"Where women glow and men plunder", "Where beer does flow and men chunder", "You better run, you better take cover" Ahhhh Men at Work. Classy. With a long leap across the Indian Ocean we find ourselves in Western Australia for our first taste of some real jet lag. Neither of us are particularly used to having trouble sleeping, so this was a bit of a shock to the system. Thankfully it was eased by Marissa's cousin Jason's XBox (to occupy late nights) and his gourmet expresso maker (to ease in the following morning). Yes, Perth is home to yet more of Marissa's extended family. Not that I'm complaining ... yet again we have been looked after incredibly well. Cousins Jason and Terrence and wives Jules and Debs fed, watered and sheltered us as well as taking ... read more

No trip to Southern Africa would be complete without a visit to Victoria Falls. We had the choice of visiting the falls from either Zambia or Zimbabwe (or both). Due to visa costs and other recommendations we chose the Zambian side and did not regret it. Livingston is a great town, it felt like we were in Africa again. The falls did not disappoint at all, they were incredible. Hey, I think I can even use the word awesome in it's true context. They are 1.7km wide, 108m high and have an average flow of a million litres per second. Yes, I did say second. Apparently at peak flow in May it can be 9 times more than that. The result of this massive amount of water throwing itself off a cliff, is not only a ... read more

It was in Windhoek that we lost our traveling companions (and their air conditioned motor) and had to go it alone again. We had a full day in Namibia's capital to plan the next 10 days of our trip before we needed to be back in Cape Town. Windhoek is a decent city with plenty of amenities to assist our mission and plenty of opportunities to eat more great steak. It also has some very interesting street names. The main streets in the city are named after world leaders: Fidel Castro St, Nelson Mandela Ave and (er) Robert Mugabe Ave. The area where we stayed they were named after composers: Bach Strasse, Beethoven Ave and Wagner Strasse. This got me thinking, the UK should definitely experiment a bit more with Street names. Maybe future town planner ... read more

Ahh Cape Town, we love Cape Town. There is just something so special about a city dwarfed by a huge flat topped mountain and surrounded by beautiful bays and beaches. Marissa obviously has affection for the place, as not only was it the location of many a childhood holiday, but many close friends and family still live there. It was also where G and I had a fantastic holiday 5 years ago so it felt great to be back (and even better that G was back too - this time with Shaaron). We had over 2 weeks in a great city with some great company ... Happy Days. The first period was spent catching up with peeps, taking it easy and working on letters for the New Years Day message - a hard life. It was ... read more

This point really is the start of the second chapter of our travelling adventures. Having spent a great month backpacking around Southern Africa we are now in Jo'burg for 5 days and back in the warmth of Avril's place. Not only does this mean a full fridge and a real bathroom, but also the opportunity to unpack our rucksacks into a wardrobe. Simple pleasures. The main point of this leg of the journey was to say hi to Marissa's extended family. And what a big family the Wolman family is, over our 5 day stay I must have met 20 people claiming to be cousins of Marissa, it turned out they all spoke the truth. Marissa's grandfather had 5 siblings and that leads to one hell of a lot of cousins. One evening I asked for ... read more