Well played South Africa. Wow. What a place!
I arrived a week ago weary from three flights but eager to
see and explore a new country. I shared my soon to be retired Qantas 747 with
the ‘Chiefs’ Rugby Union team. No idea who they are and honestly only realised
they were famous when people were doing photo bombs at the airport. Touchdown
in South Africa was as expected. Everything was already being done at an
African pace and there was disorder at the passport queue. There was also an
annoying lady there that was obviously visiting family that had disowned her
for being annoying who kept trying to engage in conversation with me. After 16
hours of air time, I was not coping well with this and tried hiding from her in
the line… not easy to do when you are almost 6 ft tall, white female usually,
however I was in good height company so managed to obscure from her view.
After a turbulent flight on the South African low cost
airline Mango (probably resurrected an old retired Qantas plane and Nigerian
airlines pilot I say), I was greeted at Durban airport drive thru by Melissa
and her papa Luke. The first couple of days was great by the beach, with a
quiet and quant seaside village called Shackas Rock- here you won’t find much
other than a long, rocky and rippy sea, but you will find a cool old man’s bar
called Salty’s and the best coffee in the whole country at a little café across
the road from our apartment- called Salt haha, must be a town theme. We were
invited by Melissa’s great Aunt Joy and Uncle Fred for lunch – roast chickens
on the second day and went exploring Balito prior to lunch. We were at the
local woollies where I smelt the chickens cooking and I said to the fam ‘I hope
this is where Aunty Joy is getting her chickens from’. We then turned the
corner of the aisle and this crazy woman leaped towards us. I had no idea what
was going on. But as it turns out – that was Aunty Joy getting the chickens for
us from Woolies! Small world.
It was a great relief for sun seeking Liss and I to follow
the ‘enough to be indoors but not enough to be drought breaking’ rain up the
coast on our way to our Safari at Leppard Mountain (NOT!). After three hours
enroute we were greeted at the gate by a round black jovial man who proclaimed
‘please be careful, call us if you get stuck, my road is fucking crap’. He was
spot on and about 10kms in we were glaring through the thick rain at a muddy
slippery slide hill which needed to be crossed in order to reach our lodgings.
Liss’s dad Luke and Liss were quite positive ‘50/50’ chance. Liss’s mum Shaz
and I had little faith in our little shit box car and this lack of hope was
reiterated by a man in a four wheel drive that had just crossed. Man to Luke
(laughing): “Do you think that little car will make it?” Luke “Not sure mate,
I’ll keep the revs up, we can only try!”. It was like the travelater at the end
of gladiators, three quarters of the way up was when it was touch and go. I
think most cars were consumed, but our little white beast was determined, and
only got close to bottoming out when we had just enough edge of car over the
peak…. Phew! Driving on, Liss excitedly pointed out the Lions. In our shit
white car, I won’t lie – I was fucking scared (cue video of rhinos charging
white car). But we sat in the car and watched and I noted that the lions were
spotty which I thought was unusual. The next animal we saw was a family of
pumba’s or wort hogs, my fav Lion King character only marginally to Zazou,
which we also saw on safari. 
Arrival at Leppard Mountain was our own little haven. We had
a king size bed to die for and a plunge pool for each room. The mornings were
up early for safari, afternoons were relaxation and nights were again safari.
The staff were awesome and the food was exquisite. By the final day my thighs
were touching and we still hadn’t seen an elephant. We got up for the early
safari on our final day not expecting to see a single thing, as it seemed with
it, the rain fall had washed away the animals. We were cutting laps of the now
accessible dam looking for the wild dogs, to no avail. That was until Liss
spotted a Kudoo, thankfully I spotted three fluffy tails running rapidly behind
‘The Dogs!!’. Soon, the whole lot of the five adjoining parks safaris groups
were following the wild dogs, only 450 remain in South Africa and only a couple
of thousand throughout Africa in the wild. I began to wonder if I had really
seen the dogs, or just some other animal and sent us all on some wild goose
with fluffy tail chase. But then bingo, they had been found chasing a Kodoo
some 30 minutes later. Instead of hoping to find them, I was stoked for the
Kudoo, having survived the feed, but then, we saw all five dogs, bloodied
mouths and all. We stayed with them for another 20 minutes or so, then decided
to leg it and chase up the earlier bull elephant sighting. We found the large
bull, heavily camouflaged 
We departed leopard mountain having saw some
amazing
creatures, some pumbas, porcupines, cheetahs, elephants, African wild dogs,
inyala, impala, koodu, buffalos, white and black rhinos, the list goes on. It
was here I had to say goodbye to Tempah, my Zulu prince (he called me his
beautiful Zulu Angel, and every other gullible female haha). We left our
ranger, Bea, and set off for Cape Town on another turbulent Mango flight. 
The flight was horrific. I was definitely happy when we
landed or skidded on the runway. Cape town was instantly a hit. We left the
comfort of the airport and saw the discomfort of the shanty townships which was
saddining to me however the landscape was picturesque and somehow it all
worked. Our hotel was seaside at Seapoint. Our stunning new home was The Hyde apartments;
the rooftop pool was the epitome, overlooking Table Mountain and supporting
Liss’s and my desire to become three shades darker in a day, although our tinge
of red the next morning was a disappointing result. We kicked off with a
morning run and explored the amazing city. Cool place, great little bars, the city
felt safe, people were polite and the shopping was top notch. Wednesday we
drove to the national park and went swimming with the penguins at Boulders
beach, a highlight, all of them reminded me of Happy Feet or Mick Boyland. We
had dinner with the Pfisters and were told facts about animals from Jo’s adorable
son’s, who apparently know more about the Platypus than I know- who else knew
that the Platypus was the only male to lay eggs? Our final full day was again
up early, but this time for a wine tour. We visited three wineries and managed
only to get a little bit tipsy, but added some more to the hips with the
biltong and cheese. The highlight was Liss stating that she could taste
undertones of toilet water when she tried the Sav Blanc and I finally got her
to like one red wine- a nice bottle of Syrah. 
The final day I decided to combat my touching thighs and set
off for a run. It was only supposed to be 4kms, but when the shops were closed
at the other end, I turned around and ran back for our final breaky. I passed ‘The
Marathon Man’ Eddie Izzard who was close to completing his 27 marathons in 27
days, I said ‘Guten Tag’ and got goose bumps as I passed, although I had no
idea who he was, I assumed by his entourage he was doing a great thing, and
when I got back and googled, I saw I was right. Liss and I said her goodbyes to
her parentals and flew our final Mango flight to Joburg, thankfully this time,
it was peaceful, the pilot clearly could fly, and landed well. However Mango is
on my personal never to fly again list, with Ryanair. We had our last supper at
Jackson’s at Joburg airport and boarded separate flights. Mine another exit
seat, hers a much longer middle seat cramped flight. I had a minor anxierty
when there was a screaming baby next to me and I couldn’t find my hallucinagent
sleeping tablets – stilnoct, however as it turned out I was sitting next to a
pharmacist who handed me 10mg of candy which put me nicely to sleep after part
2 of Hunger Games MockingJay and I woke up just under 2 hrs from landing, baby
still screaming.
South Africa, top marks. Your coffee is alright, your eggs
are overcooked, Your tinder men are second only to Hong Kong’s and Cape Town
rocks my massive world. I’ll be back. 5 spuds.
