Here we go again!!!

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Well we had so much fun last year travelling round South Africa for 3 months that we are off again this year.

Now that Kerry has emigrated to Australia, we will be splitting our time between the two countries. We will be in South Africa for the first 4 weeks and then on to Australia in time for Christmas for the next 4 weeks.

On our way home we had to travel via another country and it just happened that Los Angeles was the cheapest. So we said what the heck and have taken another 4 days to visit Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. Well we're not really in any hurry to return to the UK in January are we?

A rough itinerary is to spend the first week in our old stomping ground Durban to catch up with everyone, have some lovely lunches and braais, a Durban curry and maybe even a bunny chow - let's hope the weather improves by the time we get there, it has been wet and cold so I am informed.

We will then go back to Johannesburg to Aaron's place and from there we are having a week in Pilanesberg Game Reserve.

The rest of the time is open at the moment.

When we get to Australia, we are having a couple of days shopping for camping equipment and then taking a 2 week trip from Adelaide to Melbourne.

We'll be going via the Grampians (mountain range) and coming back along the Great Ocean Road.

We'll be mostly camping in bush sites which I am told are even more basic than South African sites, having pit toilets (presumably long drops). Now that's not a problem except at night, because with Australia having lots of very deadly spiders apparently it is not a place to visit after dark. We're working on that one.

We have two shiny new holdalls thanks to British Airways. No they didn't buy them for us, but they insist we can only check in one piece of luggage each and since our suitcases from about 20 years back that have served us very well so far are tiny and have no chance of holding our 23kgs of allowance we had to buy something bigger. Anyway, I suppose it is time we caught up with everyone else, but suitcases just seemed a bit too sensible for us. The holdalls on wheels will be fine and easier to take on the train since our taxi driver is now living in Australia.

Only 3 days to go so I had better make sure everything is ready and practice my Australian a bit more.

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