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Published: June 17th 2017
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01 Gum trees!
I was very surprised to see gum trees along the road, somewhere between Durban and Umfolozi Game Reserve. Geo: -28.21, 32.0059
After a long journey, we finally arrived in South Africa for the start of a short two week adventure. There were 11 of us, mostly colleagues from work in London. My boss Justin organised the trip, as he was a local and enjoyed travelling around with friends. It was a long flight, London to Dubai, Dubai to Johannesburg, then Johannesburg to Durban. All was going well for the six of us that were travelling together from London. That was until we were at Johannesburg airport waiting for our luggage to come on the carousel. The baggage handlers at this airport were the slowest I have ever come across. We were starting to stress as we had a connecting flight that was very close to leaving. The luggage seemed to come through at about 5 pieces every 5 minutes. Finally after about 40 minutes my backpack came out and I moved very quickly towards domestic departures. Check in had already closed, but Justin had already got my boarding pass, so I was allowed to go through security with my big backpack without having to check it in. The five other teachers I was travelling with had missed the flight and were re-scheduled to go on the next flight.
It was then a short flight to Durban. Once there we had to wait for the others who had missed the flight. A few hours later we were all reunited and set about to find our hire car. One was a van and the other a sedan. We were still far from our bed for the night. We had to get to the game reserve by sunset. We were going to have to rush. It was an interesting journey to the game reserve. We saw many townships- underdeveloped areas, consisting of many one roomed shacks, usually with no running water. They seem to be made of many sheets of corrugated iron and bits and pieces of scraps. The townships were amongst well off looking areas. Along the way we saw many non-white people walking along the road- thought this was quite dangerous since cars are flying past at over 100km per hour. It is also legal to ride around in the back of four wheel drives. I was looking out for wildlife, didn't see any though. A few hours later we arrived at the game reserve. We had to slowly, (because of animals) but also quickly drive (our accommodation was going to close for the night). On the 20 minute drive from the gate to our chalets we saw a zebra- which was so exciting!!
After we all found our beds for the night we enjoyed a fantastic buffet dinner. It was fantastic because the food was amazing, I was very impressed, I didn't really know what to expect from Africa, am loving it so far.... Tonight was also the first time we had a Springbok- a yummy shot of mint liqueur and cream liqueur. Helen, Melissa, Kate and I kicked back in our chalet and had an early night, ready for an exciting day tomorrow!
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