Trip 2015: KZN coast 5.7 - 11.7

Lesotho/Durban/Swaziland McBrock Family trip 2015 Part 2

5^th July – Sunday – Day 9 (Alex)

When one is camping there is nothing better than to wake up, have the sun shining onto the tent illuminating the interior and listening to the bustle outside be it my family stirring or the birds chirping, this morning was not quite like that . . . it started with a big drop of water splashing down onto my face, with a rush I shot up thinking it was rain and that I needed to go out and put some form of cover onto my tent, it turned out however that it was the morning dew that had collected on my tent and accumulated exactly over my head, if this is to happen again on my trip I’ll have to think of a counter measure. But for this morning it was OK as I could hang my sleeping bag out to dry in the morning sun, it was however 2°C, so quite bracing in shorts and flip-flops.
We then had breakfast, Beatrice and I having the remainder of the yoghurt from last night’s dessert, along with fresh fruit and the ritual tea. In a swift and organised motion, as we are well practiced in, we had done the washing up, done our ablutions, the car packed, paid and were on the road heading to our  location for the next 3 days: Durban.

The drive to Durban from Underberg is very pleasant, driving along with huge pine plantations bordering the road. The roads are winding and go up and down, so we couldn’t go very fast, we weren’t in a rush though so it didn’t matter. Some of the valleys were filled with a thick smoke from presumably a big fire nearby but unseen by us, burnt areas are to be seen all over in this region at the moment, to which I of course took great interest, being a volunteer wildfire fighter in Cape Town. It is also interesting to see the patchwork of communal areas scattered around. The closer we got to Durban the more the thermometer rose and soon it was time to strip from our jumpers and jackets and be satisfied to be able to be down to 1 layer.
We were able to bypass the tollgates on the N3 easily by taking a detour, which my cell phone had pointed out to us early enough and with its help found the place we were going to stay for the next few days, the thermometer read 28°C!
We were staying at an old acquaintance of my father’s: Graham Halse with children Carl (27) and Alyssa (22), who invited us in warmly, settled us in nicely and offered us to join his braai this afternoon/evening starting at 15h00, which we accepted gladly. We had arrived early and so had a few hours before the braai and as it was a wonderful day we siezed the chance and with the help of the GPS went to the beach.
The beach was absolutely packed and so we had to drive around for quite some time to find a parking space, in doing so we got to see everything from North Beach to South Beach. There are loads of street vendors with things we had no idea we needed, restaurants of all kinds and really high rise buildings which are mostly hotels. We finally found a parking space, it was a super tight fit and so I ended up having to climb out the driver’s door to get out. Once assembled outside we made our way to the beach promenade and saw rickshaws in every colour possible and decorated from top to bottom. A jetty drew our attention and so we walked onto this, viewing people swimming and surfing beneath, at the end of the jetty there were people jumping in despite a sign forbidding it and so I didn’t need to be asked and jumped the 4m dive asap. Graham had told us that there hadn’t been a shark attack in 50 years so I swam with ease, this was compiled with the fact that the water was heavenly warm and with decent enough waves to body surf (of course nothing quite like the Namibian coast). To my surprise I discovered even my mother had ventured in to the ocean, which truly is a rare sight. Beatrice and I spent a few hours swimming, while my parents swapped occasionally.
Many hours later we emerged from the water, showered off the salt, dried and then went for a further walk along the promenade. There were amazing sand-sculptures in various forms from rhinos to cars and the Durban stadium, I was really tempted to ask one of the rickshaw guys if I could have a go pulling them.

Back to Graham’s house we went, when we arrived we discovered that his wife Brenda had also returned together with her daughter Natasha and son-in-law Sean and their two boys. We greeted them warmly and soon were sitting on the balcony with a stunning view and a beer or wineglass in our hand, which never seemed to empty as Graham or Kyle constantly topped them up. Delicious snacks preceded an awesome braai, with superb meat, mouth-watering baked potatoes, crisp salad and so much more, stimulated with good company and lively conversation we had a great afternoon and evening. Later the four younger people (Kyle, Alyssa, Beatrice and me) went out to a bar called “Murphey’s” and exchanged interesting stories, joked around and had a few drinks.
When we got back dessert was just being served, perfect timing if you ask me, it was a delicious Pavlova with cream and custard.
After a long day Beatrice and I were knackered and so headed to bed not too late, she had to sleep on a mattress on the floor as she had lost at rock/paper/scissors and so I redeemed myself for the other night.

6^th July – Monday – Day 10 (Cathy)

The day before Chris’ birthday dawns overcast but dry. Cooler than yesterday due to the lack of sun but compared to Lesotho positively balmy.

We had breakfast with the family, Natasha and Sean were off to take the boys on one last surfing trip before heading home to Johannesburg. Our first stop was the Musgrave Shopping Mall to hunt for a watch for Alex. This time we were successful, a shop called Watches Unlimited lived up to its name and produced the right watch. Alex will not be diving with it however. He has learned that ‘water resistant 50 meters’ is not to be taken literally. We even found jeans for Beatrice, women’s jeans seem to be such poor quality at the moment. We had a bit of a browse round the shops but everything was very similar to Windhoek so we didn’t linger.

Our next stop was very different and not remotely similar to Windhoek; Victoria market, otherwise known as the Indian market. A bustling, noisy, somewhat confusing warren of a place. Parking the car was the first challenge, the underground carpark was quite disorganised, dark and very low ceilinged. Cars were loosely parked according to the demarcations but not everyone saw the point in that. After a fair amount of reversing and manoeuvring we found a parking place, hoping when we left the car that we would be able to get it out again later. Upstairs the market was just like India. There were lots of small shops brimming with trinkets and spices galore. We were beckoned to sample lots of different spice mixes, many of the hotter mixes had allusions to mothers-in-law in their titles, possibly indicative of prevailing relations in Indian homes or the perception of the vendors about prevailing relations in non-Indian homes. Over a bridge we came to a market for traditional Zulu medicines – some were a bit alarming such as dried monkey but most were dried roots, leaves or bark. The titles were all in Zulu so we could not compare with the titles of the spices but who knows some of the more extreme remedies may also have referred to mothers-in-law. There was a serious range of smells at this market ranging from the seductive aromas of incense through to the heavy spicy smells and the smells emanating from the places where people felt the need to relieve themselves in the absence of public lavatories. The market is right next to what seems to be two cemeteries attached to a mosque and a church, an interesting juxtaposition of commerce and religion. We buy some tasty spice from a very persuasive vendor and happily manage to negotiate the car park without mishap.

Chris wants to go on a boat ride on his birthday so our next port of call was the yacht club to identify the boat trip companies. It was pretty deserted at the yacht club but a helpful chap in a charter office directed us to Wilson’s Warf a little further along and here it was humming. There were a couple of tour operators offering rides and we checked out times for trips for tomorrow. Once that was sorted out we explored a bit more. There were more trinket vendors selling more stuff that we didn’t need and since it was nearly lunchtime and there were several food shops we decided that it was time to have bunny chow for lunch. The kids were only partly charmed by bunny chow. For Beatrice it was much too hot and for Alex he didn’t much enjoy the soggy bread. So an experience to be had but not to be repeated particularly soon.

After lunch we decided to visit the football stadium. Built for the World Cup in 2012 and unlike some of the other stadia, in continued use. One can travel to the top of the structure in a cable car or walk to the top via a staircase that follows the line of the arch over the arena. Sadly the cable car was not working and to use the stairway one had to have closed shoes which none of us had. Anyway for me with my dodgy ankle (trip over dog on stairs in Lesotho) the stairway was a no go. Maybe tomorrow. We consoled ourselves at a nearby café with chai latte and ‘Brazilian hazelnut steamer’.

Rain looked imminent but was holding off and so we decided to visit the botanical gardens, apparently the oldest in South Africa although not the largest. I was expecting some banyan trees and was not disappointed, with its climate and the size of its Indian population the least Durban could do would be to run to a few banyan trees. Otherwise there were plenty of palm varieties, a pretty sunken garden and a variety of other towering old trees that were not banyans.  There were also lots of birds, bald ibises, the ubiquitous hadedas and a tree near the lake that was so full of egrets that it looked as if it was in flower with heavy white blossoms. It was only the occasional flap of wings that gave the birds away. Some birds imitate flowers more successfully than others and there were a few pelicans trying to roost on the branches with much less success. We are not used to the sight of pelicans trying to land on bendy branches and Alex gave a running commentary on their attempts, it was amusing, for us, probably not for the pelicans who were not meeting with much luck. There was a semi derelict structure called ‘the living beehive’ which had optimistically been built as a COP 17 legacy project. Unfortunately it required maintenance which clearly didn’t happen so although the underlying structure was still there all of the plants which had been intended to celebrate Durban’s local biodiversity and introduce new garden technology were not. Sad indictment really.

As we walked out of the gardens the rain came down with energy but Alex was determined to get a swim in before the end of the day. We drove down to the sea front only for Alex to discover that he had forgotten his swimming stuff. We had another consoling cup of coffee and went back to Graham and Brenda’s house for a rest. My foot really needed some time off the ground.

A house alarm was making a din nearby, seemingly for ages. Nobody seemed to do anything about it and occasionally it seemed to give up in exhaustion only to resume with renewed enthusiasm a couple of minutes later, so not much rest then.

We took Graham and Brenda out to dinner at a restaurant that they knew called Neo Café. It had Portuguese style cuisine, wonderful prawns and other seafood. Delicious! Graham and Beatrice assured us that the steak and kingklip were just as good.

A very nice day, not as sunny as it could have been but we enjoyed ourselves a lot.

7^th July – Tuesday – Day 11 (Beatrice)

Today is Daddy’s Birthday and we planned the day as he wished, even if the weather was not quite on our side. So after we presented the well-travelled gifts to him and he had his fun tinkering around with his new flashlight, we set off to have breakfast at Afro Chicken.

On our way there we gave our dirty clothing to a launderette off north beach, which was simultaneously a café and kiosk its name was quite imaginative “North beach Café and Takeaway (+Laundry)”. None the less they were very friendly, did a separate white wash and also offered ironing. Yet they did warn us not to be in a hurry. On that note we were off to a late breakfast.

Afro Chicken is a yellow container, with a nice wooden seating area set by the sea on South Beach. It does not have an extravagant menu, yet what is produces is of a great quality to a very good price! The atmosphere is incredibly relaxed as surfers or businessmen pop in for an egg and bacon roll or a quick coffee on the run.

Quite unlike me, who has a well-known sweet tooth, I ordered lemon chicken strips- rather fabulous actually! It was drizzling, but we were sheltered quite well from the most of it. All the time we kept seeing groups of children pass by in what was quite obviously school uniform, yet we could not make heads or tails of this since it was allegedly school holiday as well as mid-morning.

We took a quick detour to a pharmacy (of which there are many to choose from) to get an ankle brace for Mummy, jumped –or hobbled- back to the car and left for the harbour.
We walked into the building and asked the first cruise line what time they were leaving. Here the problem hit us; the question that would have been more to the point would have been: IF the boat’s cruise was going. Quite understandable, due to the bad weather conditions. Every boat has to have a minimum amount of passengers to go out of the harbour. We left Alex’ number at Sarie Marais boat’s cruise, since a minimum of 20 passengers seemed more obtainable than 25.

While we waited in anticipation, we had a coffee in a nearby café and enjoyed some of Alex’ Wi-Fi.

The call came and it was certain that we would have Daddy’s birthday wish! Both cruise lines teamed up to fill one boat. After some more waiting, we got onto the boat and were able to sit on the bow.

The tour was lovely! A guide took pictures of us as a family and gave us a fantastic detailed tour on the 6^th biggest harbour in the world and 1^st biggest in Africa.
Alex and I stood right in front, while we left the harbour into the ocean. We enjoyed the waves, while getting quite wet. My jeans were two toned and we had salt in our hair. Mummy and Daddy were sitting a safer distance away, with small children cowering behind them for protection. Two women, standing in front on the port side, were soaked to the bone, yet did not want to move to our side for some odd reason. It is rather awful yet I had to fight with myself not to burst out laughing, every time a wave thrashed against their already dripping bodies.

It was a very lovely hour long cruise. None the less we did not have time to relax let alone dry off completely and onwards we went to the Stadium.

Once there we found out that the SkyCar was still out of order, which was very unfortunate, due to Mummy’s swollen ankle. Daddy opted that Alex and I should do the Adventure walk, while he stays with Mummy at yet another café. Alex was lucky enough that daddy had brought a pair of closed shoes and which Alex could borrow, since closed shoes are necessary for the outing.

Alex and I were rather excited and joined a group of three others. We were harnessed up and took a little golf vehicle to the starting point. The stadium is a phenomenal feat of architecture and engineering! With its swooping arches and colourful interior it is quite a masterpiece. On one of these swooping arches there were stairs. 500 steps to be exact. We were attached to the railing and had to trail a rope next to us. Up was just physically tiring, but the view was most definitely worth it! The heart of Durban displayed at your feet it quite awe inspiring! I advise to go up on a cooler day, since the exercise does leave you slightly warm. Down was the challenging part. I am not scared of heights but my eyes did go slightly funny, when we came to the very steep descent. If you do not feel like walking down, you could just take the Guinness World Record’s highest swing. I personally see this as suicidal, but Alex would have been very keen, if it had not been for the extra costs.

We walked back to Mummy and Daddy and enjoyed our last chai latte at Nino’s. Suddenly we heard three loud booming noises. Everyone rushed out to have a better look (not the logical reaction of course), yet the street was covered in smoke and nothing could be seen. The security guard did not look shaken as he informed us, that the military was checking their canons. Slowly we made our way back home to rest up a bit before our next excursion.

About 2 hours later we were once again off, this time with Alex behind the wheel and me as the navigator. We picked up our freshly washed and dried clothing, by chucking the parents out and collecting them up again after turning around.

Alex drove us very well to “Vintage India”, a fantastic little Indian restaurant off Florida road. The service was excellent and we had a fabulous relaxed evening.
We started off with a complimentary meat platter, rotis and different sauces. Unfortunately the sauces were too hot for me, (or I too weak for the sauces), nevertheless the other three enjoyed it very much! I sipped my lassie, a yogurt based drink and studied the well organised menu. The menu not only offers a roster on which meat one would like to have with the curry, but also advises on how hot the meal is. We ordered a variety of dishes with naan and rice and tucked in! I tasted all of them, most blew me into orbit- but I really enjoyed the Korma and Butter-chicken. The others had nothing but praise for the other dishes and the restaurant had quite a few Indian customers, which must be a good thing.

When they figured out, that it was Daddy’s birthday, they presented us with Kulfi ice cream with a birthday candle. We ended the evening by all singing to Daddy. Last stop to Graham and Brenda and we all fell asleep in a trice. 

8^th July – Wednesday – Day 12 (Chris)

This was the morning we had to leave for St Lucia. We got up around 08h00 and by 09h15 the car we fully packed up. A final grateful embrace to dear Brenda and we were on the road. It is a sunny day again. First stop: shopping mall at Umhlanga Rocks. The navigational system was not perfect (no specific blame attached to anyone (others didn’t want to listen to instructions –Alex)) and after a few heated attempts we made it. Indeed this was a massive shopping mall, where we managed to get everything we had set out to get: first Alex cell phone battery, Cathy’s new sandals. Then we left Cathy at her nirvana: Exclusive Books, where she could also stock up for her book club and nurse her still painfully sprained ankle. In the meantime Beatrice advised me on an additional birthday present from the Body Shop for Cathy’s birthday the following day. Then Alex, Beatrice and me did a big shopping at Spar. Soon we were on the road again (after a bit of trial and error) on the big faultless motor way towards the north east. Toll road … we had to pay 3 times: R9; R11 and R37. A hearty brunch in the car while driving. At first the mainly the mono-culture of sugar cane changing gradually for blue gum forests.

Shortly after lunchtime we turned off at Mtubatuba for the final 35km to St Lucia. Here and there patches of virgin sub-tropical forest, complete with the ubiquitous vervet monkeys. In St Lucia we first drove down to the beach where Alex tried to swim, but the sea was rough and full of rip currents, so he did not get much out of that experience.

We found St Lucia well-stocked with street vendors doing pine apples, bananas, passion fruit and avos for a song. Also a medium size Spar, but still only ice cubes and no ice blocks. We finally found the restaurant that Graham had recommended to celebrate Cathy’s birthday the following day and had a drink there overlooking the thin end of the estuary (the estuary had last been open to the sea in 2006). Just a little bit further we found our camping site (Sugar Loaf) which is huge and was quite full, but there were enough empty sites to choose from, not too far from an ablution block. Soon we had found out that “there was a problem with the water system” and there were 5 litre plastic containers to refill the toilet cisterns. We were further told that this problem might persist for another 3 weeks … wonderful prospects for the next 3 days. By chance we found out later that night that the tap by our campsite had water, probably together with the whole camp. Certainly the toilet cisterns were refilling automatically later that night.

We had a meal of prawns and hake (Beatrice is not keen on prawns & avos) with cabbage salad and separate avo salad.

The ambient temperature around a modest 16 degrees with heavy dew during the night.

9^th July – Thursday – Day 13 (Alex)

Another morning another day, this one however is a very special one as it’s my mother’s Birthday! We woke up quite early, to bird song and sun shine, my tent only slightly damp from the night’s humidity, proof that my cover had worked. While my mother was having a bracing shower (her words), we made a fruit salad and my father made a fry-up all very delicious.

Then my mother returned to a laid and full table and of course her presents, a Basotho blanket from Beatrice and I and from my dad the other Basotho blanket, a head torch which my mother said was far too complicated and some products from the body shop (my father had bought a scented something that my mother found amusing as he didn’t like the smell and had purely bought it under Beatrice’s advice.
As it was a great day, we decided to head to Cape Vidal which is north from St.Lucia, on way we stopped at the park’s reception to get a car disk for the camp site and then also booked a boat cruise on the Mpate River for 15h00 this afternoon as it was after all a special day (with a camper’s discount and a pensioner’s discount which made it super cheap).
We drive into the park (Isimangaliso) for which we had to pay about R220 for all of us and the car. We’d been complaining about not having seen any animals yet and were excited to see a zebra not too far off, a while later a warthog, then more zebra, then even more zebra at every turn and nearly every animal we made out was a zebra. We came to a sign saying lookout point and so climbed a few very well made stairs and arrived at the lookout it had an awesome view and with the binoculars in hand had a debate whether the dark shapes in the lake were elephants or reeds?

They were most likely reeds, but don’t let my mother know she was right. Further along we encountered 3 white rhinos quite close to the road and completely peaceful why anyone would want to kill these wonderful animals is a mystery to me. Nearly at Cape Vidal saw a red duiker which one can only find in this part of the world and soon after we had arrived. There were loads of vervet-monkeys and even saw what we reckon to be a samango monkey or a giant vervet. The beach was absolutely teaming with people from GP (like our camp), so Afrikaans was to be heard everywhere, again beware of sharks and currents signs were scattered around. That doesn’t stop us though and after a bit of Frisbee  into the water we went, we had a good swim (could even do some body surfing, well 10m or so), clearly some were just being introduced to the ocean as they were very unsure of waves and others were learning how to use a boogie-board.
Back into car out of the park (about 32km) and on to the craft centre where the boat was to launch, as we had some time to kill so we had a quick late lunch and admired a mosaic of a map the area on the floor of the centre.

Then at 15h05, all aboard the Santa Lucia, then off we were. We decided to sit at the , behind a family with two little sons that reminded my mother of Beatrice and myself at that age (a bit of fighting was of course involved in that case), we bought a few drinks from the cash bar and enjoyed the cruise. Hippo soup is what I’d call the river as we counted about 116 of them, also waterbuck, 4 crocodiles, numerous goliath herons and egrets, on and on I can go, it was absolutely teaming with wildlife. The cruise was accompanied by a lovely sunset and a lively and great guide pointing out all the various things to see, this truly was a holiday. It got a bit chilly on the way back so take a jumper or jacket!

We decided to go back to the camp afterwards briefly to adjust and improve my tent cover as rain was predicted for the night and so Beatrice’s tent joined mine.
At about 6.30pm we walked to the ski boat club and were surprised to find it quite full and so the best tables (on the veranda) were taken, we decided to sit inside, order drinks and some starters and wait and hope that a table would clear. Just as the drinks were being served my father spotted people leaving and Beatrice raced and grabbed the table, the evening progressed really nicely. Our parents ordered a Kg of medium prawns which definitely kept them busy, we even had space for dessert (malva pudding definitely is a goodn), I can definitely recommend the “Ski Boat Club” if you’re hungry and don’t feel like cooking, good food, cold beer and nice waiters. As the evening drew to an end we made our way back to our camp, luckily/sadly not encountering any hippos. We quickly dispersed into our tents and thus ended a lovely day and hopefully a Birthday my mother will remember.
Luckily no rain that night!

10^th July – Friday – Day 14 (Cathy)

I awoke to some sad news, an old acquaintance, a long standing doyenne of choir singing in Namibia has died. It’s not such a surprise since she was no longer a spring chicken but still very sad. The choral singers of Windhoek are planning a special tribute to her. Neither Chris nor I will make it. A pity.

Last night we had no rain, although it was forecast – thank goodness! We wake to a brilliant sunny day and so we can think about beaches and sea rather than moping around in cafes having yet another cup of unsatisfactory coffee. We start to think optimistically about outdoor pursuits.

But first we are faced with the doubtfulness of the water supply here in St Lucia. Will the water be warm or cold in the shower? Will there be water at all? It makes one’s morning ablutions that bit more exciting. This morning one could really not say that the water was warm. Off-cold would be the best description, but the pressure was good. So no complaints since the morning was warming up.

We had fruit salad for breakfast again and this time I helped since I am no longer princess for the day. Then an omelette and we were ready for whatever Friday could throw at us. Clearly a beach was required but which one?

In the end we drove to the estuary beach. We parked and walked quite a distance over the sand to reach the sea. The waves looked very frisky and Beatrice let me know that there was a sign saying ‘swimming prohibited’. She told me this much later of course after she and Alex had been in the waves. I decided to go and have a look at the estuary. There were plenty of hippos in the water and plenty of hippo tracks all over even going into the dunes. Are they secret nocturnal surfers? I wondered. I then realised that the ski boat club is on the same estuary I thought those buildings looked familiar. We could have walked to the beach from the campsite. We had come on a really circuitous route to arrive at a beach about a 15 minute walk from our tents! Oh well you live and learn!

So despite the sign saying ‘swimming prohibited’ the kids played Frisbee and then – yes – swam but even Alex said the current was fierce. He had a scary moment when he was caught in the current and had to battle to swim out of it and he’s a very strong swimmer. So they rather jumped in the waves. There were small kids paddling which alarmed me, particularly when they were knocked over by force of the waves. There was lots of suction and at one point a little girl in a pink swimsuit was lifted by a wave and slammed onto the sand. Her Dad ran in and pulled her out. But the family’s reaction to the near disaster was an interesting study. Pink swimsuit girl was the middle child, a thankless position. Oldest child, a boy was left to his own devices but being the oldest was very prudent and not risking life and limb. His reward was to be ignored by his parents. Pink swimsuit was looking for attention and as a result experiencing the wrath of the sea. Youngest child on seeing her sister getting attention, as in being saved from drowning, yells for her mother who picks her up, ignoring pink swimsuit who sits alone on the beach, clearly in shock while her parents tend to her younger sister. A child psychologist’s dream. The kids tell me off for making comments out loud.

Chris and I read and watched the kids. I paddled a bit to cool down my sore ankle and Chris also went for a walk to the estuary to check out the hippos. Although walking on sand is much easier than walking anywhere else at the moment I didn’t join him, I’d walked enough (throbbing ankle – Lesotho – steps – say no more).

There were some clouds in the sky but not looking at all worrying, how nice that the weather forecast was wrong! As we left the beach Beatrice showed me the swimming prohibited sign. I’m quite glad that I didn’t see it earlier.

On the way back to the campsite for a late lunch we stopped at Spar to buy yoghurt and stuff for this evening. I’m on to cook and Beatrice and I decide to try out the spices that we bought at the Indian market from the nice lady. We also stopped at fruit market for the kids to buy the ingredients for tomorrow’s breakfast

Chris made a salad lunch which Beatrice said she didn’t want and then proceeded to make an impromptu salad from the same ingredients bar the avocado. The avocado was delicious, very sweet, a taste quite unlike the avocados that we buy in Windhoek.

In the early evening I marinade the chicken and then Chris and I decide to explore the estuary from the campsite side and as Alex had informed us we find a boardwalk that leads down to the beach where we were this morning. Most of the hippos are out of the water by this time and grazing on the banks. The few left in the water are grunting enthusiastically. We walk back towards the Ski Boat Club and stop for a sundowner, listening to the hippos and watching a kingfisher and two fish eagles hunting.

When we get back to camp the onions have all been peeled and chopped and the cauliflower has been blanched. Thank you Beatrice! Beatrice is about to cook noodles and after that I quickly put the chicken together with cauliflower and peas – the spices are really tasty. Thank you nice lady at the Indian market.

Tomorrow we leave for Swaziland – up early to pack up and set off. We all get into our tents with our books and settle down.

11^th July – Saturday – Day 15 (Beatrice)

Today started off great. The showers were running and hot, it had not rained and we had a glorious breakfast of fruit salad and the normal fry-up in the fabulous sunshine.

Please note that I said started great. Then almost everything went wrong all at once (dramatic music). We packed the car and were ready for off, when Daddy realised he had forgotten the car key in his foldable chair. We tried to open the back door, but the automatic locking system had kicked in and the chairs could not easily be reached from the front. Annoyed, yet not even suspecting what still lay ahead, Alex scrambled under the car to retrieve our spare key, he had expertly hidden there in Windhoek. We all sighed in relief- oh how naïve we were. The back door still refused to open, even after our attempt at using the spare key.
We contemplated that there must be something stuck behind the opening mechanism. So Alex unpacked half the car, accidently ripped the muesli package open, spilling the contents onto the wet car floor, because the cooler had been drained moments earlier. Poor Alex looked like he had been fighting with the cookie monster in a sauna. This my dear readers is just the merest tip of the ice berg.

Daddy had the storing unit designed, so that nothing would move, rattle or clink. In theory great, just a tad problem in this situation, since, well; we could not move anything from the front. Once again poor Alex crawled in with a head torch and appropriate tools to unscrew bolts and planks, throwing the odd bowl or t-shirt in our general direction for us to catch and repack. Alex emerged from the depth of the car having completely freed the opening mechanism, but all his efforts had sadly not made an impact on the overall situation. The back door refused to budge. Hopefully, we tried to open the door by using the old now retrieved key- completely in vain, but it was worth a try. We unpacked the car fully and Daddy and Alex left for town to find a garage, while Mummy and I guarded all our belongings. I felt like I was in an intrepid movie, fending off the HQ from the blasted vervet monkeys with nothing more than two stones and a ketti (slingshot). I am sure we could make a good film out of that.

Did I say that Daddy and Alex left in search of a garage? Sorry, let me rephrase that; Daddy and Alex tried to leave. Emphasis on ‘tried’. The engine refused to start. We assume low battery, due to the overuse of the transformer. I flagged down the next car that drove past and asked them for help; little did I know, that I was looking into the face of our ultimate saviour. Johan quickly drove back to his camp to get the jump leads, since ours, being fabulously stored, were absolutely inaccessible.

As promised Johan, came back with his jump leads and two very friendly daughters. We got the engine started in a trice. This did not make the back door open. Johan very kindly made some calls to mechanics who might know how to solve our problem, without much success. Meanwhile Alex rummaged back into the depths of the car, so that only his feet were visible, and managed to reach and activate the manual override. The door flew open. Fantastic! But it was unfortunately only a short term solution.
Johann, Alex and Daddy opened the cardboard cover of the inside of the door and looked at the mechanics and electric work, while I handed them the appropriate tools and held the screws. Mummy on the other hand was calming her nerves down by doing crossword puzzles and protecting the fruit from the vervet monkeys.
Johan realised that the cable from the door to the electrical circuit had come loose, therefore interfering with the overall signal. After trying around, they found the problem. One small plastic socket had popped out and had managed to cause so much frustration and work. They placed it back and Eureka, it worked!

Soon we were packed up again, had thanked Johan profusely and after doing a bit of shopping left for a hopefully uneventful journey to Swaziland.