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Friday (18/6/2010)
We arrived to the breakfast room greeted by host Scott, bacon and eggs how you like ‘em, plus cereal, toast, quiche, juice coffee, fruit salad and yogurt. Perfectly poached eggs and some directions we walked to collect our hire car. Our Kia Picanto (despite its tiny boot) was definite upgrade on our Citi golf (mini tank from St Lucia), we set off for the mall. Dodging some local drivers we arrived to a huge mall, 300 plus shops and barely more than a handful of Aussie soccer shirts. Keen for some warmer layers Carly jumped ship scoring a cheap Brazil jumper. We grabbed some lunch and hit the road for Rustenberg ahead of Australia’s second game.
We arrived at the Traveller’s Inn, checked in with some complimentary sherry and set up camp. Made slightly nervous just how cold it might be our fellow campers resorting to filling an iron urn with hot coals from the camp fire to warm their tent the previous nights. Next, we ventured into the filthy town center, we were definitely the only white guys around. Despite being a host city, Rustenburg didn’t have the World cup hype of the rest of South Africa. Things
appeared to moving as per usual with no attempts to gloss up the town or clean up the streets. We promptly got some meat and bread for our BBQ and headed back to the comfort of our camp site and waited for Tony and Jacinta to arrive.
We warmed up by the fire with a bottle of local red, cooked up a small feast of sausage (bors), chicken, corn and zucchini. We headed into the bar to watch another dismal performance from England but at the same time quite comforting given Australian’s opening match.
Saturday- Game Day (19/6/2010)
Rise and shine its game day Australia v’s Ghana. After breaky we headed into town in search of some vuvuzela’s. Yes, the obnoxious plastic trumpets responsible for thousands of complaints to TV stations worldwide. If ya can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. After being directed from one shop to the other we finally found them, probably ripped off we got a couple for ourselves and some to send home. We picked up some supplies for lunch and donned all the green and gold we had, plus a few additions from our neighbours. We headed off with Tony and Jac to the park
and ride and joined the rest of the Aussies on bus to the stadium. We enjoyed a few beers in the sun and met up with Nick, Jess and Jamie. The crowds piled in it was ‘Ayoba’ (aka Party) time!! Chants, the sound of the vuvuzela’s and singing produced an amazing atmosphere! We went to our seats, once again on the corner, first tear about 10 rows back. After another impressive national anthem from Australia the game kicked off, Harry started and the sun was shining. Things were looking good. After some close attempts Australia finally scored and the crowd went wild. Minutes later, a controversial penalty saw Harry Kwell sent off and Ghana score. The game continued Australia down to ten men but both teams failed to score again. The game finished Australia 1 Ghana 1. Shattered we mopped out like we’d lost (I guess technically we had) and the Ghana supporters sang, danced and drummed their way from the stadium. We attempted to make our way back to the park and ride but with no directions/signs or any officials and thousands of fans it was chaotic. We eventually pick up point and made our way through the crush
onto a bus, leaving Jac and Tony stranded on the side of the road. Fortunately they were able to walk back to the car and we made it back nearly two hours later. All shattered, the excitement followed by disappointment was crushing so we headed out to the mall for the comfort of steaks and seafood.
Sunday
We packed up our tent and headed for Nelspruit, with Aussie Joel (one of our fellow campers) feeling a little worse for wear in the back seat. Past the ‘Hijacking hotspots’ we postponed the toilet/fuel stop just a bit longer and barren African landscapes. We made it to Nelspruit Backpackers, hosts Tony and Natalie were at the New Zealand game, and the camping spots were looking scarce but we managed to squeeze our two man tent under the clothes line. We walked to the nearby supermarket for some lunch and settled in to watch New Zealand v’s Italy DRAW! That evening we headed down to Nelspruit fan fest for the Brasil v’s Corte d’ Ivory. Cold and fairly empty we stood through the first half before returning to the backpackers couch for the second half.
Monday
After a freezing night it was
a sluggish start, made better by the huge complimentary breaky spread including cook your own eggs and freshly brewed coffee. Breaky in the garden in the warm sun and we ready to go. We checked via the net, caught up on a few blogs (still terribly behind).
That evening we had dinner at the local Irish Pub O’Hallorans with Joel, Dan, Jac and Tony and turned in for an early ahead of our early start the next morning.
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