Touring Gauteng

When we arrived back to Joburg international airport from our safari to Kruger and environs, we made our way immediately to the Hire Car section and without delay got our car, a little Toyota Yaris. With some trepidation, were on our way on their freeways to find our Airport Game Lodge. We found the exit fairly easily, and the road that the lodge was supposed to be on... but it was gravel, and turned into potholes after a few metres, then it got worse... a dead end sign showed up... but still we continued. I was adamant I was correct, reading the information off the web site. Fortunately, I was right! We were there by 4.30 pm, well before dark!
It was a lovely place, with an area cordoned off for the animals such as springbok, ostrich, duiker and lots of guinea fowl. When we had booked in, we rang Elizabeth, our first friend whom we hadn't seen for about 34 years. She asked where we had been as she had asked us for "brai" and meant lunch brai.. Oh dear! But after such a bad start, she and her sister collected us from the lodge ( too scary to drive ourselves),we met Elizabeth's husband (second), her daughter Tanya (aged about 6 when we left), her sister Bev and her kids, Sean and Katherine, and Tanya's friend Lou. They turned out to be a friendly mob and we enjoyed ourselves reminiscing over old times and changed times.
The next day, we travelled through Rustenburg in the northern Gauteng, to our next destination, Sun City. We had booked a lovely place on the net called Authentique. I don't know whether lodges like to assume that their guests want to do safaris, but this one again had to be travelled over side dirt roads full of potholes. When we finally reached the lodge, we were bowled over by the gorgeous gardens and huts. OUr host, Alain seemed to know all the ropes, and told us to go for high tea at the Palace hotel ( very expensive - more than $1000 per night). We followed his directions and enjoyed our stay at Sun City, but whoever said that this place is like Las Vegas, has never been there!
We ventured to an interesting hide built underground before going home, through the ruts and potholes.
The next day, we visited a lion rehab park and took nice photos and got to hold a lion cub of three months.
Fortunately, our hostess Francoise(Authentique) was an ex Rotary exchange student, and knew the Rotarians of hte Rustenburg Rotary club that we wished to visit. We couldn't believe the difference between the town of Rustenburg and the golf club where the lunch was held!
We returned after a long drive through to Randburg, on the outskirts of Joburg where we booked into another lodge called Klip Els, a nice lodge with lovely grounds. From here we were picked up by Chris, our previous exchange student, and went to his place to meet his family before going out for dinner. The final two days were spent with Vic and Denise Tearnan, old friends and their family. They looked after us so well that I'm sure we put on an extra kilo or two before we left!
It was a lovely , lovely experience to see our old friends again, but we were distressed by the way that people now live in South Africa.. especially the way they have to cage themselves into their homes for safety!
This was a fantastic trip, and we hope to revisit our friends in the near future, before we forget how to get around this corner of the world.
The best part of our trip must have been the revisiting of old friends, followed by the animal safaris, especially in South Africa with Daan and Mari. Fabulous!!!

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