africa – Page 5 – Where is Phil now?

The Cheetah Conservatory

Day 278, Monday 08 October 2012 – Ojitotongwe Cheetah Conservatory, Namibia

We were up at 5:30 again after a lousy sleep. There was lots of loud snoring equally matched with some of the local donkeys braying throughout the night, it was a long one.

We packed the tents and the site and were in the truck for 6:00 to drive up the road a bit for a road side breakfast with a great view of the mountain range at sunrise. The Brandburg is an old volcanic range and basically was just popped out of the desert and glows red on a clear day. All around the mountain are small piles of rock that were tossed out during the eruption. They made for some great photo backdrops but I wasn’t really feeling it and this is reflected in most of my photos, though I did get a couple of good ones.

I just love how these rocks just end up balanced on top of others, you couldn’t plan this, nature is so cool!

We were on the road for 7:30 and it was a rough old drive out to the ‘main’ road, which was a rough old road as well. We stopped at road side craft stall run by some herero and himba woman in traditional dress. I bought a small bracelet (which I lost the next day) from the himba woman, this afforded me an opportunity to take a couple of photos of her as, well. I took some of the near naked herero woman as well, but they are rubbish photos sadly. The herero cover themselves in mix of red ochre and fat as a form of protection from the elements and bugs, it is quite interesting.

There were a couple of stalls along the way at this one, one of the people on the truck bought one of these dolls so I snapped a shot, of the very happy woman making them.

You need to be careful on the road here!

We arrived at Ojitotongwe Cheetah Park mid afternoon, after getting tents up and things sorted I was in the rather cold swimming pool for a much needed swim and dust off. This and the last few camping sites have been really dusty and the dust is just everywhere, I am being quite vigilant with my electronic and camera gear in an effort to keep it dust free, but I can hear the grinding when I manually focus my zoom lens, not a good sound!

At 4:00 we were all picked up by a ute towing a trailer and packed in with the other groups staying in the park and were taken to the main house to see and interact with the tame cheetahs, three adults and a cub. There were a lot of people here and it was a mass of bodies and cameras as people tried to get the best shot, I was one of them of course – though I was trying to get an angle that excluded the house and other people in my shots. It was pretty hopeless really. I did get my photo taken with one of the cheetahs – see that cool bracelet !

I was conflicted over the cheetah park. On one hand it was great to see these beautiful animals up close and to be able to touch them and feel the power in their bodies and roughness of their fur, it is possibly the only time we will see them as well. On the other hand this was purely and simply a money making attraction for this farming family. Yes, they do take in cheetahs that are trapped by the local farmers – at least they are not shot out of hand like they used to be. However, the farmers did not talk about the animals, there was no information on them, their habitat, what the “conservatory” was trying to achieve, it was a case of hand over your money and come and get your photo taken with the animals, it was deeply disappointing really.

After the close up session we were all bundled back into the trailers and taken to a large fenced section of bush land where we watched the cheetahs being fed, again I loved watching it and took a load of photos, but it was a shame that there is no effort made to rehabilitate the animals and prepare them to be released, they are just fed by hand. A conflicting afternoon!

It was Dave’s birthday today so after dinner back at camp we had birthday cake that Ibron had made on an open fire. It was a decorated and piped, triple layer chocolate cake, moist and delicious. I could not make this cake in a kitchen let alone on an open fire. Ibron is a pretty amazing chef!

We had a later start in the morning so most of us stayed up a bit later past the usual 9:00 pm or so bed time. It was another enjoyable, but challenging day.

A day off in Swak

Day 276, Saturday 06 October 2012 – Swakopmund, Namibia

Today was the first of a couple of optional extra days – where we could do one of many self funded tours or just laze about. One of the great things with the Africa-in-Focus tours is that most things are included; a lot of the other operators have a huge list of excluded optional extras, which would suck. I elected to do nothing, though in hindsight I should have done the desert explorer trip as those who did it said it was fantastic.

I stayed in bed quite late, had a leisurely breakfast and then Leonie and I wandered into downtown Swakopmund to see the sites, not that there were many! Swakopmund was developed by the Germans around the start of the 20th century. Some of the old architecture still remains, but as always it has been modernised.

This store was a private concentration camp during the German conquest of the Herero people at the turn of the last century. Apparently there were a number of privately owned camps here.

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After dropping washing at the local laundry and a visit to an ATM and the internet cafe – and another coffee we wandered down to the local museum, which was OK. A typical provincial museum, though there was no mention of the massacre of the Herero people by the German settlers in the early 1900’s.

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I loved this kids toy in the park!

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The local tourist market was outside the museum.

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I was feeling quite tired and drained so headed back to the room for a lie down while a few of the others went for lunch. On the way back Leonie and I were stopped by a guy selling key rings carved from a soft stone, I ended up buying one with my named carved in it, mainly because as he said to me, there is no work. If he didn’t sell things he made to tourists then crime was the only other choice – no social services here. It only cost a couple of bucks and I would rather support individuals than the big stores.

I then managed a good couple of hours photo sorting, typing blog entries and listening to music on my own which was just perfect. One of the downsides of group travel and shared accommodation is a lack of personal time and space, and I do miss it. I was in desperate need of the blog typing as I have done virtually none since Cape Town and I was (and still am) days behind. I also found that the external hard disk I had bought as a back-up had been damaged in the truck and was un-usable, hopefully I will have enough space on my USB drives to back up the new photos on my laptop.

I shot up to the internet cafe again and uploaded the three posts I had written and then back down to the Desert Tavern for a couple of pints and to watch the All Blacks play the Springboks on the TV. We were the happier supporters at the end of the day.

Almost the whole group headed out for dinner with the aim of going to the seafood restaurant at the end of Swakopmund wharf as it had been recommended to a few of us. Sadly it and a couple of the other restaurants were all fully booked and we ended up a basic fish and grill place, which turned out to be fine. The food was good and plentiful and the prices were probably far less than the upper end restaurants.

On the way out for dinner I passed this seafood restaurant – obviously owned by Aussies.

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It was an early start (again) so everyone drifted off to bed after dinner. It was good to have a day off.

It has been a week of travelling now and I have been having a good time so far. I like the crew and the company I am with so have decided to do another two weeks at the end of the trip and visit the gorillas in Rwanda. I asked Brett the tour leader to email his boss to sign me up.

Spaar farm and Walvis Bay

Day 275, Friday 05 October 2012 – Swakopmund, Namibia

Only 5 days behind now, again!

Well it looks liked today was going to be another one of those wow days ! Loving this trip so far.

We were up early yet again to meet Boesman, the farm owner (manager ?) Boesman used to be a guide at Sossusflwei before the rules changed a few years ago and he has moved to the farm. He has a huge amount of knowledge on the area, the desert and all the beasties that live in it, on it and under it. Our hour long tour took almost three hours and was interesting and entertaining. Boesman does not wear shoes and hasn’t done for twenty years, wandering around the desert and the grass lands in bare feet. He is a deeply passionate and enthusiastic man and it comes across in his stories and his speech.

Our first stop was a dead oryx, it has been here for four or five months and like Dead Flei as it is so dry here it has not yet rotted. The oryx died from natural causes and has slowly been munched on by various animals since its death. Eventually there will be nothing left.

The grasslands here should all be desert, but the changing weather has meant more rain than usual and as the sea gets warmer each year the rain will only increase. At a small part of desert that was left Boesman showed us how the beetles and spiders live in the desert and get water. When this beetle goes up to the surface it excretes a wax that protects it from the harsh sun.

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After the tour we had breakfast and then packed up and were off again on our travels. We passed through this amazing gorge with some wonderful formations in the rock.

This marked quite a clear boundary between the different terrains and we were into more desert like area now. Late morning we passed by the Tropic of Capricorn…

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We stopped off at this really cool little rock that has grown out of the desert, we were not allowed up and into it as a permit was required, which was a bummer as it looked quite interesting.

Soon enough we were in Walvis Bay township, a largish town between the desert and Walvis Bay, the largest natural port in Africa. Walvis Bay has some good flocks of flamingos which we were there to see. Or some of us were, our driver, Will, just lay down.

The flamingos were pretty cool, and it was a good test for me to shoot moving animals at distance with the 2x extender on the 70-200mm at 400mm. Man that 200mm lens is awesome, so crisp.

It was then on to our final stop and our destination for the next two nights – Swakopmund, another big desert town. We stayed in the municipal bungalows in two room bungalows with two singles beds per room. It was weird not being in a tent for the night, though I will say I have been pretty comfie in the tent.

We all had showers and got organised and then went out for a group dinner at a local fish and steak restaurant that was part funded by the tour. I had a piece of kingclip a very nice white fish, though I did try a small piece of orix schnitzel. It was good night and a smaller group of us retired to the Desert Tavern next to the camp ground for a couple of (in my case ) whiskies.

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It was another awesome day, Boesman was great, the flamingos were cool and it was a good night.

OMG – Dead Flei – I was in photo heaven.

Day 274, Thursday 04 October 2012 – Spaar Farm, Namibia

Today was one of those days, when everything was awesome. I could have spent a day in Dead Flei alone, easy!

I took half a sleeping pill for the first time in a long while last night and slept like a dead man for six hours, fabulous ! Even with the pre-dawn start I still felt OK and was up and on the truck nice and early along with everyone else at 5:20 AM – we were warned in the pre-trip notes that there would be some early starts.

The reason for the early start was to get to Dune 45 for sunrise. Dune 45 is one of the larger dunes in the Sossusvlei in the Namib Desert. Dune 45 is the only dune open to the public to ensure the dunes are kept clean and tidy. There is nothing special about the naming of the dune, it is just the 45th one in the series. It is a magnificent dune !

The rising sun was pretty spectacular as we climbed up the spine of the dune to take photos. There were a large number of other people on the dune also watching the sunrise, including a very grumpy old man with a walking pole who would not stand aside to let people pass, forcing us slipping and sliding down the side of the dune, wrecking the lovely clean lines.

The dune was pretty special and the views were cool, but I just loved the trees the most. They are camel thorns, which are the only trees able to grow in the area, their roots go down as far as 80 metres to look for water. I took a lot of photos of the few trees scattered around the dune.

While we were yomping about on the dune Ibron was preparing the first cooked breakfast of the trip, there was bacon, sausage and eggs and coffee – lovely stuff.

After breakfast we made our way to the car park at Dead Flei to wait for the parks four wheel drive vehicle to come and collect us, it was a bit of push and shove to get on as there were a lot of people waiting and only a couple of vehicles. Our group had to do a gang charge on a vehicle just to get on ! A flei is a marsh, there is an underground river that surfaces every now and then and it used to pass by Dead Flei until a giant dune blocked its path and the river moved a kilometre to Soussusflei.

As the air is so hot and dry with a harsh drying wind to add to the fun there is no bacteria to aid in decomposition, the dead trees here are over 900 hundred years old. To say I LOVED Dead Flei is a massive understatement, it was absolutely stunning, the clouds above were amazing and the light was moody, perfect. I went straight to the far end of the flei and had to wait a bit for the more stupidly dressed (bright orange and red) people to leave before I took some shots. I was surprised to find I had a large chunk of the site to myself for quite a while, and shooting at 16mm meant I was up close to the trees. The trees are just so cool, I just loved them to pieces and the background was just superb, added with that moody light it was a photographers dream. Sadly I had a bit of crap on my sensor so all my shots have a dot on them, I have badly cloned it out on these ones.

I was dragged kicking and screaming away from Dead Flei and we walked on over to Soussusflei 1.1km away. Soussusflei was not as interesting, but the dunes were cool and the water allowed for some good reflections.

We were lucky in that the tractor and trailer arrived to take us back to the carpark soon after we were done otherwise it was going to be a long wait in the sun.

We went back to the campsite for lunch and to pack up the tents before heading off for our next stop in the ‘town’ of Solitaire. Solitaire is basically a petrol station and shop and a cafe run by Moose Macgregor. Moose has been here for many years and has been made famous on a couple of TV programs for his apple crumble. He bakes 100-150 kilos a day and it was damn good – as was the much welcomed coffee. Once you engage Moose in a chat, prepare to spend some time….

There is also a great collection of rusting old car bodies outside and I could have spent a bit of time there taking photos, it was a lot of fun.

An accidental hi-key shot, but I really like it.

I said it was a shame they had stopped recording the rainfall this year on Mar 27 – and was advised they hadn’t, it just hasn’t rained since then!

It was just a great place to walk around.

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On the way to our camp site for the day at Spaar Farm we saw a couple of road side ostriches so had to stop for a quick snap, not the best, but the first ostriches in shooting distance, and you never know there may not be another opportunity.

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We arrived in Spaar Farm late in the afternoon, we were originally scheduled to do a tour of the farm but it was getting late and the Nomad truck people were still on their tour and we ended up with a bit of time to ourselves so I wandered around and took some photos in the late afternoon sun before joining Will, our driver for a couple of beers in the bar.

The camp-site is great, there are only three camp spots and they are a reasonable distance apart, it was quite dusty on the site with a strong wind so we had to peg the tents down for a change.

It was such a good day !

On to Sesriem

I was slightly hung over when the sound of breakfasting people woke me at 5:00 AM, thinking it was time to get up I staggered out of the tent to find it was the Nomad truck people from the next campsite – I went back to bed for another half an hour before it was our turn to get up and start the day. I lingered as long as I could before dragging myself out.

Bizarrely, I found a group of young guys off of one of the other overland tracks applying hair gel in the bathroom – each to their own I guess.

We were on the road for 7:00 again, there was a long day of driving ahead and not a lot to see so it of was headphones on and head back for a doze. Once we clear of the more desert like surroundings and in to some quite well grassed plain lands we started to see quite a bit of wild life – sadly they were mostly too far away to photograph. We saw springbok, kudzu, dik dik, orix and some ostriches, awesome, just what I am here to see, it was very exciting as we spotted species for the first time, I only managed a fleeting shot of these springbok.

And these guys as we whizzed past in the truck. Donkey is quite a common form of transport here and the rear end of broken down cars and utes make for great carriages.

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The plains soon turned back into the moon like rocky desert and it was back to dozing again.

As we pulled into the small town of Bethanie for a coffee break the truck took a (slow) emergency stop, flipped a u-turn and headed back up the road in to the wilderness for a hundred metres before coming to a grinding halt. We were all wondering what was going on when we saw Will, our driver, come round the side of the truck with a small tortoise he had seen in the middle of the road and was moving to safety. We all jumped out and snapped a few photos.

After the excitement of the tortoise we stopped for an hour long coffee break in Bethanie, it was pension day so there was a number of people around waiting to get money out of the bank – and sadly in many cases go next door to the liquor store and spend it.

There was a cool little lizard hiding under a tree that got the full paparazzi attention.

The next stop was an amazing socialable weaver bird tree on the road side. The socialable weaver birds build massive joint nests in the camel thorn trees, I had seen a number on the journey and had wondered what they were. It was great to stop at a massive example and be able to taking some photos. The birds disappear as people first approach but come back fairly soon. I am not a birdie person but I could not help but get stuck in taking photos.

We stopped for lunch under a shade tree that is obviously used by a number of the tour companies on the journey through Namibia. I love these road side lunch breaks, I get to wonder around and take a few pictures as well as snatching a few moments of solitude. Some days I wonder if I take photos so I can disappear by myself for a while with the handy excuse of doing something creative.

It was a long drive to our night time stop in the “town” of Seisrem- basically three or four lodges and campsites on the side of the desert. I was really looking forward to the desert, two days of hilly grasslands with limited wild life had me edging for something different to see. An hour or so away from the camp site we entered a private game reserve area and started seeing springbok and oryx which we had seen before and had gotten a little used to. But, all of a sudden we saw a herd of something gathered in the plains and they were mountain zebra. Awesome in its awesomeness, for me this was the first taste of real wild Africa. Even with a 400mm lens they were too far away to get any detail – and way too shaky shooting from a truck – even if it was stopped. But wow – I am in Africa Africa now 🙂

Sadly we didn’t stay long before heading off to our night stop at one of the campgrounds in Sesriem, but it was great to have a shower. It is incredibly dusty here, thick sand everywhere – it was like Siem Reap in Cambodia – feet and legs are just going to be covered in dirt for a few days, before and immediately after a shower.

We went out for another sunset shoot, with Brett providing some great lessons to those in the group who are wanting to improve their technical knowledge of photography – tonight was a bit about white balance – something I do not worry about too much myself – and perhaps I should as I am not shooting raw at the moment. The sunset was not particularly spectacular sadly, but an ND filter would have been great.

Dinner was a fabbo pasta and Ibron had

made a very nice chilli soy option for the veges in the group, though I would have been more than happy with the beef mince! With a very early 5:40 am start tomorrow it was an early night!

Another day, another country.

Day 271, Monday 01 October 2012 – Orange River, Namibia

Another belated post, I had intended to type on the truck as we went, but the roads are rough as anything and typing is impossible, even photo editing is not worth bothering with.

I can see why the other truck was in bed early, they were on the road before 6:00! Compared to them we had a leisurely wake up of 5:30, I was mildly hungover after that combination of beer, red and white wine and whisky. A lesson learnt nice and early on the trip though one forgotten way too much!

I had a walk around as the sun rose and took some photos of the mist over the small river on the farm. I have decided to switch back to shooting JPEG, I have been using raw for a while, but having to do everything in a bouncing truck with little battery life was going to be a pain, though of course I lose some of the detail – a tough choice.

Breakfast was cereal and fruit and I had a great hot shower before pulling down the tents, loading up the truck and getting on the road again.

Our first stop was at the gas station at Bitterfontein, there is a weaver bird colony living there which was cool and we all stopped to take photos. I am not really into birds, but it was a good lesson in shooting moving objects with the heavy 70-200mm lens. I was not overly happy with the results, but the weaver birds have cool nests, so am posting a shot anyway.

There were road works off and on all the way to the Namibian border.

Over the morning the terrain went from rolling farm land, through mountain desert areas which were very much like the Desert Road are in NZ’s North Island – accept huge, and into some very arid and rocky areas. It was great watching it all roll by though we were all staring out the windows waiting for our first glimpse of wildlife. We saw lots of cows and sheep and goats until finally just before lunch we saw a small heard of oryx in the Goegap nature reserve. Yay – we were all massively excited to see them. Though it was another lesson in safari photography as they were quite a way off and shooting with the 2x extender on the 70-200mm was difficult in a truck with people moving around. I am going to have getter better at holding the lens steady. I learnt that the oryx is one of the most dangerous creatures in southern Africa – even though it is only an antelope. People think they are safe but they are very territorial and will defend if they feel threatened, and those horns are huge.

There was this weird old quary site on the road side, from a distance it was hard to work out what it was, it looked like some alien fortress.

Lunch was in the nature park, it was hot and dry and quite beautiful, I have fallen in love with Quiver trees and took quite a few photos of these awesome trees.

I spotted this guy on a bathroom window.

The town of Springbok was few minutes drive away and we had to stop here to change vehicles. A recent South African law change means that foreign registered vehicles cannot transport clients over the border into Namibia, so we had to unload all our gear and jump into the Bundi Adventures van for the trip to Namibia and onto our camp at Bundi. The journey to the border took almost two hours and was pretty hot crammed into the van.

The border crossing was fairly straight forward, though it was interesting that at the SA border police post, after immigration we all had to hand in our passports to the police and then were told to leave the room leaving the van driver alone with the police. Not sure what happened there ! We did get our passports back though.

The last trip the guys did through the border everyone had to unload bags and were sniffer dogged and searched. We were all praying it was not going to happen to us – it was just too damn hot to be hanging about.

The border between SA and Namibia is the Orange River, named after the Dutch Prince William of Orange – not because the river is orange. The camp site was on the Namibian side of the border and not too far from the border crossing. The site was packed with loads of kids and families – it is the first day of school holidays in SA.

After unpacking the van, reloading the truck and putting up tents some of us took a quick dip in the river, it is perfectly safe to do so, no crocs or hippos this far south.

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We all walked up a small hill next to the campsite for a sunset photo shoot, Brett our tour guide, is also doing photography lessons as part of the tour and held the first one on top of the hill. It was interesting listening in and Brett is a good teacher. The countryside is very bleak as well as beautiful, on this side of the river.

After dinner we sat around for a while waiting for the large group of people starting a five day river safari in the morning to clear from the bar area so we could go and have a quite beer and access the very slow internet. I managed to get to read a couple of emails, but the connection died before I could reply to any.

Brett found a small scorpion on the bench seat and grabbed UV light to show us how the scorpions glow under UV. The picture is crap, but you get the idea!

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Brett is a wealth of knowledge about the local environment as well as the beasts and flora we are seeing on the journey, we are lucky to have such a great tour guide.

Day 1 on the road, leaving the city behind

Day 270, Sunday 30 September 2012 – Trawal, South Africa

A very belated post, written five days later from some scribbled notes and photos and totally un-proof read as well.

I was up early, breakfast at 7:30 and packed up and ready to meet the truck and load up at 8:30 . Will our driver was also there to meet us, and we were picking up Ibron, our cook, at the supermarket up the road.

It was very cold, long pants, jackets and beanies were the order of the day and the polyprop stayed on until lunch time.

The truck is a Scania named Malakai and has seen a few years service on the over landing route. Africa in Focus only put a maximum of sixteen on their tours (unlike some who fit thirty!) though there are only twelve on this trip, so plenty of room. We have a side locker on the outside of the truck that Leonie and I are sharing and we have a smaller foot locker for cameras and laptops that also has a safe inside for each pair of seats. A-i-F take security seriously which is great. It took us a few days to work out how things best work with all the various lockers though. As I was one of the last on I ended up with one of the front seats, which have the least leg room – not bad though.

It was a very excited group that got on the truck ( we are not allowed to call it a bus) and we were on the road for 9:00 – on time!

The first stop was Table View, a small bay just out of central Cape Town over looking Table Mountain. The cloud on the top is called the table cloth by the locals.

The next stop was Bayside Mall and supermarket where we picked up a few last minute items and we were on the road for Highlanders wine farm our stop at the end of the day.

As we left Cape Town I noticed a large amount of hitchhikers on the road side from single men to small family groups, this was a feature outside all the towns we passed. It is a hard life in southern Africa. We were soon out into the rolling farm land hills and the atmosphere in the truck was excitable as we left civilisation behind.

We stopped for a roadside lunch at 1;00 and all stood around working out what the process was for assisting Ibron at lunch time and where everything lived in the vast kitchen store on the back of the truck.

Cleanliness is taken as seriously as security and we have to spray a detol solution on our hands everytime we get into the truck. At food times we have to have a soap wash, dettol wash and rince before touching the food.

We stop every couple of hours for a toilet and stretch break, Brett (out tour leader) wants to make sure everyone is drinking plenty of water so encourages lots of breaks so no-one stops drinking. Once we get up into Namibia the air is hot and dry and dehydration can be a real issue.

We arrived at Highlanders wine farm in Trawal late afternoon and had a lesson putting up the tents, which is pretty straightforward. They are four person tents though we only had two per tent, which was pretty comfortable.

Once tents were up and shorts put on as it had warmed up significantly we went up to the bar area for a wine tasting with Sparky the farm owner.

The three people in the middle were with another tour, couple of them were kiwi’s with really thick kiwi accents, funny.

The wines were Ok, I really liked the vermouth though and Leonie bought me a bottle for my birthday. I am going to have to say no-one makes a Shiraz like the Aussie’s though this one wasn’t too bad. I bought a bottle of the pinotage to drink with dinner.

After dinner a few of us chatted around an open fire and had a whisky or two, before heading off to the tents for some sleep. There were two other groups at the site, one filled with noisy young people, I was expecting for them to be partying into the night, but they were all tucked down before we were…

I am pretty sure it was the first time I was sleeping in a tent since my Europe trip in the 80’s!

Cape Town

Days 268-269, Friday-Saturday, 28-29 September 2012 – Cape Town

Friday passed by on the plane to Dubai, I am sure at some stage Saturday arrived and sadly I wasn’t asleep when it did. I am pretty sure I dozed a couple of times on the six hour fifty flight across Europe and North Africa. The flight was pretty good, seat was comfortable and the food OK, drinks were available on request but I didn’t have many as I had a couple of reds at the airport and popped one of my Vietnamese valium before jumping on board. I watched The Avengers and Safe and the rest of the time I spent staring vacantly into space waiting for the flight to end.

Dubai airport is MASSIVE. It was a fifteen minute bus ride from the plane to the terminal and a twenty minute walk to the departure lounge for the flight to Cape Town. The flight was slightly delayed and again the aircraft was very full. I didn’t sleep at all over the nine hours and was seriously bored for a long time, for some reason I did not feel like reading now watching movies, but after six hours I finally managed to stare blankly at a screen until we arrived, pretty much on time, in Cape Town.

Wow- I am in Africa – a new continent and a new adventure is beginning.

I was met at the airport by Stuart, an English guy I had seen on the plane as Gary the hotel owner was out moving his car. Stuart – and as it turned out, all the guests of the small Bellevue Hotel were on the tour. The hotel is in Sea Point, about a thirty minute walk from the main part of Cape Town, there are a number of small cafes and bars along the street so Stuart and I walked up the road for a meal and a couple of beers. The food was cheap and the risotto I had was excellent. We met Simon, who has just completed the reverse trip I am doing coming down from Nairobi to Cape Town. He gave us a few insights in to the trip which was great.

Leonie, who I met in Vietnam at my friend Dan’s wedding and hung out with in Ho Chi Minh City, decided to do the tour as well and flew out from NZ at a similar time to me though she did not arrived until late in the evening – and without her bag, though fortunately that turned up in the morning. We said a quick hello and I retired back to my room for my last night in a real bed for a while.

Saturday was a slow start, breakfast at eight, loads of cereal, toast and coffee. The weather was pretty feral, quite cold with a strong wind blowing, though fortunately not actually raining.

Leonie and I walked in to the tourist Victoria and Albert waterfront area of Cape Town mostly along a sea wall. It was a surprisingly rugged piece of coast line given its location to down town. I managed to pick up a couple of desperately needed pairs of shorts and a camping shop and then we went for a walk around.

We were trying to get to Table Mountain but it was heavily clouded and it just did not see m like it was going to lift, so we decided to do a new first and catch an open topped tourist bus for a hop-on, hop-off tur of the city. It was cold up top !

Downtown Cape Town is not particularly attractive or interesting, it does remind me a lot of Auckland, Sea Point was like being in Henderson! Though we did go to the District six museum for a look around. District Six was one of the central city residential areas mainly populated by African and mix raced people. It was forcibly cleared over many years of the apartheid era, with residents being forced into less desirable locations. Sadly a lot of the places that were cleared and the houses destroyed are still vacant lots.

We caught the bus to the Table Mountain cable car, but the weather was still pretty foul so we decided to take a couple of photos and then jump on the bus back to Sea Point and have a drink at the hotel.

There was a pre-tour meeting at five pm and we got to meet the rest of the group as well as Brett our tour leader. There are five us doing the full six weeks. Dave and Nancy from Canada and Bill from New York. The rest of the crew are Inga and William from Aussie, Stuart, Jackie and Carol from the UK and Sanjeev and Vaishally from the US. Most of us are forty plus so it is a good balance of age and everyone has travelled before, some with vast and interesting experience. It should all be fun!

Gary’s (the hotellier) son Tristian, who had a real fascination with our cameras.

Seven of us went out for a nice dinner at a local bistro before an early night, it was good to spend some time with some of the other folk on the tour before we kicked off.

It was an early night, and a very excited Phil went to bed for a last sleep in a bed for a few days.