World Cup 2010

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I'm writing this blog to keep all family and friends updated with my round the world trip, the journey

will consist of South Africa (World Cup!), Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, West coast USA and then home!

There are numerous reasons for this trip, the main one being that my late mother had wanted to go on a

round the world cruise, my trip here is a little diffrent but the spirit is there.
After my mother died I started looking at life from a different perspective I started to realise the

things in life that I thought that mattered really didnt. We are put on this earth for a reason and

working all your life isnt one of them. I'm lucky that I work for a company that allowed me to take a

career break with the offer of a job when I return! So i'm going to travel the world, meet new paople and

further open my perspective on life. The only rules for the trip is to keep a budget and stick to it and

the other is to meet as many people as possible! i cant say i'm going to mention them all but i will

certiny mention the ones who make a difference! Just as an heads-up, I have accomodation in SA until the

28th June, after this time i'm on my own as the people who are at the world cupo with me (Tim, Fran, Al)

fly home on the 29th June.

Before I start i'd just like to say that i'm going to write what i'm thinking here, i'm using Notepad on

my laptop to write this then i'll copy everything to the blog page when I get an internet connection so

please excuse me talking is past and present tense, plus my English probably wont be great and i'm unsure

how much detail i'm going to include so when/if your reading this I would appreciate some feedback on what

you think of the detail etc etc etc bla bla bla!

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Tuesday 15th June - Day 1

This is one of my biggest journeys of the entire trip, a 24hour slog down to Knysna, South Africa, one of

the most Southern places in the African continent. The 'team' (Tim, Fran & Al) are already there awaiting

my arrival, around mid-day Wednesday 16th June.

Apart from a 15 minute delay taking off, my first flight manchester to london heathrow ran smoothly. I

arrived in the terminal to see the final minutes of the Ivory Coast vs. Portugal game a nil-nil draw,

great result! I'm not a Portugese fan, nor Ivory coast for that matter but its good to see the portugese

struggle against an inferior side! After the game I went for a walk around terminal 5 and stumbled across

a restaurant called 'Gordon Ramsay - Plane Food' it was around 6pm so I had to eat something. Even if I

did go a little over the budget the food was amazing and its not often you get to eat well at airports so

I took the opportunity while it was there to get fed properly before a bloody long journey...!

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Wednesday 16th June - Day 2

Arrived in Knysna around 13:00, apart from a 1 hour delay departing from Heathrow everything else ran as

scheduled. The airport is about an hour away from where we were staying in knysna.

On the way into Knysna the scenery was beautiful the place lies on the coast where the indian ocean meets

the atlantic, isa very mountaneous region with alot of forestry, Knysna is surrounded by lakes and lagoons

that are filled by the sea via an opening between two mountains. Later I found out that these arent

mountains but very large hills! Even so, there bloody big! Its quite hard to explain so i'll add pictures.


The accomodation we'd booked was amazing lovely big open plan living room, fairly large kitchen and an

open log fire (i'll add pictures). And Dad if your reading this - yes we are safe! Theres a full on leccy

fence running around the whole estate! This would be our base until after the last England Group game,

where if we succeed through the group stages depending on our position, the next game would be in

Rustenburg or Bloemfontein, so we would travel back up to Jo'berg and base ourselves there until the 23rd

June, with the Round of 16 game being on either the 26th or 27th of June - again depending on our position

in the group. On paper, we should finish top, but after the draw with the uS this could be different!

Later that night the boys had booked a table at a local fish restaurant called Cornuti's, the food here

was on par with some of the best places i've been in England and I reckon even Ramsey would be impressed

with it. After the meal we settled down to watch the Bafana Bafana vs. Uruguay game. (Bafana is the word

used by the South Africans to refer to their football team it actually means 'The boys the boys', they say

the word twice as its part of their heritage to repeat words)
After a fair few drinks we had got quite friendy with a family from England (The Howarths from Oldham) who

live close by in Knysna the family had originally lived in England, they were very friendly people indeed,

and I was a little shocked when they invited us back to there place for more drinks.

Bearing in mind this was my first night in South Africa I didnt know what to expect from the place, after

alot of press reports of people being mugged and shot on a daily basis I arrived in the country with an

aprenehnsion that it was a dangerous place, I couldnt be far wrong, its untrue to say that South Africa is

a dangerous place, I agree that some parts are dangerous, but you will get that all over the world - even

in England!
Anyhow, even though these people were English (English father / South Afrcian mother) they had no

hesitation to invite us back to their lovely house for more drinks. With this being my first day with

little sleep I was already loving being away from home, meeting new people and getting an insight into the

culture of different countries. When we got to there house we pulled up to a nice big to something that

wouldnt look out of place on Regents Avenue! The place was massive and they even had their own pool! We

ended up leaving about 2am that morning, we got a taxi back to our accomodation and retired. What a

surreal first day in SA.

Thursday 17th

June - Day 3
This was a free day for us, the boys had already stocked the fridge with bacon and eggs so I as straight

on the toast, bacon and poached eggs! Its like never being away from home!!! You can even get Lurpak here!

Not much else happened after this day, it was a late start after a late night so we had decided just to

have a quick look around a local town called 'George' when I say local, its really an hour away, but when

your in South Africa - thats local!

The following day was the game, cooked a mean chilli, customised our St. Georges flag - picture to add!

played poker and went to bed. He'll hate me for this but i'm gonna talk about it and hope he doesnt read

this!

On the previous day we'd met the Howarth family, Al took a fancy to the daughter of Dave, her name was

Rachel a very nice girl about 20 years old. Al being the man he is, plucked up enough courage t go and ask

her out. He left the house about 4pm to go and re-trace the steps we had taken in the taxi. We all laughed

at him and called him crazy but he did bloody well. The story when he returned was hilarious. First he

tried to find there house. No joy. So he thought he would go back to the restaurant to enquire about the

family. As fate would have it the eldest daughter Cheri, also worked at this restaurant so he got their

address. His excuse was that he was just wanted to thank the family for their hospitality. Fair enough

good move. He got the address and off he went, bottle of red in hand knocking at the door. I dont know how

he did it but he managed to Rachels number and an invite to a barbecue or Braaie (BR-eye) as the south

africans call it the coming Sunday! RESULT from Al... We all agreed we'd go to the Braai as we got on well

with the family, it was great to meet new people!

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Friday 18th June Day 4

MATCH DAY! England v. Algeria - we've got to win after the USA draw!
9pm start and a 5 hour drive to Cape Town, accomodation was pre-booked staying in The Clarendon Guesthouse

in Fresnaye Cape Town, An upmarket area of cape town. The accomodation reminded me of a Marriott more than

anything else, a very good standard.

We got sorted at the accomodation, England shirts on, St. Georges flag in tow and then straight out. Taxi

to Cape Town Waterfront. At this point we drove in along the coast towards the bars and restaurants of

Cape Towns Waterfront, the journey (approx 15mins) took us past the Green Point Stadium and in the

back-drop was Table Mountain. At this point the nerves sarted kicking in, even though it was over 5 hours

until Kick-off seeing the stadium definately put the butterflies in my stomach! It would be my first

England game. What a place to do it in as well, the scenery of Cape Ton was stunning, the city lies on a

peninsula and is surely the most south eastern point of South Africa, the backdrop of the city

We pull up at the Waterfront to the chanting of England fans. The watrerfront is a well known location in

Cape Town full of restaurants, bars and a shopping mall! This is where the FIFA fan fest is located, the

place was buzzing! The plan was to eat food and drink beer. We did just that. After food we advanced to a

square full of England fans, drinking chanting and generally having a good time (not an ounce of

trouble!), the atmosphere was special, this was my first England game and i've nver really been in this

situation before. Naturally we joined in. Bottles of Peroni to follow and plenty of singing and chanting.

The algerians were no where to be seen!

We were warned to get to the stadium early, it was understandable, as lovely as the south african people

are, they've never had to deal with anything like this before so it was touch and go gettinig into the

stadium on time. As our tickets weren't together we teamed up prior to entry, Fran was with Al and it was

Tim and myself. We still had bottles of beer to drink so Tim and I sat by a media van and had a beer with

the driver and watched the bustle of people getting into the stadium. We get into the stadium, it was a

joke getting in as they were searching everyone for beer etc. They simply werent equipped for the amount

of fans, th stadium holds over 70,000 and searching everyone wasnt working as there were only aout 5 or 6

stations, a huge bottle neck, it took us about 20 mins to get through and after this it was a short walk

into the stadium itself. The place is mammoth (picture to add), it looks like an upside down trapezium,

and the gardens and scenery around the ground are impressive to say the least.

I'm not writing anymore about this day. We drew 0-0 with the Algerians. It was a bloody disgrace to see

other fans booing the team. Its times like this that we need to get behind the team not bloody boo them!

Fans may have the right to pay all that money and go and boo, but what about the other fans who chose not

to, there in the same situation, and they've got ther fans spoiling it for them because they choose to boo

the side! Enough said here.

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Saturday 19th June Day 5

We didnt really get much sleep the night before, the result wasnt great so we had to drown our sorrows!

We were up at around 07:30, as we had a Radio1 interview with David Garrido the Radio 1 sports reporter,

Radio 1 had chosen us as pet fans to help report and get the feelings/views of the England fans in South

Africa across to the nation. None of us were in a fit to state to drive to Davids hotel, so we took a taxi

(Radio 1 would re-inburse) to the City Lodge Cape Town.

Pulled up at the hotel and went to meet David, he had already got his gear sorted and he was sat next to

the hotel jacuzzi, he had some tricky equipment so he could link back to the UK. David asked if two of us

would go on live with Edith Bowman, immediately I backed off and started pointing fingers at Tim and Fran.

I wasnt keen of the idea of being on live Radio with a hangover! Tim and Fran stepped up and did a

brilliant job, while Al ordered coffee, I dipped my feet in the jacuzzi and listened to the interview.
A couple of pictures with David and we were off. I didnt know the guy had more than Radio1 to report for

as he was busying himself talking to numerous other local BBC stations while we were there, he must have a

great job - being paid to come and watch England in the World Cup!

After this we got a taxi back to our hotel. The plan was to go up table mountain and across to Robben

island but the weather want suitable for either so we deceided to get out of Cape Town and back to our

base in Knysna.

That night we had a few more drinks and played cards, Tim was that sozzled tat I ended up takin 200 RAND

(£20) off him on heads-up Poker, easy money. Cheers Tim!

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Sunday 20th June Day 6

A big lie in here, I needed to catch up on sleep from Fridays escapades and so did everyone else.

All we needed to do was get to the Braai at the Howarths for 3pm, we'd all got up pretty late so when

everyone was ready we were straight out (apart from Tim who bailed with a hangover from the previuos

night).

We pulled up at the Howarths not really knowing what to expect, the whole family was very friendly and

welcoming so I wasnt feeling any apprehension or nerves much like I expect I would in a similar situation

in England. We get in the house and meet the people who we'd know from the other night. As soon as we'd

walked in the door there was Rachel (the girl Al liked) and her friend Jade, she was beautiful. There was

an attraction from the second I laid my eyes on her.
Dave had also invited another family along, Steve aka 'longshanks' (becuase he had long legs) the father

of the family was also English born but now lived in Knysna with his wife, son and daughter. To be honest,

I didnt realy pay attention to anything else after i'd met his daughter Jade, she was of slim build and

very pretty, I didnt know where to look! She was wearing sunglasses so it was difficult to tell if she'd

spotted me checking her out, I was probably making it obvious but I didnt care, this chick was beautiful.

The day turned into night and everyone was getting fairly drunk, it wasnt my plan to drink as one of us

had to drive back so I held off on the alcohol. It had been suggested all evening that Leonard, Jade's

brother Leonard should get the guitar out and evetyone would have a sing song i'm not a big singer so most

of it just got mimed, but Dave, Al, and Longshanks aren't that bad!
After an hour or so it was decided that some of us would go for a drink to the restaurant we went to the

other night (cornutis), a guy called Cam (Cameron for short I think) who was at the braai worked there so

we all agreed it was the right place to go. I forgot to mention that Cam was also going to come to the

England vs. Slovenia game with us in Port lizabeth on Wednesday, Fran had a spare ticket so it was decided

we would give Cam and lift, we didnt really know the guy but he was firendly enough so we thought why not,

its the least we could do after all these friendly people had been so hospitable.
When the deciesion to go to Cornuttis was made, all I wanted to do was go to bed, i'd only had a couple of

beers so was on for driving home, i'd heard that Jade was also going for drinks, so that was the decision

made, I was going too, i really wanted to get to know her better. Fran wanted to go home and call it a

day, so i took him home, got a lift to the restaurant from Tim and met up with everyone there.

When I got there it there was nly cam who i knew, he had a few of his mates with him so I got chatting

with them. Al soon arrived with Rachel and Jade. I didnt recognise her at first as she had her hair down

and had changed, she looked stunning, i couldnt believe my eyes. We chatted most of the night and

eventually i'd plucked up the courage to kiss her, I could tell she was interested but was still unsure so

i thought why not give it a go..... Turns out it was a good decision.

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Monday 21th June Day 7

Another free day (i mean free day as being no travelling etc to the matches). Again I didnt get much sleep

the night before. We had planned to go to a Wildlife sanctuary but as everyone was up late we moved it

back to Tuesday.
Its winter in Souh Africa the weather was overcast, and without the sun it was very cold. The accomodation

had an open log fire so we got tha going and sat and chilled most of the day and watched the other

football games.

That night we had a nice tea and we all retired early!

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Tuesday 22nd June Day 8

Up early. To get ready to go to the wildlife sanctuary, it was in aplace called Oudtsoorn. The place is

like a mini zoo, it had plenty of different species of animals ranging from crocs to cheetahs, lions and

tigers.

We took the guided tour around the park (you will see my pictures on facebook).
At the end the tour, the guide offered the opportuninty (for a little extra money) for people to go into

the enclosures and get up close to the Cheetahs or Tigers! I opted to go in with both of them Tigers are

my favourite animal and getting the opportunity to get up close to a White Bengal was not being turned

down. It cost about £40 for both the cheetahs and the tigers so I paid up and waited my turn.

First down were the cheetahs, Al had taken the same option as me so we went in together, we took it in

turns to pet and stroke the cheetahs. It was an amazing feeling, being up close to something so dangerous

gave me a buzz, there was slight apprehension but overall amazement!
Next up was the tiger, he was about 8 to 9 months old and still quite small, though his paws were like

baseball bats! Again I was apprehensive here but still excited to go and touch and pet a Tiger my

favourite animal, there mesmerising, the power they have is awesome, he could easily of tore us both

apart. As he had been raised from birth in the sanctuary he was very playful, we werent on our own in the

enclosure, there were about 4 other people who worked in the sanctuary at hand if anything went wrong.

We left the place in awe, it was an amazing day and i'm glad I did it, its not something you can do in

Enlgand!

That night we'd booked another table at Cornutis (like I said earlier the food was great and a fillet

steak was, i'd planned to meet jade so we could have a drink before i left. I got to know her alot better

that night, she's a very pretty girl. I said to myself to try not get attached to any girls while on my

travels, it looks as though i already had!

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Wednesday 23rd June Day 9

MATCH DAY! England vs. Slovenia - we've got to win no compromise, other than a high scoring draw there was

no other result that would take us through!

I was designated driver for the day. We set-off early, about 07:30, picked Cam up and headed down the

coastal route to PE (Port Elizabeth). The city of PE is around a 3.5 hour drive to the east of Knysna,

the journey takes you past some beautiful scenery. Plettenberg bay being the most memorable. I plan to

come back here and see the bay so I will talk about this later in my blog. Another attraction we drove

past was apparently the highest bungee jump in the world. The jumps are performed on a bridge that joins

two valleys. We didnt stop but you couold tell the drop was mammoth.

We arrive in PE early, it only took about 2.5 hours so we shaved a good bit of time off the journey! The

first destination was to look for the ticketing centre so we could get a disabled parking pass to park

nearer the ground. We eventually managed to find the Mall where the ticketing centre was, the driections

werent great even thoguh we did have a sat-nav.

We had breakfast in the Mall, and headed straight to the ground, we had a parking pass so entry into the

restricted 'no vehicle' areas was a doddle. After being told we were in the wrong bit 5 or 6 times we

eventually found where we needed to be. If you dont speak to the right person then you usually get fobbed

off to the next person then onto the next, the south africans dont like confrontation, especially those

who cant speak much English so when you start having a bit of a go about giving the run around they

usually point to someone else and walk off it was annoying. Especially when the place is busy and we're

driving in an unknown area. Other than this the parking space was touching distance from the ground, we

couldnt ask for a better parking space.

We get into the stadium early, kick off is at 16:00 so everyone had a few drinks at the bars around the

inside corden of the ground. The atmosphere started getting busier and busier, we sat close to te stadium

in the sun. Funnily enough we spotted the BBC producer we'd met in Cape Town, he wasnt with Garrido but

with another Radio sports reporter, they collared us for our views and predictions on the game which Al

and Tim kindly gave!

We soon enter the stadium, drinking is allowed in all areas so we all sat in the disabled section and had

a good chant. The best memory of the day had to be about ten of us in a line singing along to 'Bob Marley

- Love' the atmosphere was better than Cape Town, i'm putting this down to the fact that it was a must win

game, we had the England band to our left and the South African vuvuzela army (or what if felt like) to

our right, the place was buzzing and it didnt take long for the English faithful to blare out the usually

'Rule Britannia', 'England Til I die' and the good old 'National Anthem'. The support for ENGLAND at this

World Cup was phenominal, out of all 32 countries England had the most distance to travel to each game,

plus if we finish second in the group it would be even more.

I spoke too soon, we finished second in the group due to a 93rd minute winner from Landon Donovan which

meant that the USA went above us in the group on goals scored. Of course England won 1-0 and it should

have been more if it wasnt for the keeper tipping Rooney's power drive onto the post.

We get straight out the ground and head back to Knysna, everyone was going mad. It was the first England

goal and win i've seen, I was ecstatic and so was the crowd. We got in the cue of traffic and battled our

way through the army of English shouting and cheering, the horn was in full use!

We eventually get home, after a slightly longer return journey we headed straigt to Cornuti's for a

celebratory drink and dinner, Cam had already called ahead and the champagne was already on ice. Top Man!

Big respect to him for coming to support the English team, he was badged as our good luck charm. He even

offered to shout us all dinner but it was too kind an offer to take up and I would of felt bad accepting

it,

We watch the evening game, Germany vs. Ghana. We finished second in our group so we were hoping the

Germans would finish top so we could play them in Bloemfintein. They win one nil. We all cheer. Bring on

ze Germans.

Finishing second in the group meant we had even more travel, Bloemfontein (aka Bloom) was a 5 hour drive

compared to Rustenburg (3 hours) where we would of been if we'd topped the group. This was in my favour

really, it meant that the quarters would be in Cape Town and the semi's in Durban. I was on my own after

the Round of 16 game so this would mean that I could go back down south and watch the game in cape town

and then fly to Durban - even if England didnt progress I would still go to Durban. It also meant that I

could go back to Knysna and see the girl i'd fallen for. Happy days! There were two reasons for wanting to

go back, the main one being Jade and the other one being that Knysna is only a 5 hour drive to Cape Town,

the plan in my head was to go and stay in Knysna after the Germany game, stay in some cheap accomodation

and then drive to Cape Town on the day of the game, it meant that I would save money and see a beautiful

girl its was no brainer. (BTW - Cape Town is by no way means cheap, it cost us approx £400 for the one

night we stayed there for the Algerian game!)

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Thursday 24th June Day 10

Drive back to Johannesburg. A circa 800mile trip North through the centre of Africa. The rest of the boys

had to do this on the way down to Knysna so this was there second go at this. Previously it took them 13

hours with the sat-nav quoting 15hours its easy to shave time off because the sat-nav expects everyone to

drive at the speed limit - this never happens in SA, even the police will speed past you when your doing

50kmh over the speed limit - they dont seem to care.

I take the first stint at driving as I didnt drink the previous day, my plan was to drive until i couldnt

be bothered anymore. The first bit of the drive, OI was told was the hardest coming the other way because

it was at night. This time it was easy enough, the route took us doen the N9, the only road that joins

North to South, it was like something from a movie, all you could see is straight road for miles and miles

ahead.

After 3 fuel stops and a curry in Bloemfintein we arrived in Johannesberg around 12:00pm, the accomodation

was pre-booked and we stayed at the same place as the boys had previously (The Buckingham Guest House).


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Friday 25th June Day 11

Not much to write home about here. The plan was to go to the ticket centre to print the tickets and pick

up a parking pass for Bloemfontein. Fortunately I had a single ticket and Tim and Fran had a ticket each

for the Round of 16 game through the FA, it was a 'Follow your team ticket' so if England qualified first

or second they would get one either way. Al was the only one without a ticket so we had to find one for

him. Tim also had some quarter final tickets, they were the ones that if we had come first in the group

and then progressed to the quarters it would of been England. There wss a good chance the yanks would get

there as they were playing Ghana so Tim managed to get rid of them fairly easy. Al eventually found a

ticket for the England match in Bloemfontein it meant that we would all be going to the England vs.

Germany game. This is probably the biggest game we'd all be going to so we were fairly excited to say the

least!

After sorting the tickets out we decided to eat in the local mall and have a browse around. It was Frans

plan to buy some carvings from one of the local stalls in Jo'berg, and we managed to come across a stall

selling hand carved/painted football players. After a bit of haggling Fran and Al eventually bought a

couple of figurines. Tim had gotten friendly with the seller, a South African girl, I cant remember her

name so i'll call her what Tim did - 'sweet cheeks'. Tim had asked her out for a drink later on as our

plan was to go and sit in a bar in Mandela square and watch the Brazil vs. Portugal game. At this point I

just wanted to go back to bed, I wasnt feeling great and had started to develop a bit of a bad cough, all

the singing and shouting from the PE game had done me in. We had a few more drinks in the bar and to Tims

amazement 'sweet cheeks' turned up! He was like the cat that had got the milk the smile on his face was

huge! The idea was to go to a local steakhouse in Eastgate (a suburb of Jo'berg), the stekahouse had been

recommended by one of Al's friends Andrew a South African English resident who Al had become friends with

after selling him a car! He probably fleeced him!!!!

Plans soon changed when sweet cheeks' friend had turned up 'Nikki', she reminded me of Whitney Houston of

off the film the Bodyguard, short hair, leather coat and stonewahsed jeans she looked like she'd just

stepped out of the 90's. It was hilarious watching Tims smile getting bigger and bigger, you could tell

what he was thinking! Eventually we changed our plans as Nikki had suggested we go to the Monte Casino in

Sandton (the upmarket district of Jo'berg) she said there was a better steakhouse there so we all agreed

to jump in the car and drive down. Even though I just wanted to go back to bed I was up for a checking out

the casino and perhaps have a bit of a flutter on the blackjack tables!

We get to the casino and it instnatly reminded me of a down market vegas, we walked in through the

shopping arcade. In Vegas the shopping arcades are actually in the hotels, they are always deep inside any

hotel and most of them have a oainted ceiling that replicates a blue sky and bleach white clouds, it makes

you feel like your outside, when really your inside, it could be pitch black outside but the feeling you

get is daytime it really does play wth your mind. Even though it looks very pretty its really the casino

tryng to play mind games wth you, if your mind thinks its day when its really night time then its a good

way of keeping you in there to spend more money and of course gamble. The casino in Jo'berg was exactly

like this but more obvious, it wasnt the best quality decor but the place was like a mini Vegas.

I'm on a budget so when everyone was ordering steak I went for the cheaper option of a chicken breast, as

good as the steaks looked I knew nothing is as good as the onew you get in Vegas so i'd rather save my

money for then! After the meal we all went to go and find a blackjack table. I was trying hard to explain

to Fran that the game is played with a team, you have to take cards when you dont want them and stay when

you dont think you should, for me, its always worked well and after being used to playing Blackjack

(successfully) in Vegas if you dont play it properly you'll end up at a table on your own - nobody likes a

chancer and there really is only one ay to play, winning the money is knowing when to bet bigger and

knowing when to be conservative. This night I got it right. After about 20mins playing I was 600 RAND up

(approx £60), i'd more than doubled my money so I decided to walk away as the 600 rand could last well

over two to three days for me!

After this we went home, Nikki had managed to get us some beers from a local bar so Tim could have a beer

when we got home. I think he was expecting sweet-cheeks to come back with him but this wasnt the case.

We'd promised Nikki a lift home so sweet cheeks also got out at her house and we waved goodbye! We got

back had a beer and retired to bed.


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Saturday 26th June - Day 12

Still wasnt feeling great so I had a big lie in, I didnt want to do anything today just chill out and eat

food! Al wanted to go to the Apartheid Museum in Jo'berg so when I got up, him and Fran were already set

to go, Tim decided not to go either he also wanted to save money becuase if Enlgand did progress he was

planning to change his flight and stay in the country. I had to sort out the next week or so of my trip,

so it was book a flight down to George (nr. Knysna) and get a car so I could drive across to Cape Town for

next Saturdays game (If Enlgand didint progress I was still going to go, i have ticket for the match

which could be sold for upto £200 so I had to go and either watch the England game or sell the ticket to

what may be Argentina vs. Germany). So I booked a flight to george, a cheap hire car and a flight the day

after the game from Cape Town to Durban. I was all sorted. Even Jade helped me out by finding some cheap

accomodation at a guesthouse in Knysna (If you read this Jade, you're a star!).

That night I cooked spaghetti for everyone, even though the cooking utensils were limited it turned out

really well, Tim liked it that much he finished off the rest of the pan. We watched the nights football

and in between the Tennis @ Wimbledon.

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Sunday 27th June - Day 13

I'm writing this bit of my blog a week after it happened, i've only just realised that it was my 13th day,

i'm not usually suspicious but 13 is usually an unlucky number so i'll blame the Germany result on this

being my 13th day!!!!

MATCH DAY! England vs. Germany - Round of 16, home if we lose. Cape Town if we win!!! This was to be the

last day with the boys so I had to make sure it was good, if we lost then i'd be on my own from this point

forward, but if we won then Tim would stay on and travle with me for the next few weeks.

The match is in Bloemfontein (aka Bloom), about a 5 hour drive from Johannesburg. Tim nominated himself to

drive as Al and me did all the driving from Knysna to Jo'burg. Al was nominated driver for the way home as

he didnt want to be rough for his journey back home to the UK, that meant I could have a drink with Fran

and Tim. On the drive down there the guys had already previuosly stopped at a petrol station just short of

Bloom on their journey from Jo'burg to Knysna the previuos week or so. At every petrol station in SA there

are attnedants who will fll up your car and wash your windscreen etc, they do get paid but its a miniscule

wage of around 10 RAND a day (less than £1) so they have to be enthuastic with all drivers so they are

hoping for a tip, I think it would be frowned upon if you didnt tip them! At this particular petrol

station the guys had previuosly met a highly enthuastic attendant called Kevin, they really liked this guy

and they had been talking all holiday that they would each donate a piece of clothing to the guy as out of

all the petrol station attendants they liked this one best. Al had ready, what he thought was an England

training top, which infact was a proper England shirt which, if i remember, was from the 2002 World Cup.

(Al - you didnt realise this at the time so we kept quiet!). Fran also had a red Manchester United cap.
We pull up at the petrol station and immediately he's there guiding us into his spot so he can fill our

car up with petrol, I dont think he realised who we were or that they had seen Tim, Fran and Al before but

they soon jogged his memory. When Al had started to explain that they were going to donate these items to

him he didnt undertsand what was going on, I think he may have thought that we wanted him to put them on

for a picture but soon afte rhe realised they were his to keep he couldnt hide the smile from his face, he

was ecstatic that he was now the proud owner of an England shirt and a Man Utd. Cap. Soon after this the

other attendants crowded around and in there jealously started saying that our man Kevin knew nothing

about England, they walso wanted something donating. What they didnt understand was that it was Kevins

enthusiasm that got him his gifts, even though I didnt donate anything we had given the other attnedants

some pens that we were handed at a different petrol station, they were now also ecstatic - even at a free

pen! The little things in life....!

After stopping at the petrol station and filling up in preparation for the journey home we pulled up at

the Loch-logan Waterfront Mall, this was where most of the English contingency were gathering to have a

drink before the game, the mall was a short walk from the stadium and it was already full by the time we'd

got there approx 12pm. We managed to get a table in a restaurant/pub that overlooked the Waterfront. When

I say waterfront its basically a U-shaped man made lake that on one side is a grassy knoll and the other

being rows upon rows of bars and restaurants. The English faithfull already had there flags hanging. we'd

left ours in the car so didnt bother going back to get it, we'd just wait until we got to the ground.

At around 1pm we deceided to get to the ground, as i'd mentioned earlier we had a parking pass that would

put us next to the stadium so it was easy access with Frans chair. Again we drive around and around being

told that we are in the worng place numerous times, so after speaking to someone in the know we pull up at

the place where we are supposed to be for the second time. They let us thorugh the gates and into an area

full of police and dogs. It was the remote search point. We'd never been through this in the other

stadiums so I was a little on edge with what was going on. Apparently the search was for any guns and

explosives as the car was to be parked inside the grounds of the stadium boundary so it was for safety.

After the search we had a police escort to the ground, this was a first, and it was quite exciting to have

two motorbikes front and back guiding us into the stadium. It soon became apparent why the search was

necessary, we were guided to our parking space which sat right under the arch of one of the stands, if

there was to be any type of attack here then it would probably take out one of the stands! So we're now in

the stadium. Theres only two of our tickets where we are sat together (Tim and Frans), my ticket was at a

slightly elevated position in the same stand as Tim and Fran, but Al's ticket was at the opposite side of

the stadium! What helped us out here wa sthat we'd been all let in the stadium via the same entrance due

to the police escort so our plan was to try and sit together in the disabled section of the stand where

Tim and Fran were, the seats were never full around this area so we had a pretty good chance of sitting

together. More drinking proceeded and after an hour or so we moved up to the top of the stand where we

were to be seated. As we got up there I noticed a guy I used to work with at BAE, i went straight over and

said hello. It was only on the way to the stadium in the car that we were taqlking about the probability

of seeing someone you know, its a small world!!! It turned out that he'd been to all the other England

games as us!

The side of the stadium where we were sat is where all the press guys were seated. We were sitting around

sipping our beers when an English guy said 'Thats Mark Lawrenson over there!' We quickly went over for a

picture and chat, it turned out that he lives (one of his places) in Lytham round the corner from Royal

Lytham golf course. He's well known for his predictions on the BBC and in the papers so we asked him for

his, he replied with a witty comment about the weather being sunny but he didnt want to predict the

England score!

Enough said about this day. We lost 4-1. A bad result by the team but an even worse refereeing decsion not

to allow Lampards blatant goal which would of taken it to 2-2 just before half time. It would of changed

the entire game as we wouldnt have to chase the game as much as everytime we looked like scoring the

Germans would counter attack and inevitably score a 3rd and a 4th to take the game out of reach. A poor

result and another poor team performance. We didnt deserve to win anything the way England had played.

---------------

Monday 28th June - Day 14

We didnt beat the Germans, which meant that Tim, Fran and Al were off home. I was on my own from this

point forward. I had planned to spend the next 5 days with Jade down in Knysna after the sadness of the

previous day I needed someone to cheer me up, I couldnt wait to get to her.

There flight was around 1pm that day so they didnt need to set-off as early as me. My flight departed at

07:50 so I had planned to be up early. Al had offered to take me to the Gautrain, the new metro system

that joined the city of Jo'burg to the airport and other surrounding areas. (Al - if your reading this,

cheers mate you got out of bed for me at 5:45, its very much appreciated, just hope you got back to the

hotel ok without the Tom-tom!)

I get to the airport with about 40mins to spare before the final check-in time of 07:10. I had mixed

feelings about the future of my trip and was quite nervous, it no longer felt like a holiday but now more

of an adventure. The decisions I had to take were now my own and there was no longer anyone to concur with

on the right thing to do. I was following my heart going back to Knysna to see Jade, it felt like the

right thing to do both in my head and my heart, I couldnt wait to see her again but was also worried that

in 5 days time it would be over, probably never see her again! Hope i'm wrong.

I board the flight and the air hostess is giving me the eye/smile, infact she was making me feel a little

unsettled, she was lovely but I only had one girl on my mind, i just smiled and looked away.

The plane fills up and i'm lucky enough to get 3 seats to myself, i've got a blow up camping pillow so I

get this out plug my headphones in and drift off. I wake up about half way into the flight bloody pins and

needles! I sit up and see the headline on a newspaper a guy in front of me is reading. '44 years for the

Germans to take Revenge' right above the picture of how far Lampards goal had actually crossed the line,

it was 3 foot over th bloody line, it was irrefutable - how can that be Revenge? Is the fact that the

referee made a poor decision revenge? The SA press just didnt understand, it was obvious they didnt

understand the rivalry between the English and the Germans so why try and write about it. I was seriously

pissed off and felt cheated. We were cheated by a bad decision and it took us out the world cup. Do the

south africans not realise that the English team had the biggest amount of fans? spending the most amount

of money in their country and we get repaid by some absolute dispicable reporting in their national press!

Wankers! (sorry for the language here people! I'm speaking my mind)

I get off the plane, and say my bye's to the Argentinian guy sat behind me. He was going to the game. He

completely understood we were cheated by the ref and he even admitted that the Tevez goal was offside,

both games would have been different if it wasnt for the refs! (I find out a few days after that both refs

have been sent home, too little too late FIFA!)

The next task is to pick up my hire car, there's no other way of getting around in SA, there no real

public transport systems in place, so it was get a taxi, hitchike, or get a hire car. I found a cheap deal

of around £20 a day so I went for it. The plan as previously mentioned is to get to Cape Town the

following Saturday (3rd July) to sell my ticket and then fly to Durban on the Sunday after. If I could

sell my ticket before hand then I will just go on the Sunday as I dont fly to Durban until early

afternoon.
So i've got my car, 'Nissan TIIDA' never even heard of them before but its basically a Micra Saloon, it'll

do the job for what I need it for.
The accomodation i'd pre-booked was at a place called Margie's, it was a self catering apartment that Jade

had got me at a 'special' price because she trains Margie in the gym she works at. I'd promised Jade that

i'd cook for her that night, it was to be steak and chips, my favourite and funnily enough it is also

Jade's favourite - happy days! I get into the apartment and its limited for cooking, though a very

spaciuos room with a double bed overlooking Knysna bay, it was a dream of a view and I will try post up

some pictures!! In terms of cooking i'm very fussy, I had a two hob stove a few pans, two knives, and a

fridge. I couldnt exaclty cook any chips without an oven so decided on Steak, saute'd potatoes and salad.

Jade's never had a man cook her a meal before so I wanted to make it special. She was due round after work

about 6:45 so I had everything ready. The night was wonderful, even though I thought the meal wasnt my

best, she loved it, we spent the rest of the night chatting away, i felt as if i'd known her for ages and

every minute with her was going to make it harder and harder to leave on Saturday.


---------------

Tuesday 29th June - Day 15

I just wanted to chill on this day, from now on it was my mission to do as much as possible for as little

money as possible, so I decided to go up to the Knysna heads view point, something we hadnt done when we

were previously here. The views of the bay and of Knysna were absolutely beautiful, i will post more pics

of them so you'll get the idea of how stunning the scenery is.

Later that day Margies partner Robin had lent me some golf clubs, there was a few golf courses around and

also a driving range. Instead of making an idiot of myself on the course I decided to go and swing at thin

air at the driving range, after about 60 balls I was improving, I remembered most of the lessons I had

when younger but it was my patience I needed to work on!

Later that night the plan was to see Jade again, she was grateful for the previuos evening and wanted to

cook for me instead, she brought round the ingredients for spag bol so we cooked it together, i dont know

what it was but it ended up tasting amazing. Jade stayed round that night, her boss had let her come in an

hour later (cheers brendan!) than usual but she was still up at 5:30!
---------------

Wednesday 30th June - Day 16

I didnt want her to leave! We didnt have much time together over the 5 days as Jade had to work in the day

so i only really got to see her at nights so her staying over meant alot, even if she did have to get up

at the crack of dawn!
I decided on getting up myself when she left at 6 so I could go and watch the sunrise at Plettenberg bay.

The bay is about a 20mins drive East of Knysna. I pulled up when it was still dark, there were a few peope

knocking around walking dogs and also waiting for the sunrise. The bay is split into two by a slightly

raised sand dune, The dune has sea on one side a river estuary on the other, with the water flowing in all

sorts of directions it looks like a wish wash of waves and splashes all over the place. As you can guess

its hard to explain so i'll post up a picture of the sunrise/bay.

After the sun had fully rose and the picture opportunities had passed I decided to go and eat some

breakfast and drive back to Knysna for another go on the driving range. After this I headed up to The

Knysna Heads viewpoint, it wasnt somewhere i'd visited when the others were here so wanted to go up there

and read for a bit. I got up there and started chatting with a guy who was selling wire figurines, he had

all sorts, ghekkos, giraffe's, hippo's, zebras the lot the figurines were impressive, he'd managed to bend

wire into the shape of animals, and using different coloured beads for the colours. I spoke to the guy for

a bit, he had a very slow voice and was extremely laid back, his job was to sit there making wire

figurines all day overlooking Knysna lagoon, it probably didnt pay much for him but it was bliss in the

spot where he was. I'm sure he doenst suffer from any stress, the guy was almost horizontal! I bought a

hippo keyring for Jade and left the guy to finish an elephant head he was constructing out of old coke

cans and bits of wire!

That night, I was to see Jade again, we'd planned to get a chinese take-away. It wasnt the best i'd eaten

but i still scoffed it down! Jade loved the hippo key-ring i'd given her. Even though it wasnt much she

appreciated it so much, girls that appreciate being looked after are hard to find. In my opinion it seems

that girls in England like to be treatd badly, for me, its always the nice guy who seems to get hurt but

with Jade it was different, she appreciated the little things like cooking her dinner, calling her

darling, and generally being a nice person. Girls like this are hard to find, and if it wasnt for the

distance we live apart i'd probably wanna go out with her!! She couldnt stay over that night so we said our goodbyes and I went to bed early, not trying to be soppy here but the time i wasnt with her, i missed her alot - it was never my plan to come out here and meet someone special, but its bloody well happended and like i said at the start if this blog i'm writing what i'm thinking!!!

Thursday 1st July - Day 17

Another early rise, i'm doing pretty well actually not really had any giant lie in's all holiday ,though i do

like my sleep this isnt the time for it. Plus it was time to move out of Margies place because she had already

booked it out before I had arrived. It was the start of the Knysna Oyster festival so the whole place was short

on accomodation but the previous day I had managed to book myself in another B&B in Knysna central town called

the Wayside Inn - English run place that was of a good standard and only 300 RAND per night (£28 or thereabouts

depending on the exchange rate)

Jade has suggested I go to Tsitsikamma Nature reserve. About an hours drive to the east of Knysna past

Plettenberg bay and through the toll road. I first pull up at the Tsitsikamma Adventure Centre, this place hosts

the highest road bridge in Africa and the highest man-made bungy jump in the world. I wasnt planning to go on the

bungy as i'm saving my money to jump out of a plane in Oz or New Zealand! There was quite a large viewing deck to

watch the brave and insane jump off the bottom of the road bridge. You dont actually jump off the road bit, but

the bit unerneath it. I'll add a picture so you'll understand, but it was bloody well high! As its a few days

before the Argentina vs. Germany game in Cape Town, there are a few Argy's knocking around, i'm thinking that I

need to sell my ticket I ask them if there going to jump they said they wanted to do it but it was fully booked,

I then proceed to ask them if they are going to the game and they need a ticket, I had a spare one which was

fortunately in the car as I was moving accomodation that day. Deal done I sell the ticket at a little over face

value it means I get some money back fr my budget plus I didnt want to go to the match as I dont like either team

and as I write this the Germans have just scored a 3rd goal to lead 3-0 so it was a good job because if I did

have to go i'd support Argentina.

Selling the ticket now meant that I didnt need to go to Cape Town on Saturday, I could go Sunday morning and get

an extra night to spend with Jade, she didnt seem overly joyed with this which I thought was a bit strange as

she'd been really good to me all week and kept saying she didnt want me to leave. This was probably down to the

sad news she'd received about her grandad who suffered from Leukemia, he had gone into a coma, i felt for her.

When I heard the news of this I immediately thought that he'd olny have a couple of days left. After what

happened with Mum the previous year I knew that whenever people in that condition start going into an unconcious

state then its pretty much game over. If i'd known this at the time when my Mum was sick i'd come home from

Thailand alot sooner, instead i stayed the extra day hoping she would get better, this is something i'll regret

everyday for the rest of my life, I left for Thailand without even saying goodbye to Mum, it wasnt intentional, I

just didnt get chance as it was mayhem before I went away. Little did I know I wouldnt see her again, and the

news I received from my sister when I landed at the airport was crushing.

So i've sold my ticket and I can spend the extra night in Knysna with Jade, it meant I didnt have to pay for

expensive accomodation in Cape Town, I could just drive straight to the airport on Sunday to fly to Durban, which

looks as though its going to be full of Germans, they've just scored there 4th. Theres a good chance that they'll

be playing Spain but there game is later on.

After looking around the bungy jump adventure centre I ask at the tourist desk where the nature reserve is, so

after a little drive down the road and a 44 RAND fee to enter, I pull up at the car park.
The nature reserve i basically slap bang on the coast, there aref plenty of walks and hiking routes but I couldnt

be bothered with this, I just wanted to walk around the bit of coast that the nature reserve offered. Its a very

scenic place, to describe it I would say its like an opening in the side of two cliffs, with a suspension bridge

joining the two, there is also plenty of places to go and sit on the rocks and look out for dolphins or whales. I

start the walk and it takes you through a little bit of forest where there is plenty of information on the local

wildlife and the types of whales and dolphins you are likely to spot. So i get across the first suspension bridge

after a never ending set of stairs, it was quire a hot day so I was in danger of breaking a sweat. After getting

across the bridge I see that there are signs pointing to a look-out point I proceed to the signs and start the

climb which is a mix of concrete or wooden steps and alot of boulders and large rocks carved out into a path. I

decided to not mess about and get to the top as quick as I can, after getting halfway up I regretted that i'd

left the water in the car, the sweat is now in full force! Eventually I get to the top and see a bench, though

there was no space to sit on it the guy nearest to me saw me come up and immediately pointed out a load of

dolphins swimming around the bay below us, right near the suspension bridge i'd crossed not so long back. It was

worth breaking the sweat for, i'd never seen wild dolphins, only those in captivity, it was amazing to watch them

playing around trying to catch fish.

Yes you've guessed it, that night I was going to see Jade again. All day she was saying she'd bought me a present

so I was excited to see what it was. I was no longer in a self catering apartment so I couldnt cook for her, or

myself for that matter. When I got to the wayside Inn I had a good natter with the receptionist he was a very

friendly guy and seemed very interested that I was English, we spoke for over ten minutes, he was trying to

correct any thoughts I had of black people in South Africa, I had already made my mind up about that the

brutality and viciousness of certain people in South Africa was merely English press scaremongering. He explained

to me that his friend ran tours of the Projects and local townships (the so called 'bad' areas of the town) and

even whte people can go there and drink in the numerous shebeens amongst the blacks, its not all that bad!

After eventually getting in my room, I went out uo to the heads to read my book and finish writing my blog, I got

quite friendly with the wire bending guy so it was a nice haven for me to get away. I got bck to the wayside and

Jade was already waiting for me. My receptionist friend had promised to keep quiet about my 'very good looking'

guest, and I thanked him for his silence. Jade had explained the other niht that her monthly wage was on a par

with what I earned in less than two days at my job, I was over the moon that she had bought me a South African

fotball shirt and a silver chain. It was weird to think that I nearly bougth a chain for myself before I left for

my travels and even stranger that I wanted a South African football shirt, I was over the moon that someone would

do that for me, i'd only known her for a week and it felt as if we'd known each other for years! That night we

got pizza, I had to get my changed after they gave me one full of mushrooms!!!

---------------

Friday 2nd July - Day 18

Ended up packing all my stuff up because I only had one night booked, it worked out that I could get another

night so had to unpack again the place was English run so I got a good breakfast of fried eggs, bacon and toast.

That day I didnt really do much at all, I visited a local beach called Buffalo Bay and went for a jog. Before I

went away I was getting upto a good fitness with swimming nearly twice a day and also going to the gym doing

weights etc i was in a good condition. After two weeks of doing nothing it was noticeable that i'd lost a large

percentage of my fitness but I was still able to jog for over half an hour along the hard sand with ease, i felt

pretty good after this as i thought i'd lost it all. The plan for that evening was to go for drinks with Jades

friend chantel, her boss Brendan, and his friend Gustov a German/South african guy! We had a few drinks at a

place called sirocco and ended up back at Brendans to watch the Ghana game, Jade and I left early as she was

upset about her Grandad who had passed away that morning... RIP.

---------------

Saturday 3rd July - Day 19

My last day in Knysna. I didnt even have any accomodation booked as I couldnt get another night in the Wayside,

managed to get booked in a B&B on the outskirts of Knysna it was a little more expensive but a very nice room at

a place called Point Lodge. This was to be my last day with Jade, it was a sombre day, she'd left early that

morning to go and meet her family and get ready for a modelling photo shoot she had later that day. Jade did

modelling part-time and she'd shown me some of her past pictures, she looked amazing!
I chilled for the rest of this day waiting for Jade to come round, to be honest i wasnt looking forward to it as

goodbye's are always hard and I was doubting anything would come out of our relationship after i'd gone! I'm a

big worrier and the thought of trying to keep in touch with someone who lives thousands of miles away probably

wouldnt work, we had agreed earlier in the week that we would keep in touch and hopefully when Jade visits Rome I

could maybe drive over on another Euro style road-trip or get a cheap flight! That nigt we got a thai takeaway,

it was terrible but i wasnt feeling that hungry as the empty feeling of having to leave the next morning was

plaguing over me like a curse, i didnt want to leave her but I had to carry on my travels, and go see the world.

---------------

Sunday 4th July - Day 20

Wanted to stay in bed after my alarm clock woke me up at 5:20, I gave Jade a cuddle and had to get up to pack

away my stuff, I didnt want to look at her, she was watching me with puppy dog eyes and clearly didnt want me to

leave, I kept having to go in to the other room of the apartment and regain my strength to even go and look at

her, it was hard and I felt pretty teary. I packed the car up and it was time to say goodbye, I held her tight

knowing that this could be it, it could be (even though i dont want it to be) the last time I ever see her, made

me feel empty inside, like nothing else mattered, at this moment I didnt want to let go I could of actually just

stayed but it would then get harder and harder to leave the next time. I look in her tear filled eyes and

promised that i'd see her again, telling her i'd 'see her soon' that helped me feel a little better but as soon

as I got in the car i filled up with tears and watched her skoot off into the darkness. I pulled up at the

T-junction and watched her drive off to the right, I turned left. 250 miles to Cape Town. The next stage of my

journey had begun

I'd falen asleep during take-off and was surprised to see that an hour of the 2hour flight had already passed, i

was nervous if anything, i was to be staying in my first hostel and to meet new people, it was a bit daunting but

I had to do it sooner or later!

I get off the plane and get a shuttle bus to the Bluewater hotel as advised by the lady in the hostel. She

suggested I either walk up to the hostel or get a taxi. So I hop off the bus, 20kgs on my back i'm bloody

walking. Switch the tomtom on and he tells me its 2 mile. Just as I start off a police man asks me where i'm

going. 'Oooh thats a long way' he says, I tell him 'So what i'm English' and walk off, it cant be that bad,

surely?

I didnt regret doing it but it was bloody tough. Durban is quite a hot place and I was wearing a black t-shirt

and long pants, the sweat was dripping from every orifice when I got to the hostel. I rang the bell and entered a

new world.

After soritng out my stuff and getting a shower, the place was really nice and clean, the owners were lovely. I

get down stairs and chat with a girl who was also on her own, Natalie from Cape Town, she was travelling up the

coast doing a scuba diving course it was only a brief encounter and I could tell she didnt really want to speak

to anyone so I went and sat in the living room area and got talking to two english guys, both called Andy and an

Israeli called Aisle (probably spelt this wrong but the pronunciation is the same as the English word). I also

briefly met a bunch of girls who were staying there, they were charity workers, over here to help out in the

projects, think thee all trainee doctors and if anything were pretty stuck-up!

I wanted to go out and hit the town but no one was up for it, the Andy's were moving onto St.Lucia the following

day and they had a late one the night before. Aisle and myself played a few games of pool and then walked to the

local spar, i bought bread and cheese to make a sandwich for my tea and we spent the rest of the night chatting

and drinking beer. I felt a little buzz that everyone had been so friendly and we had already had plans for the

following day to visit the Aquarium on the Durban seafront.

---------------

Monday 5th July - Day 21

Wake up about 8:30 and make breakfast, Aisle had said he would get up early to go to the Aquarium but 12:00 had

come by and he was no where to be seen, the Andys said he liked his sleep so i wasnt expecting to see him. The

previous night 4 English guys (Alex, Harry, Fergus and Paul) from Southampton had arrived, they said they were

going down to the beach so I joined them! Aisle eventualy woke up and apologised for not getting up earlier I

said i'd see him later on and off we went to the beach.

The beach was gorgeous, golden sandy beaches, blue water and the plenty of crashing waves I was a little hesitant

about going in the water after hearing about numerous shark attacks but we eventually got in there and all was

fine. I found out later in the week that there are protected areas of the beach that are cordoned off by

lifeguards and there are also nets farther out to stop any wandering sharks into the swimming area. Cool, but i

didnt know this at the time!!!!

The wave riding lasted about 40mins, it was great fun jumping into the oncoming waves and letting the squall of

white water clutch your whole body and shift you inwards. We muscled our way out towards the bigger waves as the

water was only waist height it was fairly safe. Getting further out meant two things, we would get crashed by the

bigger waves (great!) and then we'd get pulled back inwards from the surge of the current, it was like a mini

work-out, it was demanding on the legs, required to hold you in position.

Once we'd had our fill of the wave riding, a couple of the boys wanted to go and look at the activties Durban

beachfront had to offer. During the world cup there were ample amounts of free activities from a climbing wall,

to zorbing balls (giant inflatble balls that you can get into and rill around) beach football and beach cricket

(aka calypso cricket)! We'd stumbled across a free cricket pitch, again, as it was the world cup there were

people manning the wicket with the equipment required for a game, they said they were being paid to play cricket

with anyone who wanted to play i.e. Us! What an incredible job, being paid to play cricket all day on a beautiful

beach in Durban. When you speak to anyone from Durban there usual slogan is "We only have two seasons: Summer and

Summer" that cant be bad if they do it all year round!!!

Later that day we got a curry from a local place on the beach front, only downside is the place didnt sell beer -

gutted!!!

That night we went for a few beers with Aisle, Paul and Rob, and some Japanese camera man who was staying in our

hostel, he wasnt filming any of the games but just here to watch the football. We didnt go far from the hostel just to a bar down the road, it was good to meet loads of new people and have a drink and relax. Little did know at this point that Paul was going to South America in september so i've now cosidered this as a possibility because he has been before he knows of the best places to go!!!

Tuesday 6th July - Day 22

After a few beers the night before I was feeling a little rough, i slept in until about ten had a shower and caught up with Paul and Rob in the communal lounge, its a fairly large room with a couple of two and one seater couches.
Rob was interested in getting a ticket for the semi-final (Germany vs. Spain) so we packed up our beach stuff and went down to the local casino. Suncoast casino is located right on the beach front esplanade, its a fairly large place with a vegas style vibe, if anything it was a little smaller than the Johannesburg casino, the casino hosted the Fifa Ticketing centre in a seperate temporary marquee type building, we got in the queue only to find out that they had category one tickets for sale @ $600 this was far too expensive for me so we left on the hope we could find someone selling the Category 3 tickets as these were only $250 dollars. The touts outside all wanted over $400 dollars for cat1 tickets so we decided not to bother and headed to the beach. Rob and myself went wave riding while Paul stayed to watch the beach football games, the beach was rammed it was the day before the Durban hosted semi-final and it was full of ze Germans, the odd Paraguayan, Argentineans and of course the good ol' Spanish! After an hour or so on the beach we decided to head back to the hostel as time was getting on and the sun was rapidly descending behind plentiful amount hotels and office blocks stringed along Durban beach front.

The first semi final of the 2010 world-cup, Uruguay vs. Holland, both teams have been playing very well, but I was with Holland all the way they play in Tangerine, as do Blackpool so I chucked my Blackppol shirt on and we headed out, there were four of us so we decided to grab a taxi to the Fifa Fan fest. I'm glad, because after a quick wimpy we got into the fanfest just in time to watch K'naan perform 'Wave your flag' the atmosphere was immense, the place was packed and everyone was going mad for it. We watched the game sat next to the beer tent, it was strange because everyone kept coming upto me wanting pictures, i think because of my tangerine shirt everyone thought I was from holland maybe?

Anyhow, I didnt watch much of the game, we started some England chants and started to use the vuvuzelas as beer funnels, i managed to get a full pint down the hatch and it was down hill from there! After the football had ended (Holland won 3-2) we trounced down to a local bar/club but it was expensive to enter so we waited around outside talking to a dutch couple who had there faces painted (think i've add one of me and the dutch girl on to FB). Everyone was fairly tanked after the vuvuzela drinking challenge but we still ended up playing football with some Indian kids and then cabbed it back to the hostel to call it a night.

Wednesday 7th July - Day 23

Felt pretty down this morning, missing jade massively, we are still texting daily but i always get thoughts in my head that she's gonna find someone else. It happened in my last relationship and I'm back in the same situation, Agnieska my previous girlfriend of 3 days was a lovely girl, treated her so well but got hurt so bad, the relationship was brief and she split up with me on the day that my mum first told me she had cancer. She said she still had feelings for her ex, she was even engaged to him, something I didn’t find out until after she ended it, and she was back with her ex within a few days. I was down in Lincoln with work at the time and had no one to comfort me, i felt suicidal, I got the feeling that life wasnt worth living anymore like no one or anyone else could make me feel better I just wanted a hug from my Mum which made it worse.

Matchday! Germany vs. Spain, I’ve no ticket. Two of the four guys from Brighton were selling there tickets to fund a trip to the final, but they were asking for over face value, by chance there was a yank sitting in the lounge while I was chatting with the Brighton boys about tickets. He had two spare CAT3's and wanted face value, as Rob and I were after a ticket each we did the deal and due to exchange rates we bought them at slightly less than face value. Wahooo!

Now the ticket quandary was sorted, i had the dilemma of sorting out a night’s accommodation somewhere in Durban. Rob was now on his own, his mate Paul had flew to Thailand that morning so basically it was me and Rob on our own trying to find accommodation as the Surfs n Dreams hostel had no space. Rob had already sorted his but he offered to call the place where he was booked in and tried to get me a room, the guys a legend, he ended up cancelling his own reservation and managed to get us in a guesthouse not too far away from the stadium, i'd known him for a day! A very placid, relaxed character he sorted me out big time as accommodation was very hard to find on match days!

After lunch in the local Italian restaurant (The Gazette, we get 10%!o(MISSING)ff all food for staying in the hostel) the food is amazing and portions are always large. Rob and I decided to pack up and grab a taxi to our newly found guesthouse. The place was slightly out of town and not really near the stadium but it was perfect for us, the lady who ran it was lovely and the room was spot on for us, two twin beds, an en-suite bathroom plus breakfast for 300RAND (approx £27). As the place was slightly out of town the taxi driver agreed to wait for us while we quickly got ready, I wore my England shirt and took the 'FY8' flag. The guesthouse owner asked us if we could also share our taxi with another guest a Canadian girl (not got a clue what her name was but it was double-barrelled. I will call her ACG 'annoying canadian girl') who wanted to go to the game, she didn’t have a ticket so Rob and I agreed she could come with us as she'd probably get a ticket outside the ground.

We all jump back in the taxi and head for a bar local to the ground, we went to a place not too far from the Surf n Dreams hostel and i cant remember its name but it was packed, full of German fans and the odd Spanish, We got a seat by the bar and had a few drinks while watching the Tour de France. After a few more drinks it was time to get to the ground we'd planned to meet Eyal (aisle!) at a certain meeting point so he would be waiting for us. The walk to the stadium was fairly short, as we walked down the straight road to the stadium it soon became visible through the numerous buildings and apartments and all i thought was wow! It shone up brightly in all its glory a very majestic stadium held together by a huge archway protruding over the pitch, the archway holds an abundance of guide wires connected to the stadium's angled canopies.

ACG still didnt have a ticket, but walking up to the ground she managed to find a CAT1 for 1500 RAND (approx £120). At each stadium there are two stages of security, one search point and the other where you scan the barcode on your ticket to ensure its a real one, as we got through the first point Rob and I joked that the ticket was fake but ACG got in ok, as soon as we got through the doors we realised she was sitting on the other side of the stadium to us so we made our excuses and she ran off to find her seat, brilliant no more ACG. As soon as she left Rob and I looked at each other and said 'she was f'ing annoying wasnt she!'

Time for beers! We join the queue probably 20 deep, but fortunately a woman steward ushered us up towards the upper level of the stadium where there weren't any queues. Jacpot. We got two beers each and walked around the stadium until we stumbled across the media seating area. Up we go, walked straight past security and the police until we got to the top, where the steward told us you can't be here, 'we just want a picture, please...'; he agreed and we managed to sit at one of the media seats where they have a little TV, phone and plenty of power and comms sockets, Rob picked up one of the pones and the steward took a picture. Hilarious! (Think its on facebook so you can all have a look). This was only the start of what was to come!

We find our seats we were sat on the lower level just to the right of where the arch forks out into two, we decided not to stay in our seats as it was about an hour from kick-off, I’ve got to fly the FY8 flag in a noticeable place for the lads back home so we head out back the entrance and march onto the upper level to fly the flag. We finally find an appropriate spot and funnily enough when getting the flag out two ladies from London were sitting right in front of it, we asked them to look after it and headed back towards the entrance. I need to mention here that at previous games Rob has managed to get into hospitality suites with his mate Paul, so we agreed we should also try! Because we were at the upper level the hospitality suites were in close proximity, we managed to spot one at the end of the corridor we were walking in so we headed straight for it, walking down the corridor looking like we belonged there we get to the entrance, tow policemen on the doors, walked straight past them and onto the next level where the hostesses were. Immediately we are asked for our wristbands, we try to blag our way through but it didn’t happen the wristbands were green ribbon with a metallic plaque that listed seat numbers and the suite your meant to be in. We told them we'd best go get them and we'd see them later. Yeah right! We headed back out and back down the corridor. The corridor hosted a number of doors so as we walked down we tried each one to no avail, until Ron spotted an open door. We look each other and Rob says just act confident. Rob enters first and we're in, no one was in there, until we heard a call 'lads, lads'. Two hostesses we're ushering us back, I think we both expected to get challenged for our wristbands but the hostesses couldnt give us our freebies quick enough. Wow I thought, we're in here. The bags they gave us were large and green. We didnt have time to check what we got before we we're being asked if we'd like a drink. '2 beers please', and the next minute we're sat at the table helping ourselves to the free nibbles while supping a nice cold glass of Bud. Quality! I checked the freebie bag and it had a match programme, large official World Cup blanket, and a large book. We couldnt help giggling to ourselves until the challenge for our wristbands came. We managed to convince them to let us stay until we had drunk our beers, but after this we were back out with the plebs!

The game was about to start so we grabbed a couple of beers and went to sit in our seats for the first half. 0-0 at halftime the game wasnt looking great. We head back for another hospitality voyage, this time we'd spotted one on the lower level so decided to head for this one, we had our hospitality bags in tow so we looked like we were meant to be there. The entrance was gained via double glass doors and we'd noticed not one of them was manned so we headed straight in unquestioned. The first person to challenge us was to ask us if we needed a drink, brilliant we're back in here, unbelieveable, they couldnt give us beers quick enough! We took a seat and dropped our bags, they had a buffet so we got stuck in, steak with rice and curried beans, and more beer, the lady also asked if'd we need wine so I had to obige and order a glass of red. Picture evidence was cpatured and we headed back out as the second half was about to start.

Spain wins 1-0 from a Puyol header on 73 minutes. Awesome, I was supporting Spain and was glad to see revenge had been taken on the Germans! Back the hospitality, we have a walk around back to the point of where the hospitality stops, we were thinking, we could walk across the seats and up the steps into hospitality. Good plan and it worked, we walked past all the closed hospitality suites and even the temporary police court room that looked like they had just arrested some guy the place was crawling with police, we just carried onto the busy hospitality suite, people are still drinking there so we join in and get friendly with some South Africans who worked for Dimension data, there company had sponsored the suite so they had no problem with us joining in. Top guys! We stayed for an hour or so chatting with the guys and eventually it was time to get out of there. We wondered out the door and found a lift. The buttons were confusing so we got the lift to the ground floor, surely this was out. Mistake. We had ventured into the VVIP area, it was deserted. So we had a walk around and eventually found a door that lead to some partitioned screens, it was like a maze of screens but eventually we got to the end of the labyrinth where a team of guys packing up some television equipment, we waved hello and looked left. JACKPOT, its only the bloody tunnel, we're straight through it and onto the pitch. We couldn't believe it, we are on the pitch at one of the biggest events in the world, albeit this was after the game but still a magical feeling inside. The pitch invasion was short lived as we it told to leave by the police. This was the first time they had challenged us all night, we obeyed there orders and back off through the tunnels to turn left. Changing rooms. It gets even better, it was the Spanish dressing room so we went straight through and sat in most of the seats and took a few pictures, suddenly a policeman appeared. Crap, we're outta here! Turns out he was just saying hello, we waved back in our drunken state and he walked off!

We left the changing rooms in delight, stuff like this doesn’t happen every day! We agreed to eventually leave the stadium and get a taxi back i can’t remember how we got outside but we somehow ended up in what looked like the back entrance of the stadium where all the press were packing up and moving out to their own little media centre. I spotted what looked like a golf buggy with no roof, just two front seats and a flatbed rear. 'Picture opportunity' i shouted to Rob! So i sat in the front seat and pretended to drive the thing. I heard a voice behind me ask 'are you going to the media centre'? 'Of course i am!' i replied! The next thing i knew i had 5 reporters in the back wanting to be taken to the media centre. I set the wheels in motion and we're off. At this point I’m laughing my head off but something inside me told me to stop, if any harm came to these people I’d be hung! I stop immediately and tell them i'm not meant to be here, I got out and gingerly walk off with Rob! They looked at me in amazement! We laughed back at them and walked off, i mean what did they expect? I was wearing my England shirt with a Spanish flag tied around my neck do i really look like i should be carting them around...idiots!

Rob and I eventually find the exit, right by the media centre. We decide to have a quick nosey but there wasnt really anything there, we tried to get a drink but they wanted us to pay. PAY?!? I needed a drink so we shared a bottle of coke sat down and tried to speak to one of the reporters. The place was heaving; every man and his dog had a laptop and was on the phone, this was a world event so i'm sure there were alot of international news organisations busily writing there reports to send back to the editors!

We eventually get to the taxi rank and get outta there, what a night! We got in around 1:30am and hit the sack! Rob was up early as this was his last night in SA so he must have enjoyed it more than I did! All i can say is that the security at the ground sucked, anyone could have got anywhere and i even forgot to mention that there was an actual pitch invasion during the game which I’m sure you all saw on the TV!

Thursday 8th July - Day 24

Rob left around 8am, i slept in until around 9 got out of the extremely comfy bed and hit the shower. The room was on the bottom floor of the house so I could already smell the cooked breakfast waiting for me, I walked out the room feeling pretty refreshed and still buzzing from the night before, I couldnt wait to tell someone about our escapades. I sit down at the giant table with only two people sitting there, funnily enough a Scottish couple who were travelling South Africa. I spoke to them for a while and took them through my whole evening, they didn’t seem to impressed so I switched my attention to the gargantuan breakfast spread, there was all sorts of choice from fruit salads, 4 different types of juices, cheeses and hams. Eventually after 4 glasses of apple juice the guesthouse owner came out and asked me what i'd like for breakfast, 'Full English' she asked, I didn’t even need to think. Thankfully ACG was nowhere to be seen so after my fill of breakfast I ordered a taxi and scarpered. It was back to the hostel for me, the luxury of staying in my own room and having breakfast cooked for me was over!

I get to the hostel and bump into Eyal again he'd also had a great time at the game so he wanted to go and check if the ticketing centre had any final tickets available, we'd checked the Fifa website and the colour code for CAT3 tickets was Yellow, this means there are a few available but you can never really tell what the true reality is as the website is constantly changing and even though we'd tried to buy some tickets through the website they kept saying there were no longer any available so down to the ticketing centre it was. No tickets other than CAT1's @ $1200 dollars. No chance! It wasnt to be, so we agreed we'd go to a game reserve the following week instead

The previous day or so when Rob, Paul and myself had visited the casino we'd noticed a local restaurant offered a steak challenge: 1kg of Rump Steak, Chips (alot), and 1 litre of Coke (later I found out that you could have sprite or fanta!) It was only 150 rand (approx £13) and if he was to finish it then he wouldn’t have to pay. Eyal was well up for it but I wasnt so keen, I was still living off the mornings breakfasts and didn’t really need to eat. It was only by chance that the challenge was only available to try on Thursdays. 'This is fate' Eyal shouted and in he went! I opted for a small toasted sandwich. I didn’t have any confidence in the guy one bit, (sorry Eyal) when the steak came over it was huge, with chips piled up over the whole of the plate, I couldnt say this to him at the time but he was never going to do it. He'd even asked for a rare steak. A mistake in my opinion because it meant that all the juices and extra weight was still in there, I’d of opted for a well done steak so it would be less weight and because its a rump it wouldn’t be as chewy because the fat would of crisped up, each to their own though, the guy had some confidence and in he went. I couldnt watch and dint want to disrupt the guy so I opted to go and sit at a blackjack table.

I walk back about 15 mins later 400 RAND up, I’d just won both of our lunches so offered to pay if he didn’t finish. He was doing pretty well, he'd pretty much finished off the 1kg steak but still had a mountain of chips to go through and another 500ml of coke, I started to have confidence in him, he had half an hour to do all the chips and wash it down with the rest of the coke! I went off again to play some more and ended up with another 200 RAND, brilliant, 600RAND up on the day it paid for the next few days to live. Quality! I eventually return to Eyal and an empty table, no more chips. He'd given up. He couldnt manage the chips because they'd gone cold, the strategy was all wrong but I congratulated him. He looked exhausted, red faced and ready to explode! 'Come on man, i'll pay, lets go play Blackjack'.

Sat back at a different table this time, not my choice but what the heck, I was just playing with my winnings as I’d cashed my starter money to pay for the meal. I started with 600RAND and didn’t really have a limit. I tried to explain to Eyal that blackjack is a team game, you have to hit cards when you don’t want to and stick when you don’t really want to, it is a game of chance but statistically your gonna be better off playing it by the book, its how the game goes (FRANNY: take heed here), the way to win is bet big when the odds are your going to win a hand, for me it’s just a feeling and I usually count how many hands the dealer wins, how many face cards are down on the previous couple of hands etc, its not counting cards it’s just trying to predict when the good cards are going to come. For me it works, I've rarely lost out on blackjack. There are 3 people on the table, funnily enough Eyal, me and another English guy with his Thai bride; he lived in Dubai so was probably pretty loaded.

So we start playing, I try and direct Eyal what to do but he just didn’t seem to care, he couldnt grasp the fact that he could still win a hand on 13 when the dealer had a 6, he wanted to play for himself. He was my friend so I didn’t want to carry on at him there was no convincing. He soon lost all his money and I was close to losing mine. I stuck at it and eventually got some where up to 1200 RAND. Only to go back down again to 300RAND, I stuck it all on. Dealer bust. I kept going back down to nearly nothing until I got up to 500RAND, I looked at Eyal and said 'Win or lose we'll go after this hand, its only my winnings so I’m not bothered if I lose'. I hit blackjack. And leave the casino 1500 RAND up. Lovely... that saves me a visit to the cash machine for a few days...

We head back to the hostel and chill for the rest of the day, I write my blog and update it on the internet, Jade was looking forward to it but i'd only done a few days worth in.

(At this time i'm actually writing this on the 17th July, I don’t know how I remember all this stuff thats happened a good 7 days previously but when the good things happen I bank it into the memory and somehow it stays there. The next few days are pretty cloudy so i'll try my best to remember the details. I really need to be updating daily but its hard to get in the frame of mind to write so much, all my feelings and memories are coming out here and i'm trying my best to write them in a descriptive manner so everyone doesn’t get bored.

What I do remember is that at this point (8th July) i'm becoming more fond of Jade on a daily basis, shes an amazing person, someone who always made me smile, if i was down she'd cheer me up and even a txt message saying that she missed me made me smile. I've not met or felt like this about anyone since Nicole who i loved dearly, i spent nearly 3 years of my life with her. Good times!
The plan is to go back in December with Al so i can see Jade and Al can see Rachel. He's mentioned moving there, i'd really consider it as i've always wanted to move out of England but December is 6 months away.

Back to the day...
During the course of the evening after being in the casino, Margherita and Nic (hostel owners) introduced us to a new guest called Tom, also from England, Huddersfield. Great! A northerner to drink with! Though he'd just been on a bus for 28 hours from Cape Town to Durban so wasnt really on for coming out that night, neither was Eyal for that matter. So I asked Fergus one of the Brighton lads to join me, he got Harry up and we went to Cubana’s. Even though these guys were alot younger than me we got on really well, they reminded me of how I was at 18/19 and they always had something funny to say, it was their last night in Durban because they were to get the night train to Johannesburg on Friday night. We had a few beers and headed back I was pretty tired from the night before and so were those guys!

Friday 9th July - Day 25

The plan was to go to Ushaka Sea World, I 'think' i may have heard it has the biggest aquarium in Africa! The park is split into two parts the actual Sea World bit where the aquarium is, and the other part is basically a small water park.

Eyal and I had been threatening to go all week but never got around to going, we all got up fairly early and for once we were going to make it! Tom also joined us for his first day out in Durban; we all ate at The Gazette (they do breakfast). Ushaka was a fair way away from where we were, and as there was 3 of us we decided to take a cab. I got picked up by the same driver as the previous day, he didn’t quite notice me but I soon reminded him, he was a large guy, not overweight but just very big. He hated the blacks, it seemed as though all the white South Africans did, he said they were lazy people who didn’t give a shit about working, I was in two minds about what he said but the next few days would convince me to agree with him!

We get to Ushaka drop off point and walk through the range of shops that are placed right in front on the place, its a good ploy to get people to spend some money before getting to the place as there is no other way in if you drive there or get a taxi! We pull up at the front desk get out tickets and the timetable. We're straight into the seal show. We take our seats and it starts immediately. Target audience was 3-7 as it just wasnt very god, it was more of a pantomime full of really bad actors, bad sound effects and about two tricks from a seal! It was funny because it wasnt funny, really cheesy more than anything! The next show to watch is the dolphins at 15:30 so we take in the marine world aquarium, dolphins etc, to be honest i wasnt that impressed, there were a few impressive sharks in the large aquarium but that was about it. We eventually cover everything and move onto the water park. Get changed and straight onto the first slide its kind of like a big dipper, at a very steep angle, you lie on your back and gravity takes it toll, its pretty good and i was told later on that it was the biggest slide in Africa! We carry onto the other slides but nothing was as fun as the first, we must of covered everything in about an hour because there were very little queues! So we decide to grab some lunch before the dolphin show. The vivacious taxi driver had explained or should I say demanded us to visit a place on the beachfront called Moyos, he said they did wonderful 'tropical' drinks (he meant cocktails!), we'd spotted it while on the big slide so we decided to head there for food and a 'tropical drink'.

The place was basically set on the end of a concrete pier, a rather small, square building with two levels about the size of two squash courts. We get in there and there only doing tapas, which would of sufficed for me but the others weren’t so keen so we asked for a cocktail list and sat out on the balcony. As the place was on the end of a pier you could see the entire Durban beachfront its was very relaxing sitting on the balcony watching the waves crash onto the beach sipping a cocktail. I decided to go for a strawberry daiquiri, it was a mammoth affair the curved glass was the size of a pint glass and it was brimmed with sweet, frozen goodness, quite pungent but very very good! We finished the cocktails and head back to the dolphin show which was about to start. I'd agreed to call Jade as we'd mostly been texting each other so it was heart lifting to hear her voice. I wanted to go and see her badly and at this time (17th July) i still can, but really doubt it would be a good idea I wouldn’t want to leave her!

So we get into the dolphin show and they tell the story about a local Zulu warrior called King Shaka, the dolphins were very impressive and it made the day at the sea world really worth it, they did all sorts of jumps and flips etc. For the sea world and water park it was very good value at 130RAND (£11) for a full day of activities was great, we could of stayed longer but we'd been there a good 5 or 6 hours so we eventually went for the food we kept promising ourselves! This time we also went to Moyos but not the one on the pier, they also had a restaurant on the beachfront so we grabbed a table outside and ordered. It was quite expensive but some bits were cheap so i opted for an Ostrich burger, I’ve eaten ostrich steak before but never a burger, all i can say is that it tasted much like a normal beef burger but still very good all the same.

That night we planned to go out, Fridays were always the busiest in Durban so we planned to go down Florida street and then maybe hit a club. We had a few beers at the hostel bar and headed out, Tom, Eyal and myself went straight to Cubana’s it seemed the most busiest place down Florida so we headed here first it was at the end of a row of spaced out bars but we didn’t plan on heading back up. Jade had also gone out and we'd promised to txt each other when out but had nothing back from her so was kind of worried, but it didn’t spoil my night, we ended up going to the Clapham Grand, that reminded me of a cheesy English club that played mostly fast beat pop songs, not a patch on clubs like the syndicate but it was quite busy all the same so we had a good dance and left for the hostel about 2am.

Confession: Earlier that night we met a guy who looked just like Taio Cruz so we all got a picture and i sent one to my sister, little did i know she'd put it on facebook stating it was him. Sorry Vic it wasnt Taio Cruz, even though he was a spitting image! The closest i got to him that night was dancing to Heartbreaker!!! love you darling!!

Saturday 10th July - Day 26

Earlier that week I’d been interested in what the charity people actually did, I asked them if I could come with them one day to see what they did and also to get an idea of what the Projects and townships are actually like. I managed to get up early even after the club and spoke to one of the charity girls (I can never remember their names!) she mentioned they weren’t going to help out but just to watch a football tournament and maybe play a game with some of the other charity workers down there, I asked them if I could come so it was a perfect opportunity for me to wear my South Africa football shirt that Jade had bought for me, I shove this on and I meet the people downstairs, they don’t usually go out there on Saturdays, its mainly just Mon-Fri so there were only four of them who went, 2 guys, 2 girls and me. We wait outside the hostel for their taxi. Up pulls a white minibus, its one of those that we've been told never to get in as they can be gang lead and dangerous drivers but this guy helped out for the charity i think, plus he'd been driving them for weeks with no problems. They all piled in and I sat at the back still a little tired from the previous night, we eventually pull up at the football field/community centre called Cato Manor it was a very large field with approximately 5 or 6 football pitches and a large community centre set back from the fields. We must have been the only 5 white people there and i did fel a little intimidated but everyone was so nice, they kept coming up asking where i was from and what my name was. The first game was about to start a semi final of the local leagues cup, i sat down in the sun on a set of very large steps, the referee came over to us and asked if anyone wanted to run the line, I agreed straight away, I’d come to play football but running the line sufficed for now. I was on the opposite side of the field to the community centre so out on my own for the first half. The game kicked off and i tried my best to be as professional as possible, i didn’t really want to make a mistake, the players were young but seemed very passionate about the game, it was basically reds vs. blues and at half time it was stalemate, i fancied the blues more than the reds, they looked alot better in attack but after the first half it was anyone’s game. It was cracking flags so i ran across back to where the guys were sitting, got some sun cream on glugged a bit of water then it was straight into the second half, as the professionals do I took the same side as i started and followed the game with all my concentration, even though it was just a bit of fun for me i felt like a pro calling offside and waving my flag when i saw a foul! The game eventually finished 1-0 to the blues, there as a bit of drama near the end when there was a foul in the area a penalty was awarded to the blues. It was a blatant penalty but the defender didn’t see it his way so he decided to start having a go at the ref, think he even tried to punch him at one point but it was broken up by his team mates and manager, he was duly sent-off and so was one of the other defender who also had a go at the ref, so the reds were on 9 men against the blues 11. The blues missed their opportunity to take it to 2-0, it was a poor pen and an easy save by the keeper, if it wasnt for the two sendings off then the reds probably could of fought back but instead it went the other way and the blues eventually won 1-0 to progress to the final. Great game. Time for the next one.

This time the players were a little older, i'd been watching them warm-up (not that it was needed as the sun was beaming). They didn’t do a conventional warm-up it was more of a little dance. The jist of it was that they would have 4 lines of 4 people in each line. they would run along a few yards and slap their knees, run along a little more and slap a foot, another step then they'd slap the other foot, then another few yards and they jump, another step and they'd clap their hands together twice, it was sort of a warm up slash pre-match ritual and it looked as though every team did it. All of them in near perfect timing their concentration, determination and maturity showed, I couldn’t imagine any sort of English Sunday league team doing something like this but on Africa they had what looked like impeccable team spirit. After this warm-up they'd all stand around in a circle, arms around each other give a little shout and sing before running into position for the start of the game. Again I was linesman, for this game, it was a lot more physical and fast paced as the players were a little older. I did half the game and handed the baton over to James, one of the charity guys while I watched the rest of the game from the big steps. The people who ran the charity organisation (‘Brothers for life’) had set up a small friendly game so we all decided to get involved, I got put on about three quarters into the game so didn’t really have chance to make a difference I nearly scored a couple but they were using the infamous Adidas Jabulani, its true what they say about it being very difficult to control the ball was heavy but very bouncy, I got a couple of shots on target but no joy!

After the game we waited for the minibus, I’d not eaten all day so was getting pretty hungry by this point, we got back in the taxi bus and back to the hostel I showered and then went to eat at The Gazette;, again!
Later that night we’d all decided to go out, this time we’d been joined by Christian a Chilean who was over for the world cup. This time we got into a bar called ‘Booty’ it wasn’t very busy so we had a couple there and moved on to Cubana’s, this place was always busy! We have a few more drinks and Tom and Christian decide to bail while Eyal and I were on for a club. We grabbed a taxi and took off for the club, we got in there but it wasn’t that busy at all, we spent an hour or so there and Eyal had noticed a couple of Argentinean guys who he’d met previously, we joined there group and I tried to speak the little Spanish I knew, it wasn’t really going anywhere so we resorted to broken English, at this point Eyal was off pulling some Indian chick, her mate was ok and he was trying to get me to dance with her but like I’ve said previously, I’ve only got eyes for one girl. Even though I had all these awesome people around me I missed her so much it made me feel lonely, I’d really fallen for this girl.
The club soon started emptying and they started chucking everyone out, little did I know it was near to 3am, I wasn’t that tired and neither was Eyal so I asked one of the shooter girls I’d talked to earlier where was good to go, she mentioned a place called Origin, open until 5 so we grabbed a taxi outside and flew over to the club. We got there and it was closed, the doors had apparently closed at 3am. It was 3:10am so we tried to convince the bouncers to let us in but it was a no go as the police were standing right outside the door the guy couldn’t let us in! We managed to get speaking to a taxi driver ‘Raymon’, he said there was a club in Durban central (not a good to area) where we could go to and carry on drinking. He took us to a place called ‘Lido Disco’, we walked in there and it was empty, it more like a strip club with no strippers more than a nightclub. We convinced Raymon to come and have a drink with us, we bought him a coke while me and Eyal decided to get him to take a picture of us dancing on the poles on the dance floor. The only other people in there were prostitutes! We played a game of pool and left. Again, neither of us was tired so we decided to go to the casino to play some more blackjack. It didn’t last long, Eyal was out of money after the first few hands and I ended up 300RAND down so we decided to get a taxi and go to bed. I’d had a great day and a great night! For that matter so it didn’t end so badly. Plus Eyal was chuffed with the Indian chick he pulled as he’d been saying all night he wanted to get a hold of one. I’d promised myself that I’m not going to meet any other girls; my heart is in one place and it’s in no hurry to leave…

Sunday 11th July - Day 26

As of the previous day I’ve done 20,000 words on this blog. I don’t think I wrote as much in the 5 years at school! I’m on day 26 of a possible 100 plus so I think this is turning into a pretty big blog! Thank you to everyone who has commented so far I didn’t think anyone else but my family would read it so its exciting to know everyone is keeping up to date with it. Maybe one day it’ll be a bestseller…haha…yeah right!

World Cup Final day!
I wake up about 10:00; I needed a bit more sleep from Friday night’s escapades plus I’d reckoned I needed the extra rest for the day ahead. The plan was to go to the Fan fest down on Durban beachfront, in terms of capacity it was the biggest Fifa fanfest in the world.

First of all I started watching the British Grand Prix; it looked as though Hamilton had the best chance of getting a podium finish, before the race I’d said to Eyal and Christian that he’d probably move up to second on the first few corners! He did just that and stuck there all race, Button also did extremely well moving up ten places from 14th to 4th. It was a good start to the day!
After this I did the usual and ate in the Gazette, then started drinking at the hostel bar ready for going down to the beachfront. After a few beers we got our shirts on. Christian had a Holland shirt, Eyal in a Spanish shirt and me in my Blackpool shirt, Eyal lent me his Holland flag as he was supporting the Spaniards so we all looked pretty colourful. Tom had already made it down to the beach earlier on so we were to meet up with him later on. We grab a taxi and head down; it was already getting dark so it must have been around 5pm when we got there. The fan fest was already packed and some musical acts were performing on the giant stage. We joined the beer queue and all got two beers as the queues were quite large. We managed to get a good position about 100 yards back from the stage just to the right hand side as close to the beer tent as possible! A few more uninteresting acts followed and it was time for the Closing Ceremony to start at 6:30pm. The ceremony made me realise how much the World Cup meant to the African people, it was an impressive performance. The love for Mandela showed when he came out on a little golf buggy (just like the one I’d driven on the semi-final day) and the entire crowd both in Durban and Johannesburg erupted to applause and blowing of the vuvuzelas. The highlight was definitely Shakira. Wow.
The game eventually started and the atmosphere erupted again, the Africans are pro’s with the vuvuzelas, they are excellent. They managed to get some sort of rhythm going throughout the entire game, I can’t really repeat it through words but I’m going to get some videos uploaded on facebook when I can get a wireless connection. This was starting to be one of the best nights of my life it was basically a big party. The game finished 1-0 to Spain from a cracking Iniesta strike, even though I was gunning for Holland I wasn’t too bothered as I do like the Spanish people and love the country. Soon after the final whistle the fanfests’ giant music system starting blaring out Andrea Bocelli’s - Time to say good bye. Immediately it reminded me of my Dad, he loves the song; it was an emotional moment that also reminded me of the fountains outside the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas they regularly play this song during the fountain show. In parallel to the song, an even more impressive firework show erupted over the fanfest, it was probably one of the best I’ve seen making the ending of the South Africa World Cup a sad but joyful moment. Little did I know things were going to get better. I didn’t really expect any fireworks or a big party but this was the biggest fanfest in the world and they were celebrating a momentous occasion Africa have done amazingly well here. As soon as the fireworks finished the stage lit up with blindingly strong white lights and a pronouncer introduced Durban’s own Kim Carnes. ‘Who the hell is that I said to Tom’. He just shrugged his shoulders, I was expecting another unimpressive act but hell no she was awesome, her first song I didn’t know, and I also didn’t know her second song called ‘Jabulani’ but it was fairly easy to sing along to and it must have had some connection about the Adidas world cup Jabulani ball. I still don’t know what the word means or how it is connected to Africa (can someone find out and comment please?). Kim Carnes third song was mesmerizing, the Africans were already doing the ‘4 step’ dance 50/60 strong all of them in near perfect timing. I can’t explain the dance so again you’re going to have to watch the videos on facebook. The song I later found out was called ‘Bette Davis eyes’, I recognized it immediately, its been played on an advert on English TV in the not so long distant future. I joined the Africans in the 4 step and was helped along by a girl who was directing me what to do and when to do it, I never really got it right but, god loves a trier! After Kim Carnes third and final song we decided to move out and head back to Florida to carry on drinking, after a quick stop at the hostel to change and de-flag we got down to Cubana’s. We were all surprised the place was quiet for a change I’d of thought it would be going off considering it was world cup final day but it wasn’t to be the case. We had a couple of beers and everyone agreed we would try grab a burger/pizza and head back. As we were walking towards the pizza place a kid came up to me, he was on his own and holding out his hand, ‘please sir do you have money for food?’. I refused immediately to give him any money but instead I offered to buy him a pizza. He wanted food so i thought I’d just give him it directly instead of giving him money which probably wouldn’t go on food as I understand a lot of the beggars can make a lot of money just by begging, they don’t struggle for food or housing for that matter! So we head up towards the pizza place. It’s closed. The kid suggested we go across to a petrol station as it had a small annex to the right that sold burgers and chips. I ordered two burgers and a plate of chips. I’d expected the kid to disappear as soon as I bought him the burger so I ordered him (in a friendly fashion) to sit down, I got him a sprite while we waited for the burgers. Even though the place was a little dingy the burger was fantastic the kid wolfed his down and after a couple of pictures with him he thanked us and scarpered off. I cant explain why I did this for him but it was good to give something back, the night we’d just had was amazing and the African people had always been so friendly so it was good to re-pay something back even though it was only a burger that cost 20 RAND I got a warm feeling from helping the guy out, even if he was a professional beggar!

Monday 12th July - Day 27

I get up around 11:00! Tom was leaving that day so I was still in bed when I said goodbye. As I said to everyone on my travels I’d keep in touch but this wasn’t to be the last time I saw the guy!

Not a lot to write about on this day other than we went to the casino again, I ended up 2500RAND up (approx £220), this was going to pay for the trip I’d planned to the Hluhuwe Game reserve.

Tuesday 13th July - Day 28

I’d wanted to go for a swim for a few days now; the sea wasn’t really swimmable due to all the waves so I decided to go to the Kings Parks swimming pool, it’s just by Durban stadium so a walkable distance away. The pool looked busy the previous few days and it hosted an Olympic sized pool. I packed my gear up in a rucksack and set off for the pool, it took me about 15mins to get there but it looked empty, no cars in the car park and no one around. I ventured over to the front entrance and it said closed. Crap! Surely its open I said to myself so I walked around to the back entrance to see what I could do to get in, as I walked around I see a bunch of guys packing up some equipment so I went over and asked them about whether it would be open later on. Turns out the pool was still under Fifa control and there wasn’t any water in it, the pool had been boarded over and the building was being used as a hospitality suite for some high ranking Fifa officials! I asked one of the men if there was any other pools in the area, he pointed towards the beachfront so I started walking around to see if I could spot one. A came across a map of Durban and it looked as though there was another pool just up the promenade from where I was. At this point I was bored of walking so decided to tab it up to the pool. When I say tab it’s basically a jog, I think the term is used by the British army to describe jogging with a rucksack or Bergen, because there bergens are usually heavyweight it isn’t wise to jog with them so the technique is to keep your feet as close to the ground as possible but still move at a decent pace. So I tab it up to the next swimming pool and find its only a kiddies pool with very shallow water and a few small scale slides, it was open but un-swimmable due to the depth! I decided instead to keep on tabbing, my location was about 2 miles away from where the fanfest used to be located, it was quite a hot day because of the technique I was using to tab I could keep up a fairly good place. I eventually get close to the fanfest location and grab some water from a local ice cream parlor. I carried on to the fanfest and looked at my watch and I’d been going for nearly an hour, and according to the map the journey was approx 8k in total so I’d got my fitness in for the day and decided to walk on. I was directed off the promenade walkway as the fanfest was being taken down the area had been cordoned off. As I walked past the various wood carving sellers I got approached by a lady of Indian origin. ‘Excuse me’ she asked, I ignored her and walked on as most people are just begging for money but she was persistent so I turned around and asked what was up. She introduced herself as a reported from a local Durban newspaper. I had my Blackpool top on and at first she thought I was Dutch, she asked me a few question about the changes I’d noticed in Durban after the world cup. Apparently alot of the usual beggars and street sellers had been removed from the city to improve the image of Durban itself, now the world cup was over she asked if I’d noticed any changes and I agreed I did notice a lot more beggars and sellers but it wasn’t overkill, he asked for a picture and told me she’d email me if the article was in the newspaper. Probably not I thought to myself but what the heck she was happy for an interview. When she was done she gave me some stern advice about where I was. The beachfront here was basically in Durban central, one of the most dangerous places to be in Durban as muggings are a regular occurrence, I didn’t really seem fazed by this as I’d spent most of the week in this location but now the world cup was over the police presence was minimal and she asked me to get out of there as soon as possible. I did just that and carried on tabbing south towards the Ushaka marine world location.

That night I didn’t do much, had to pack up my stuff because we would be moving out the following morning to go to the game reserve, think I fell asleep on the sofa in the hostel living room and then watch the film Green Street Hooligans, a remarkable film!

Something else pretty massive happened though, Jade had been sick for the past few days, she mentioned it was only in the mornings and she’d get dizziness at night. My heart sunk. I told her to buy a pregnancy test immediately as she’d also been late for her period. I was shocked and shaking, this would change everything in my life and I can’t imagine what she was going through either. She couldn’t get a test that day so promised she would the following day. I didn’t know what to do with myself!

Wednesday 14th July - Day 29

We’d booked a hire car through Nic in the hostel as his father owned the rental company so we got a good rate of 140 RAND a day, there was Eyal and me so it cost about £6 each a day!

The drive up to Hluehuwe game reserve was roughly 3 hours, the car we had was a Daihatsu Charade a tiny little thing that only just about fit our stuff on the back seat! I was designated driver as I didn’t trust Eyal to drive nor did he trust himself to drive on the left! We had booked a local hostel just outside of the game reserve, the deal was badged as ‘The big 5 experience’. It included a night walk on the first night, and a full day safari on the following day, all meals (Breakfast, lunch, dinner) were included and the price was approx £120 so it was good value plus using my winnings from the casino it was basically a free trip for me!
I used the sat-nav to get us to the hostel and we did it in just under 3 hours. The drive into the hostel was fun, it was basically a sand track so keeping the car going was fairly difficult but fun, it was getting thrown around every corner!

I had other things on my mind though, Jade was due to take a test. We’d nipped out to a local burger bar for some food and my phone died just as she was about to tell me, we rushed back to the hostel and I got my phone on charge. Still nothing back from Jade, I was starting to get worried. It turned out that she had got one and a half lines on a pregnancy test which meant it was inconclusive. I did some research on the internet and all the signs pointed towards her being pregnant. I felt strange inside, my expectant feeling would have been of worry, but I felt ecstatic, I’ve always said to myself I didn’t really want kids for another few years but this was right in front of me, it felt so right. She tried to buy another test but I think there was a problem with her card so she couldn’t buy it. I had to wait another 24 hours to truly find out what the result is. With the protection we’d used there would be a 25 in 100000 chance that she would be pregnant, i was expecting a negative but something inside me told me that wasn’t the result I actually wanted.

The hostel was basically a series of wooden buildings, lodges and huts. We’d booked a dorm room but as they were so quiet they moved us into a twin bed wooden hut!
Eyal decided to go to the pool while I decide for a quick rest on the bed, I must of shut my eyes for what felt like a minute but was out for about an hour! I went and joined Eyal at the pool and he said it was too cold to swim in, the bar had just opened so we decided to get a beer and play some pool, it was about the only thing that you could do there at night. Eyal wanted revenge on me at pool because the table at the hostel I was up 13 games to zero, I think he’d only beaten me twice on a different table in one of the local bars. We ended up playing 4 games and the score was 3-1 to me so he’d given up on the pool idea and we moved onto the darts, we had a quick game of killer which wasn’t that exciting as there was only two of us so we moved onto around the board, no winner here as neither of us could get the bull so we gave up!

After a couple more beers we ate the evening meal provided and met up with our guide, he was also called Richard and had worked there for 9 months, Eyal made a some joke about it being the same time to have a baby but none of us laughed. He was a very friendly knowledgeable guy who knew a lot about the reserve and the local bush. Richard would be our guide for the safari and the night walk. He wasn’t keen on doing the night walk as he’d been out all day on another tour with some Norwegian girls. Now I’m from England and Eyal Israel so we weren’t keen on them trying to duck out of the walk because that’s what we’d paid for so that’s what we should get, we quizzed reception about refunding some of our money back until they eventually agreed to do the walk! Richard didn’t seem happy but he went along with it anyway and he still managed to give a really good tour. The night walk took in some of the local bush around the grounds of the hostel, he showed us all sorts of different insects and bugs and the different types of trees and plants etc, we even managed to walk into a bunch of sleeping bats we didn’t see them but they were in a tree above us and they certainly let us know they were there by giving our a deafening squeal! We walked on and got out into an opening in the trees, I looked up in amazement. We were in the middle of nowhere so light pollution was non-existent and you could see what felt like every star in the sky, the amount you could see was unbelievable and it was easy to make out the milky way (think it’s a big formation of stars) but it looked like a long strung out river of golden dust for as far as the eye could see, it was definitely the highlight of the walk even though it had no relation to why we were actually there! The walk lasted about 45mins so we retired to the bar that was just shutting up. There was a couple of Norwegian girls sat down playing cards so we joined them for a drink, I didn’t really have much to say to them as they were talking about Norway which Eyal had previously visited, I think one of them may have fancied me, she couldn’t stop looking at me and playing with her hair, she was good looking but I wasn’t interested, I thought to myself that I was already spoken for, and I wished that I could say Jade is my girlfriend so that I could tell any girls I met that I had a girlfriend, unfortunately I don’t think Jade wanted me as a boyfriend, we’d spoke about it but she always seemed to scared to commit. There next destination was Durban so they asked me what was best to do there? I looked at them with a blank stare and realised that I’d been in Durban for 8 days and done pretty much nothing but go out and drink every night! I told them to go to Ushaka and stay at Surf n Dreams as it was a great hostel!

After this we said our goodbyes and I went to bed, it was only 9pm but we were due up at 5 to start the safari!

Thursday 15th July - Day 30

Up at 5 and out by 5:30, we ended up being the only two people on the safari that day so we had VIP treatment from Richard, we could ask him anything we wanted and we each had a seat to ourselves on the back of a converted Nissan Movara pick-up. The back of the truck was open, only a metal frame with a wooden canopy above (got a picture of it so check it on facebook). It’s your stereotypical safari vehicle so I won’t explain it in anymore detail.

We get to the park around 6 and head in through the gates and past all the electric fences, by this time the sun was just about rising and the scenery against the back drop of a sun-rise was beautiful. The park is 96,000 hectares, the eldest game reserve in Africa, it first opened in 1895 and hosts the big 5 (leopard, rhino, lion, elephant, buffalo). Richard had said we wouldn’t see it all but he knew the best spots to see the certain animals. The park consist of a number of interlinking tarmac roads which have various turn-offs to explore other areas of the park via a dirt track, the turn offs are also interlinked though some of them were looped back onto themselves¬¬¬.

As we got onto the first loop we stumbled across two different types of Antelope (Nyala, Mumbala, spellings is probably wrong here!) and also a herd of wilderbeasts, a few hundred meters up and we spot our first big 5 candidate, a group of 4 rhinos grazing right by the side of the road, cool I thought to myself, the day is going well so far no one is guaranteed to see any animals, it’s not a zoo, the animals live in there and can roam anywhere they like.

We drive up on towards a view pint on the top of a big hill and get out to stretch our legs, after a couple more loops we’d seen mainly Rhinos then it was time for breakfast which meant driving back to the start of the reserve, Richard had brought with him a huge fruit salad, selection of yoghurts, muffins and a chocolate bar each, plus a big flask of how water to make a coffee, the breakfast was simple but still yummy plus the coffee helped wake me up!

We drive onwards towards another series of loops and tracks before we stop by a group of Giraffes’, picture taken, and a tick off the list! We drive on again and top by an Elephant carcass that had died a few weeks before, the park was still investigating the cause of death but the numerous vultures didn’t seem to care, they’ll be feeding off that for weeks even though the smell was awful they didn’t seem to care. We drive on for what must have been another couple of hours, spotting the odd giraffe, rhino, zebra and a very distant Elephant. We asked Richard now named ‘The magician’ because he could spot animals miles away and still drive the truck around, how he spotted some of the things he did was unbelievable! We eventually come across a flat bridge leading across a river about the width of a football pitch, we look to our right and spot some more Zebra and wilderbeasts having a drink, we should of looked left! In the near distance there was an Elephant also having a drink camera zoom was required but it was still a god picture, which would be the last Elephant we saw all day.

After lunch which consisted of two burgers cooked by the magician himself, on his portable gas stove we head off in search of more animals. Within half an hour I’m nodding off, it was a hot day combined with the recent food I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I was safe in the knowledge that ‘The magician’ could spot anything and he’d always shout out.
I was woken by ‘There there a cheetah’, excellent wake up call, the magician has spotted a cheetah about a mile away, she was sat under the shade of a large bush, there was already a family there clicking away on their cameras and they’d told us the cheetah had just made a kill, the big cat was impressive, even more so than the ones I saw earlier in the trip because this was a wild cheetah with only a maximum of 130 of them in the 96,000 hectare space we got lucky to spot one! I was ideally looking to see a Lion but it wasn’t to be the case, after seeing the cheetah we spent another couple of hours spotting other various types of animal, a few rodents such as Mongoose a lot more Rhinos a very small baby croc, a rare waterbuck and a not so poisonous snake that ran out in front of the truck. The magician had promised we’d see a Hyena but it got dark and I didn’t have much confidence in seeing them. We were driving out of the park around 5:45, we had to get to the gates before 6pm or they would be closed, suddenly the truck cut out, the magician had heard something and at this point I was wrapping myself up because the truck was getting cold and it was very windy. When the truck cut out, we heard a howling noise that reminded me of how a werewolf would sound straight out of a movie. ‘It’s a hyena he shouted’, they weren’t far off so he started the truck up and carried on along the road, cut the truck out again and turned the lights off, I spotted the Hyenas eyes about 100 meters away, lit up like a Christmas tree in the pitch black night, their eyesight in the dark must be remarkable. The truck fired up again and we headed along the road for them. We stop right in front of one Hyena he just stood right in front of the trucks headlights unfazed by our presence. He howled over to his mates and out came another 3 hyena, they’d just made a kill of what looked like a large type of bird or rodent, they were impressive but slightly ugly creatures, they looked like oversized vicious dogs, razor sharp teeth, hunched backs with a brown fur and black spots I was impressed at how lucky were to see them we were only half a mile from the exit and it was an excellent ending to a brilliant day.

Mid way through the day I’d received a text from Jade saying the test was negative, I was disappointed if anything and so was she, she seemed very sad about it, and I was still in denial, my mind had already given in to accepting that I was going to have a little baby but it wasn’t to be the case. I had time to think and came to the conclusion it was for the best, I didn’t really know Jade properly and bringing up a kid with someone requires a stable relationship and a good foundation of security for the child to live in, this wouldn’t of been the case here and conceiving a child at this point in our relationship would have been a mistake. It was just a scare but we both felt sad about it. To summarise though, I’ve come round to the idea of having kids, yes Dad you’ll be pleased with this though your gonna have to wait!

We pull back-up at the hostel and go straight to where the food was to be served; we ate what looked like meatballs in a spicy sauce with rice, cornbread, salad, and potatoes. Not soon after we ate I was tucked up in bed, it had been a tiring day and we were again up early to get back to Durban for Eyal to catch a bus and for me to decide whether to fly to Jo’burg or go and see Jade again.

Friday 16th July - Day 31

We hit the drive after a full English breakfast and coffee, the deal we got through the hostel was excellent value and the food was all good. I dropped Eyal off at the bus station and I decided to go to the gazette to use the free internet and figure out how I would get to Jo’burg. I’d given up on the idea of seeing Jade again; she didn’t seem to want me to come back, and it felt as though she wasn’t telling me something. So I booked a flight to Johannesburg the following day which meant, I had to book myself back into Surf n Dreams, it was a pretty sad day for me as there is a strong possibility that I’ll never see her again, a lot can happen in 5/6 months and Jades a very pretty girl so it wouldn’t be difficult for her to find someone else, you may think I’m being cynical about her here but all I’ve got to compare this to is my past experiences, I’ve tried long distance in the past, Cathy my girlfriend I’d been with throughout school moved to Turkey to work for 5 months, she had already found a new boyfriend within two weeks, I didn’t find out until she got back so you can’t blame me for being skeptical! Jade isn’t my girlfriend so there is nothing to stop her finding someone else, I’m hoping she doesn’t and we’ve promised each other to stay loyal, I just worry too much!

After booking my flight, I had a search for any new Blackpool signings and funnily enough in walked Tom, he’d returned from his travels up to Lesotho a small country in the North East of Africa. He grabbed some food and I needed to get out of there to return the hire car, I leave him with my laptop so he can use it to book a flight for himself and head back to the hostel to book in and drop the car off.

I dedicate the rest of the day to writing this blog. I also found out that one of the charity girls had spotted me in the newspaper, I’d made the front page! I never got around to seeing the paper plus they got my name wrong but my picture was on the front page at least!

That night Tom and I had met up with another couple of people staying in the hostel, a yank called Jacob and a Canadian girl called Desiree they both wanted to eat. Yes you’ve guessed it. We went to the gazette, after food we went for a couple in Booty and a couple in Cubana’s. I got a phone call from Nic the hostel owner; I’d forgotten to get my thumbprint taken as entry to the hostel was via a key to the front gate and thumbprint recognition on the main door of the house. I walked back up the street only to get harassed by a street seller trying to sell me some beaded necklaces with a crucifix on the end. ‘I’m a Jew I tell him’ jokingly, he didn’t understand at all so he reverted to begging but I said I had no money on me, he started getting aggressive trying to grab me and pull me down a near-by alley until I grabbed him and gave him a mouthful of English verbal until he soon backed off and was caught in the wrath of a local bouncer who had been trying to get rid of him all night. When I walked back down the street after nipping back to the hostel I spoke to the bouncer who proceeded to show me how he’d later caught the guy sneaking into his bar to sell his goods, he’d given him a good kicking by the sounds of things, I just wish I was there to help him out, I felt like the guy was trying to mug me but he was probably just desperate! I’d been texting Jade for a few hours that night she was out herself, it was pretty funny getting the drunken txt messages from her, not a lot of them made sense!!! It turned out the next day she said she’d had her drink spiked, I felt helpless being so far away not being able to look after her…

I retired to bed early as I had a taxi booked for 05:30 that would take me to the airport for an early morning flight!

Saturday 17th July - Day 32

I pull up in Jo’burg around 10am the plane got in early and I headed for the Gautrain that would take me to Sandton, an up market suburb of Jo’burg. I’m feeling angry and rejected, I didn’t want to leave the country I just wanted to go back to Knysna, but I knew it going to Oz as planned was the right thing to do, I had to carry on even though I was feeling down about leaving I had to get through the feelings of not wanting to go anywhere. I even got to the point of thinking this is my life and I can do what I want, if I want to go back to Knysna I can (as much as you would disagree Dad!!!!).

I get to the hostel I’ve booked and pick my bed in the 18 person dorm. I didn’t want to do anything in Jo’burg, there’s not much to see and do and most areas can be dangerous, so I decided to sit in my own shell in the hostel living room, I didn’t want to talk to anyone so I plugged in my headphones and started updating this blog. The hostel provides a nightly meal at the cost of 50RAND so I decided to opt in for this, I needed to meet new people to get over the sadness I was feeling. I did meet a few new people, an English guy and a Scottish girl; she even washed my plates up for me. It was only a brief encounter with them as I decided to check the bar at the hostel out, apart from the bar lady and 3 other guys the place was empty. I sparked up a conversation with the guys and it turned out they were from Denmark and it was their last night, they were going to hit the town so I asked if I could join them, they duly agreed. Let the mayhem commence! They were in a group of 5 all of them were really friendly and all of them could talk good English. I also found out the Danish name for Richard is ‘Reikhard’ cool. My first Danish word..

They left the bar and invited me to join them in the other room for a game of pool, they’d pre bought a load of alcohol from the liquor store and offered me a drink, I wasn’t keen as all they had was gin and rum but they told me to mix the gin with one of the numerous bottles of orange fanta they had with them. It tasted divine, you couldn’t taste the alcohol, only the fanta so we all proceeded to play pool an get wrecked. They were all very lively characters and they were all bouncing off each other, they all loved a drink and it didn’t take long until we were all dancing around the room to the various rock and ancient pop song they had on their iPod speaker set-up. As there were 6 of us we teamed up for the pool games, my partner was called Martin and we ended up winning the mini tournament.

The Danish guys had stumbled across some weed that they found in the dorm so one of the made a spliff and we all smoked a little before heading out to find a bar somewhere in Jo’burg. No one had any idea of where to go so we ordered a taxi and directed them to take us somewhere there would be nightlife.

We pulled up at a road full of bars so jumped out and headed into the first one, one of them had ordered a round of Long island iced teas and by this point I was feeling very drunk, it must of took us all about half way through our drinks to realise we were in the wrong place, it was a bloody gay bar! Hilarious, one of the Danish was getting felt up too so we quickly finished our drinks and headed out. At this point I needed food but couldn’t find anywhere; we visited another bar for one and headed back out to find a club. I managed to grab a hot-dog from a local food stand, the quality was ok, but it didn’t matter I just needed some food inside me. After my hotdog I turned around to find out I’d lost the Danish. Crap! I walked around for a little while and eventually gave up jumped in a taxi and headed back to bed but this time with a sick feeling and my head spinning!

Sunday 18th July - Day 33

I’d agreed the previous night to go to the Apartheid museum with the Scottish girl Sarah, we’d planned to set off at 9 but by the time came I was still in my pit, she came to wake me up but I wasn’t on for moving anywhere so I stayed in bed for another hour or so.
I spent the rest of the day chilling in the hostel lounge and only nipped out that night to go and eat in a local restaurant with a couple of Australian guys from Melbourne, both who strangely worked for CSC, the major company who I’d liaised with during my time at BAE Systems!

Monday 19th July - Day 34

My last day in South Africa. I’m sad about leaving but looking forward to meeting Katie and her family in Perth, think she’s going to take me out the coming Wednesday and show me the Perth nightlife. After speaking to the Australian guys the previous night they said the swimming pools in Oz are in good supply so I should eventually be able to get a swim in.

I ate breakfast of yoghurt and muesli which I’d bought the previous day from a local supermarket in the mall and decided to head out to a local coffee house to use the wireless internet to review my flight details and do the on-line check in to pick my seat. There was no option to pick a seat so I’m not looking forward to the flight.

I spend the rest of the day horizontal on the hostel couches watching the Tour de France waiting for the shuttle to pick me up at 18:00.

I get to the airport around 19:00 and get checked in and go and sit in a bar to sip a few beers which my leftover RAND, which should also hopefully help me sleep on the flight. I managed to get a leg room seat right at the front of the economy cabin so it should be a good flight. As always I’m the last person to board the aircraft, I never understand why everyone rushes to the gate to get on the plane, I mean what is the point in getting in the queue just to get onto an aircraft your about to spend 9 hours on, everyone knows where there sitting so it’s not like they’re running for the best seats, mental!

Australia’s a strict nation, especially when entering the country, they had set-up an extra bag search at the gate so everyone was getting their bag searched and there was also some guy quizzing people on what they are going to be doing while in Australia! I get on the aircraft and we take-off a little earlier than scheduled, I already disliked my seat, I had a guy sat next to me who couldn’t work out that he could straighten his arms to use his hands, everything little thing he did he would stick an elbow into my space, I felt like saying something but he wouldn’t of understood! I didn’t get any sleep on the flight, just plugged in my head phones and bopped away to the 60gb’s of music I now have on my laptop!!

FAREWELL SOUTH AFRICA……

To conclude, I loved everything about the place, the people were great the scenery was incredible and even the winter weather was bearable! I’d definitely return and I’m still hoping to in the summer! The country is still very much in development but they did a fantastic job to host a brilliant world cup!

Next Destination: Perth, Australia!!!!!!!

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Comments

[Ruth Rigby]

great to hear from you
WOW thats an amazing blog Rik, its great to hear that you are having an amazing time and are embracing your experience to the max, even meeting a pretty girl! that didn't take you long did it! Continue to have fun and keep us up to date with your blog and pics when you can. Thinkin about you loads xxx Ruth

[Daz]

keep it up!!
Great blog mate. Glad you finally got a watch England at the World Cup. Shame the players didn't perform. But enjoy the rest of your adventure and keep us updated, and Jade - v. nice!!! PS: TEIM still not deployed! Daz.

[Livesey]

Awesome
Im on night shift at the mo mate so its pretty quiet. I sat down to read your blog after you told me you were writing it on facebook. Keep it coming Parks, I was gutted when I came to your last blog entry. I could have kept on going all night reading it. This is a trip of a lifetime mate, and it will never leave your memory, what a lasting testament to your mum. Big respect mate, cant wait for the next blog entry...... Take care .........Livesey :)

[Franny]

Nice work boss. . . . . selected memory when it comes to the poker! Keep it up

[Fran and Mike]

x-rated
Red shoe diaries eat your heart! This is channel5 material (",)

[Ruth]

loving you're blogs Rik, tho they're making me cry every bloody time! but they make me laugh as well! Not sure about you're shark risk assessment, you better be careful! Glad you are meeting lots of people, but be careful who you trust, sorry I'm nagging again! I'm just jealous really. Thinkin of you, Ruth xxx

[Lisa Best]

...and the travels continue
Fran's been updatin me on your travels!! Sounds like loadsa fun! I'm jealous! Glad you've met someone you really like - what a shame it's a cross continent romance :( you might wana start believin in fate, coz you just never know how things will turn out! When do you leave Africa? Where next? I like your quote!! Think I might have to create a similar mantra for mantra for myself! Fran says plz publish his comments so everyone knows he loves yoooooooooooou!! ;) Lisa xxx

[Parky FY8]

THANKYOU
Thank you to everyone who has commented here its great to know your still reading this and i've had 3 or 4 seperate comments about it being a novel or a 'bestseller'. I doubt it. but anything could happen! Speak soon people love you all...

[Vic]

Miss you!!!
Ive just read the last entry of your blog Parkinson and again its made me cry.. please can you stop doing this to me. Glad you having good times its currently thundering in Blackpool. Loving the pics from the Spain game. When you off to Oz? Everythings ok at home, its just a half finished home though.. Mike if your reading this??!!! Missing the fridge being full and not having you at home to do the washing haha. Everyone keeps asking me about you and i keep telling them to read this. Oh and dont forget dads birthday 28/7/10 please. Love you and miss you xxxxxx

[Steve Townson]

Nice one Rick
Daz put me onto your Blog, what a great read. Glad your having a good time and living your dreams (in a Blackpool shirt). This isn't a rehearsal mate and you have the bollox to go and do it, your Mum will be looking down proud as you like. Take care and keep up the good work on the Blog, looking forward to the next installment.

[Paul Rigby]

More Blog
Rick your spending too much time holidaying and not enough time on the blog - lets have more asap PS Emily did a sky dive in OZ - not going to try it ????? cheers Paul