Rustenburg to Nelspruit

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Before we could get to check out more wildlife, we had a bit more soccer to watch. After a few days rest at Kam’s uncle’s place in Johannesburg, we headed to Rustenburg, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, only to experience more heartache, as Kewell got sent off in the first half hour of the game against Ghana. The ref’s calls against the Aussies seemed to pile up and by the second half disgruntled fans were hurtling full beer bottles onto the pitch. The fact that FIFA was only allowing Budweiser to be served at the games probably didn’t help. Our last game saw us heading to Nelspruit in the east. We had plans to do more camping in this part of the country, but our overnight stay near Drakensberg had highlighted that we were missing a few essential items. Namely, we were missing a cooking pot, gas and another decent sleeping mat. For some reason, I had either failed to pack or acquire these items back home. Instead we had taken every opportunity during the first couple of weeks of our stay in South Africa scouring through malls and outdoor stores, much to Kam’s dismay. As it happened, it took us another torturous day of visiting every relevant store in Nelspruit to locate all the right items at the right price. Kam has not missed an opportunity since to remind me that I had a perfectly good camping pot back in Canberra and that I had hesitated to buy a much cheaper sleeping mat back in Pietermaritzburg. Anyway, we now had all the gear needed and were ready to go. The last Aussie soccer game proved to be the best of all, with our team finally clocking up a win, but unfortunately still missing out on the next round. Regardless we had a fun night out and as an added bonus we spotted George from Masterchef in the stands above us.

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