Do you become a real traveller when you turn your socks inside out?

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So I left you all on way to Stellenbosch....a very very different South Africa from the one seen in Cape Town. It is a university town and therefore predominately a white town. We arrived after our second journey by train, an interesting one considering we thought we would know better than South African railway and decided instead of waiting for an hour for the next straight train, we would venture forward and just change when we thought.... an hour and a half later, having being escorted by a lovely railway worker away from a very "dangerous" station and jumping into a carriage of armed guards we arrived at our hostel to find the door kicked in!!! Not good start!? Changed our hostel to one which can only be descrbed as something out of a horror film but at least this one had a door!?xStellenbosch consisted of a beautiful wine tour of which many of my family/friends/ x would have thoroughly enjoyed. Let me set the scene. You are transported to 4 wine estates throughout the day in order to sample at least 5 different wine and champers of your choice. I am now a complete expert in telling the age of a wine, whether unwooded or wooded and of course whether it will give you a headache the next morning!! Excellent excellent day which was rounded off with dinner with the 2 South African tours at a local restaurant, which meant a little more vino and at last a chance to talk to someone who was actually South African!! Learnt a lot about the country itself, which just highlighted even more so the contrast between the rich and the poor. Stayed in Stellenbocsh another night in order to have a day off from all the sight seeing and to try to wash and dry some of my clothes.... an interesting experience in a small toilet baisin!!After Stellen we headed East to Hermanus to the Whale Festival. Simply amazing, though I am upset my photographs do not do the Whales justice. In fact the photos just look like a lot of water with a very small black dot...but honestly I was only about 20m away from a South Right Whale who weighed around 50 tonnes! A really gorgeous day followed of walking the coast and following the whales, with a beautiful lunch where I continued to perfect the art of wine tasting and ate my first SA steak. Wow these guys know how to fill Hannah Victoria's stomache up! 350g of pure deliciousness!!! We decided to leave Hermanus the following day and headed out to a place called Wilderness, a journey of 4 hours should have meant we got there in order to try our hand at a little abseiling, however try 10 hours x later and we are still not there...but eventually rock up to our hostel and it is in the middle of no where. Wilderness?? I think so! Picture this one... 3 girls rock up down a dirt track, its pitch black and we hear nothing from the hostel itself... we walk around the back to find a little man of 4ft (i dont lie) who doesnt speak much English who says we follow him.... ok. We walk up the side of small mountain and come across a lodge. He opens our room and it was like walking into a game reserve lodge. They have feather pillows!!!! Beautiful house with an amazing view over a lagoon and meandering river up in the mountains. Little 4ft man turned out to be from malawi and I spent most of my remaining evenings speaking to him (limited) and the owner about politics (!!??) over wine which was made locally (not a good one for the head the following morning). Wilderness is a beautiful place and i would thoroughly recommend it, we spent the following day in a canoe and checking out waterfalls. Awesome!Jeffery's bay was our next stop, just outside of Port Elizabeth. Whilst it is meant to be the surfing capital of SA, personally I wasnt that impressed and I think perhaps wrongly that the beaches of South West France and the Atlantic coast and far more beautiful. Currently I am in Port Elizabeth and have been for a few days due to a little illness. However hopefully this does mean that we will have time to visit a Lion park, one of the old guides is staying at the same hostel...result! Lion cubs here i come! Plan is now to travel across to the Drankensburg mountain before heading onto J'Burg....hope everyone is ok. Answers to the title of this installment greatly received. Ciao x x

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Photos

Hermanus and the Whales
If you look really closely....

Comments

[gwyn]

answers
Socks! Socks in my day in the last millenium we didn't have socks to travel, we couldn't afford socks, we were so poor that the first pair of socks I had didn't even have another side to turn inside out My god this generation want it all, socks my foot!! I is enjoying de diary G