Wow! Well, the flight from Sydney to Dubai on Emirates was uneventful. We had a woman say “oh look, you’re on our tour” because we still use our Bunniks luggage straps from however many years ago! We explained that no, we were not going to Morocco with her. We had one of those escape rows on the plane, just across from the babies, and weren’t they gorgeous? Two little boys, fraternal twins aged 8 months. They were so happy and placid. One was a redhead (Patrick) and the other dark haired (Finn) - off to Ireland to meet one set of grandparents for the first time. Very exciting. There was also a girl travelling alone with a wedding dress in a big bag. She was wearing an ivory velvet tracksuit (over which I would’ve spilt everything) ... read more

This morning we had a lovely brekky, and ventured outside to take some pics of our lovely brekky view. We then freshened up, finalised our packing and went down to reception 20 minutes early for our transfer. he turned up 5 minutes later and took us not to the Cape Town railway station, but just across the road to the Rovos Rail offices, where we were met with porters, a red carpet and glasses of champagne while we checked in. The lady (who turned out to be ROhan VOS’s daughter Tiffany) told us we had an upgrade from a Pullman suite to a deluxe suite, which is very nice. We then sat around in the comfy sofas, getting to know other guests, drinking more champagne and eating dainty sandwiches without crusts. We were then called by ... read more

One of Tom’s shoes needed repairs, so after buffet brekky (smoked trout on toast, Tom had an omelette!) we got Radisson‘s shuttle down to the V&A Waterfront shopping precinct (Victoria and her son Alfred, not Albert her husband). We found the shoe repairers and he said it would be needed to be sent off site for proper stitching, but on hearing that we aren’t here for much longer, decided to hand stitch the shoe today! So we left it with him, and walked up to the street where we caught a red explorer bus with the passes we bought online. The bus took us up to the cable car station halfway up Table Mountain, but alas, there was so much wind that the cable cars weren’t running. The people there very kindly offered to process our ... read more

We had a leisurely start to the day with a pickup for the airport not expected until about 10.45am. We had brekky and then on our way back to our room were diverted by a mongoose family frolicking in the grounds. We followed them to take a pic and were then ensnared by a French lady who was determined to practice her very faltering English, with French lapses from time to time. But of course she had to tell us that the original grapevine stock for the blossoming South African wine industry came from France, and that they shouldn’t call their sparkling wine champagne etc etc. She was totally unconcerned about what our intentions for the day were, as she continued in her extremely hesitant and laborious conversation. We eventually got away from her to do ... read more

Wow - what a day. We started with our buffet breakfast by the pool at our hotel, very early because we had an 8.10am pickup with our tour company. The usual bacon, egg, sausages etc. When the tour guide collected us we joined a group of Aussies, Scottish Aussies, French and Spanish people. after stopping at a couple more hotels to pick up people we drove to the entrance of the park that surrounds the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi side. Just a couple of miles upstream, the Zambezi merges with the Chobe River, and at this confluence there are the borders of four countries, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. At Victoria Falls we are in Zimbabwe, looking at water also in Zimbabwe to begin with, but then it becomes Zambian water. There is no public ... read more