took up most of the following day, this gave the others a great insight into what village of hope does in a much needy area. a quick transformation from the third world to the first world was made when we went to a carols by candlelight service, hosted outside in the backyard of a vineyard!
after a tough day of taking 7 kids plus housemums to the beech, we drove throught the evening to montangu. aparitly we drove so some beautiful scenery which i didnt appraciate as my eyelids were tight shut thoughout the journey- theres always next time. this was SA wine country, guess what we did...
then a drive up to george where we stayed with my old teacher of the deaf, i seldomly forgot whe sue cattinham was but it became a bit obvious when a women came running at me, hugging me saying 'simon, you've grown so big, you were like this big when i last saw you!' we haved a whale of a time, learning stories of landrover trips to Bostwanna, to other stories of funnerals where the poor chap was eaten by a loin and only his head was left in the coffin, which rolled up and down and banging on the wood in the coffin at the funeral (this may be steve pulling my leg, but good story otherwise!)
a flight from george aiport (more like bus stop) in a plane which cost $127millon- although it only had 31 seats! brought us to durban.
we spent one night in durban, where we drove round exploring, the 'white man game' simular to the mini game was invented- some indicator to how strong black/coloured community durban is! not a single white person for miles, althought the streets were full of crowds 6 people deep!
susshsuwi safari park is where we spent christmas eve/day and boxing day. all days was packed of driving round the huge park trying to tick off all the animals in our book, we even celebrated christmas with monkeys on our belconany :)
we did do one guided safari with a zulu guide these people are just so knowledable, can talk for like hours about a single animal such as the dung beetle! yet they have such awesome eyesight, we would for instince look at a hill, looking really hard see nothing, yet mr zulu says rino there, graffi there x bird here and so on without any effort. yet when driven round i tried to stop him as i saw a elephant in the distance, yet zulu guide doesnt even bother to brake- it was only a rock!
the last few days were spent in st lucia, which is the most north westeren town on SA coast, a beautiful place. where days were spent snokelling, on the beech, exploring the wetlands which was full of hippos and crocs and night time hippo safari in the back garden of the B and B!
that is i hope the last two weeks in a bombshell! the family is now back in the mirable uk, when im spending the last few days in the VoH before traveling onto the next stage in Dar :)
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