sneller

Day 18 Pottered around the morning - then went to my last match - at another stunning stadium. I suppose the only thing you can say is that at least we scored against the Germans (twice!!!!). However, my irrational and un-defendable hatred of the colour combination White, Gold, Black and Red remains as virulent as ever!!!!!! ... read more

Day 15 At the bottom of the Kalahari Dessert here where the mighty Orange River flows through and creates the Augrabies waterfall. Whilst it ain’t Niagara or Iguaçu, it has a certain majesty being in the middle of an arid and dramatic setting. And its almost deserted.. I also finally saw a springbok and the little dassie - apparently a cousin of an elephant!!!!! Then it was to what was advertised as white water rafting …..but as its the dry season, the Thames flows faster - but having said that it was very pleasant spending the warm afternoon paddling down the river. ... read more

Day 13 Got over yesterday pretty quickly - just looking at my Soccer City pics cheered me up. This was the first morning that I didn’t have to do ANYTHING ………….. so I didn’t!!!!! Then met Grace for a nice afternoon coffee (well I had a beer) before heading off to Ellis Park for our best game so far - Brazil v Chile ………. As well as the colourful, vibrant, diverse crowd (I was sat next to a Nigerian); the (at times) good football, and the excellent English officiating (the bald referees’ society had a good day); who could have imagined, only 20 years ago, that Brazil would be playing in the football World Cup at this impressive stadium which to some was a symbol of apartheid. Pete had chatted to an Ethiopian last week whilst ... read more

Day 11 Up ridiculously early (again) ……….just to spend most of the early morning sat in the cold (with blanket and hot water bottle admittedly!!) in the truck while the tracker and ranger tried unsuccessfully to find an old lion, as well as seeing giraffe almost at every turn, the drive was just saved by finding and getting in the middle of, a huge herd of buffalo - then spent the day catching up on the blog/ pics before meeting up for the late afternoon drive - again a lot of looking but not a great deal of finding - however, we did stop for a ‘sundowner’ which turned out to be magical, as the moon was rising behind a crimson sky when a family of giraffe passed by. Then it was dinner and one our ... read more

Day 9 Exhausted ……….. we got up early(ish) and went to an adventure place - first it was an hour’s quad biking (Mum - that’s the one the farmer’s boy rides on Emmerdale) through a stunning canyon, then a canopy wire trip - basically whizzing down a wire through a beautiful valley - absolutely exhilarating. I’ve done it before so that bit for me was relatively easy ….. but the platforms here were often just built into the rock 100+ft above the ground, so just standing on them was the scary bit. The other highlight though was a SA female 3 x generation family also (sometimes) literally throwing themselves into the trip, so that was the daughter, mum and gran - the result being that I now know how to swear in Afrikaans in a number ... read more