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George Purcell
Just a few words on my trip to South Africa for the 2010 World Cup and beyond... Hope it's readable! GPgisborne
Travel Blog Posts
Scotland (Edinburgh Festival), Protest Camp and Hamish's.
Published: August 21st 2010Europe » United Kingdom » Scotland
August 17th 2010
Because Andy didn't have a job he could join me for a trip up to Scotland. We got 17 pound return tickets from Manchester so couldn't say no. Our first night was in Glasgow as that was where the bus went to and we were keen for a look at the place too.. It seemed nice enough, we didn't get there til late after waiting for a passenger who missed the bus. The driver ripped in to him when he turned up the and ended up having arguments with other bus drivers cause of his short temper. It was entertaining for us though. We missed out on the first backpackers we went to and were lucky to get the second for a few extra pounds. The trip was so spontaneous we didn't even know about this ... read more
August 15th 2010
Only a brief interrogation by the customs officer, putting down 60 day visit and local contact as NZ Embassy, London are not recommended. Not having an onward flight doesn't help, but I think he must of had a few Kiwi's who didn't really know what the're were up to over his time as an officer. He let me carry on through with a feeble excuse that I was going to catch the 'tunnel train' to france and fly home from there... Everything in England is so green, it looks really nice after the dirt of Africa and Sands of the Middle East. The trains and buses are really reliable, smooth and fast, but everything to do with travel is far more expensive, also takeaways and other necessities. Beer is reasonable tho, but everyone starts at the ... read more
George, Wilderness, Knysna, Jeffereys, PE, Coffee Bay,
Published: August 7th 2010Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape
July 31st 2010
Was lucky to get the bus the next day, the lady 'took a risk getting me on' lucky someone along the way pulled out. All good tho, Nemo and I got to a place called George where we met up with a guy Vince from Canada and his rental car. When we stopped at a supermarket about 60km away just before some amazing caves I realised I had left my passport and wallet somewhere??? It had to happen at least once on the trip... So we drove back to the bus station and had to wait until the driver who couldn't be reached by phone came into work again. To late for the caves now so we went on to a place called Wilderness about 15 mins away; which is exactly just that, green forest and ... read more
July 17th 2010
Train Ride to Cape Town wasn't quite as comfy as in Aus, but I guess when it was only $30 for 1600Km ($300 for similar Km in Aus) you can't really complain. Lights are kept on bright for the 26 hours so you can keep a better eye on all your gear too, Hawkers jump on and off at the stations selling everything from alcohol to nail clippers, and all for a good price. The Dining car was good too, got a beef curry for about $6 so all good. Along the way there we some amazing views comparable to the Lakes Disrict in the South Island. Streams in front of hillside vineyards backing on to snow tipped mountains. Just north of Cape Town is one of the main wine regions in the country. Stayed at ... read more
July 14th 2010
Finally have got a computer that I can spend some decent time on, so these first few are just going to be brief catch ups as it's already a month late. After getting back to Pretoria we took things pretty easy, it was like going back to the future, houses instead of the cup, cars with windows and even jets flying overhead daily. This was almost the holiday of our holiday, we found some great people, Adam Oger and Darryl from the Uk and Simon from Aussie, along with others at 1322 Backpackers we had one of the most fun weeks of the journey. We found 60cm pizzas in the Fan Festival which was about a ten min walk away away (day or night). This FanFest was a square surrounded by bars and eateries so when ... read more
July 8th 2010
This has been re-worded to make it easier to read and a few extra things added in... No photo's from Victoria Falls because my bag got left at the lodge in Bulawayo for that time, They are as good as they look on Google though. Hi All. Had a hectic and pretty stressful time in Zimbabwe, happy to be back in Pretoria 12am after an 800km, 3m long rope tow from Bulawayo that would hit 120kmh at times, we were questioned at over 5 police checks over various things but with the help of a Poilice Commisioner business card we picked up earlier, we got through without even having to bribe. It all started when we were parked at an intersection on Tuesday and two cars crashed, then slid in to us, making our car undrivable. ... read more
June 26th 2010
Hey All. There are a couple of photos from the journey over, but start the text starts from time in Africa: Have been in SA a week now and what a week it has been. We (Dan and Matt Ward) arrived in Jburg and drove straight to Pretoria for the night before our first game (denmark/camaroon) the next day. First impressions are that South Africa is not as poor or dangerous as people say. The areas inthe citys are hugely different from one another and you can see the inequality that makes SA the most unequal in he world. People are always willing to help, even if we both struggle to understand and quite often get wrong information, but has been ok and we have always found our way eventually. The next day we were still ... read more
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