The Honeymooners

At last it was time to leave South Africa. Don't get me wrong it's an amazing place, with more culture than you can shake a stick at but it comes to a point when you just want to move on. After a wonderful night at a rather swish hotel in Johannesburg we thought our luck had finally started to come in.

Checking in at reception as normal, name, reservation number. After been taken to our room it was time to make use of the facilities. Time for a bath I thought. So there I was sat in a plethora of bubbles thinking about the past month and planning the next few. Relax.

"Knock, knock" then bellowed from the outside door followed by a series of muffled voices, a barrage of laughter and from what I could make out the use of the word "honeymoon!?". Quickly rearranging the bubbles I beckoned Pete into the bathroom. "We're VIP guests, and they've given us a bottle of Champagne and a massive fruit basket!."

Hastly we made our way downstairs wondering (a) why they thought we were married (b) do we really give off that impression and lastly, and probaly most importantly (c) does this mean we get free dinner and breakfast?! Now we never really found out the answers to the first two questions but when the answer to (c) was very much a yes we started to make up for lost time and got straight on the beers. I won't bore you with the details of the rest of the night, beers+casino+club=good night out, you get the idea.

But anyway, ready to head to Australia, where ironically (you'll understand why in a minute) is where I am now. Time to check in. Normal procedure, tickets passports, weigh in your bags. Now just before I continue I would like to highlight that before you judge me, it can happen to anyone. "You're flight isn't until tomorrow sir." Hang on a second, "Sorry what, my flight is when...?"

"You see sir, here is today's flight, 20th December 2007, and here is your flight..." Oh bugger. "You'll be on standby." Finding this not pareticualryu annoying at first, Pete, who incidently had already checked in, and I went to get some food where we waited to the bit of luck which has seemingly eluded us so far on this trip. The rain, no sharks and now this...maybe South Africa was done with me yet. Stood there waiting to see if a plane, 4 days before Christmas would have any free seats isn't fun, remember this could happen to any of you! But then again, most people would check the dates of their tickets!

Well, like I said before I am in Perth now and I did get onto that flight although we've had so little sleep I still feel like it's the 20th, I just hope that there's no more public transport involved today! Just a quick note for Mum and Dad, don't worry!

It's not just been a ticket less adventures since I made my last post though. A quick trip to Kruger Park, a hop, skip and jump to the highest country in the world, Lesotho, a couple of days hiking in the Drakenberg Mountains, a rest stop in Graskop with a taste of their apparently famous pancakes, and a nights stay in Jo'Berg would be a good summary of the last week or so. Although the later may sound like the least eventful thing we've been doing we did meet a man who had just flown into South Africa to continue his bike ride from Cape Town to somewhere in central Africa after he had been shot in Cameroon a couple of months before hand. And I also learnt a quick lesson about a lovely area of Jo'Berg called Hillbrow. Simply described by the man who owned the hostel when I asked what it was like, "You will get shot!"

Needless to say we didn't drive our Nissan 1.6 hire car through that district although we did nearly get stuck on what could only be described as the worlds worst road on the way back from Kruger, again Mum and Dad, nothing to worry about!

I'm just about bored of typing now so I'm going to spend the afternoon with a cold one and fingers crossed a sandwich if we can find somewhere to buy one!

Thanks for listening and remember, it's only funny if it doesn't happen to you!

Me

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