Saint Mish

This weekend we didn't head to Durban, instead after we finished work on Friday, we headed straight to the Amphitheatre backpackers in the Northern Drakensberg. A slightly longer drive than we expected, but not too bad. We arrived before dark, so it was all good. The backpackers was a bit like a flash packers place. It had a jacuzzi inside the bar area, a gorgeous rock pool outside, along with a braai area. A loft upstairs with couches and internet. Plus the view was pretty good. Lucy and Bonnie met Sophie and I later in the evening. We spent the evening catching up, before the others went to bed fairly early. Me (the oldest by far), stayed up for awhile longer and chatted to some other travellers. Next morning we headed into the Royal Natal Park. ... read more

The Weekend - St. Lucia: After our first week at Woza Moya, we drove back down to Durban on the Friday afternoon. It was great to catch up with the rest of the group. Friday night half of the group went to a party of a work colleague, and the other half stayed home. I was one of the home bodies. It was really nice just hanging out at home. We had a few drinks, chatted and watched crap tv. Eight members of the group had decided to go to St. Lucia, a town famous for its hippos, north of Durban. I was driving Sophie, Vanessa and Bonnie because we had decided to go via a game park, Hluhluwe iMfolozi. We left at 6am. It was great leaving at that time because there were less cars ... read more

So week 1 of orientation and getting to know Durban is over. Tomorrow morning my co-volunteer and I head inland 2hrs to start our placement at Woza Moya. The last week has been really interesting and very busy, but I'm looking forward to actually starting the placement. So what have I been doing the last week. Well I arrived at the Monash South Africa campus on the Saturday afternoon. There are 10 of us students involved in the placement. There are seven girls from Monash Australia and three people from the South African campus. These three are a mixed group. Stephanie is from Germany, Nasreen is from Tanzania and Simba (our sole gentleman) is originally from Zimbabwe, but currently lives in Botswana. When I arrived, three of the Aussie girls were there along with Simba. We ... read more

Drakensberg into Lesotho Friday 31st December 2010 Today we left the beautiful surroundings of Drakensberg to travel over the dramatic Sani Pass into Lesotho. After a slow start we walked 3km's up the road to some ruins where the 4x4 mini taxis apparently wait to pick people up. It was in the middle of nowhere and difficult to imagine that this was a bus stop. We had made a weak attempt to hitch hike on our walk up, but at this point we had decided that it would be rude to try and hitch hike while we waited at the bus stop with the local Basotho people (Lesotho people). The 4x4 mini taxi van arrived at about 11:30, so we were pretty happy, thinking we were going to get to our destination Mokhotlong at a reasonable ... read more

It's 3 sleeps until we leave for South Africa. I'm semi organised and Daniel isn't organised at all. So I've decided at the last minute to try and write a blog to keep you all up to date with Daniel & my adventures for the first 2 weeks and then for the following 6 weeks my experiences working for Woza Moya. Enjoy! ... read more