Andy & Gillie's Big Adventure!: January 2019

Having proposed one more blog post before Christmas, we sadly failed to deliver. [by the way, the top line of the keyboard – qwertyuiop – seems to have decided to go awol at intermittent and extremely inconvenient moments and we have to sit patiently swearing at it for varying lengths of time until it unexpectedly decides to play nice again – for a while - so the actual mechanics of writing this are infuriating to say the least – ed.]

Our last few days in Southern Africa were, well, eventful, to say the least. We left our dear reader en route to the train station in Cape Town and about to board the Shosholoza Meyl Premiere Classe overnight train to Johannesburg. We had booked this months previously and promised ourselves a little bit of Orient Express-style luxury before leaving the continent.

All went well to start with: we boarded on time and set off out of CT guzzling bubbles and little snacks as we settled in to our 24-hour journey across the country. We stopped in Matjiesfontein to stretch our legs and have a quick look at the transport museum, exhibiting cars that would only be found in a breaker’s yard in the UK. We discovered during the afternoon that there were only 17 passengers on the entire train. There were probably at least that many staff and the train was about 14 carriages long, plus lounges and kitchen carriage. We wondered how it could function profitably, but found out that it was full of honeymooners on the return route. They probably wouldn’t notice the rocking and rolling…

Afternoon tea and a very nice dinner passed and we turned in for the night. Not easy to sleep as, although the movement was quite soothing, it was very noisy. Thankfully, the noise stopped at about 5 am when the train came to a halt. And stayed at a halt. When we surfaced for breakfast at about 7.30, we discovered that the train could go no further ‘for the moment’ as the overhead cables by which it was powered had been stolen further up the track.

Plans were apparently afoot for a diesel engine to shunt us the last leg (we were about four hours from Johannesburg at this point). This never materialized and the information became increasingly hazy. We did discover that two minibuses, total capacity 14 pax, had been dispatched at different times from Jo’burg to come and bring us in. No one offered any solution to how to transport the remaining three passengers and however many staff to the final destination. People were missing onward flights and all sorts. Nobody should be around Johannesburg train station after dark, we had been regularly advised…

Anyway, after much confusion, we found ourselves on the second minibus, which brought us to Jo’burg a mere nine hours behind schedule, but we were dropped off at our welcoming Airbnb and went to bed a bit dazed and confused.

Our plan the next day was to catch the hop on-hop off sightseeing bus around Johannesburg and stop off at the Apartheid Museum. This worked almost better than we could have hoped, as when we hopped on our connecting bus at Constitution Hill, we joined an end of year party in full swing on the top deck. Never the types to worry too much about suns and yardarms, we happily accepted the cold beers they thrust into our hands and joined in.

We did stop off at the Apartheid Museum as our party had already disembarked and there was no incentive to stay on…no seriously we wanted to see it. The museum is very comprehensive, informative and thought-provoking and we spent a very interesting afternoon there before catching our last connection back to the city centre. All the staff at the final bus stop in central Jo’burg were very concerned to make sure that we had arranged onward transport to our accommodation and stayed with us (it was still light – two hours or so before sunset) until our Uber arrived. Nothing but praise for CitySightseeing Johannesburg.

The following day we were up early and made it to the airport to pick up a pre-booked hire car to drive to Gaborone, capital of Botswana – in case you didn’t know. The reason for this little excursion will be come clear anon. It was going to take us about four and a half hours, so we were happy to get on the road early. We arrived at the border without incident and proceeded to start the process of leaving one country and entering another. Gillie has something to say about this later, so will leave it to her.

Anyway, we got through immigration and customs on the South African side and came to the final checkpoint into Botswana – only 25 or so kilometres from our accommodation in Gaborone. It was about 4 pm. The very nice policeman on border duty asked us where the letter from the hire company - giving us permission to take the car over a national border – was. What letter? If you don’t have a letter, the tracker will report the car stolen as soon as you cross into Botswana. Short story long etc. after several phone calls (‘airtime’ credit very low), misunderstood email addresses, instructions to go to the nearest Budget office (probably about 200 kilometres away – this is Friday afternoon), we finally got across the border. Phew. Our travails didn’t end there – more follows…

A short drive and we reached Gabs, but the adventures didn’t stop there. Oh no, not by a long way. We didn’t have the exact address of our Airbnb, but had been told it was easy to find. It wasn’t. By now it was dark – 8 pm ish – and we were a tad lost. We asked some very nice young men hanging around on a street corner smoking healthy herbal cigarettes and after several phone calls to our host – who was out at a Christmas party – followed a small tank to our compound.

All was well? No, not really. We had no food and more importantly no beer (it’s Friday night, don’t forget) and the accommodation was like a sauna, and a scruffy sauna at that. Undeterred, we set off on another intrepid excursion to the nearest shopping mall – like something out of ‘The Deer Hunter’, but in Africa - and found some fish fingers and broccoli – and beer.

After eating our nutritious meal and drinking the nutritious beer, we decided that two nights in Gaborone was at least one night too many, so decided to cut our losses and head back to Johannesburg the next day after we had completed the reason for the trip in the first place – which was a half-day literary tour of the city taking in many of the sights made famous by Alexander McCall Smith’s No1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book series, much loved by Gillie, who has devoured most of them and quoted many passages during our travels.

Obviously, much depended on this tour and thankfully, we weren’t disappointed. Our guide, Andrew, picked us up at the appointed time and we had a very enjoyable few hours seeing the sights of Gaborone and identifying many spots made famous by the books. We also met the bishop (Bishop?) of Gaborone – a rotund and cheerful gentleman who made us feel very welcome.

As soon as we were dropped off back at our accommodation, we loaded the car and scarpered. We never saw our host and needless to say, weren’t forthcoming with a particularly positive review. Back in Jo’burg, we arrived at a lovely Airbnb and spent the evening sitting in their delightful back garden, drinking a very nice Merlot and playing the ukulele (well Andy did – Gillie had to suffer it!).

We had a last night in Africa on the Sunday back at our original Airbnb, where we experienced a spectacular storm during dinner, then made our way to the airport in plenty of time for the flight to Sydney.

That part of the journey, thankfully, was uneventful, and Holly and Craig – Emily’s boyfriend - met us at Sydney airport. It is lovely to be back with the family again.

South Africa is a country that seems unsure of itself. There has only been majority rule for 20 years and the white population feels constantly under threat – high walled compounds with electrified fences and armed response security, mostly operated by black people – and apparently being deserted by educated young whites at a rate of knots.

We got the impression that many parts of the country and cities were very much no-go areas for whites, not just after dark. It has a constant edge and we couldn’t help feeling in some way responsible – as representatives of the white British colonial past – for the current precarious state of affairs. Hopefully, the country will settle and in a couple of generations will be able to set an example to other parts of Africa – particularly Zimbabwe – of how to run a democracy.

We have enjoyed glorious sunshine and very high temperatures so far while we have been in Sydney and have spent many happy hours on the beach at Manly where we have been house sitting and looking after a lovely Speagle (Spaniel/Beagle mix) puppy, as well as a scorching Christmas Day with lunch for nine and a sweltering day at the cricket, watching Australia’s bowlers struggle against Indian batting. We also managed to catch up with Jen and Zak - two lovely young people we met on safari in Namibia, who happened to be staying in the same street as us in Manly - and watched ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ under the stars (and bats). Hope you don’t mind all the references to sunshine and sea etc…

Will fill you in on any adventures in Oz, plus our time in Bali in the next post.

Only 350 more shopping days to Christmas. Happy New Year all.

P.S. Happy New Year from me as well. We enjoyed the fireworks both here and in London. It’s the start of a lovely shiny new year yet I’ve still got lots of bees still in my bonnet. Readers of our 2014-16 blog will know about the ‘lemon’ situation in Australia and how the cost of them made me very cross. Well the other day I was in Coles (the Oz equivalent of Sainsbury’s) and they were charging $2 for one lemon!!!!!! The exchange rate at the moment is about $1.80 to the pound so just work it out. I have NEVER paid more than 30 pence for a lemon in the UK! Emily says it’s because they are out of season but my argument is that this country is so big that it must have every sort of climate therefore lemons will be growing somewhere (if you know what I mean!) [No – ed]. Phew! that’s better…however I do love it here so I just have to put ‘lemongate’ to the back of my mind and enjoy all the wonderfulness of this amazing country.

My other bee is the lack of information on how to proceed at the border when entering Botswana. It was boiling hot and 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon. The world and his wife were trying to enter Botswana and cram into a tiny room to show their passports. After queuing for what seemed hours and finally getting the necessary stamp we left the queue only to discover that we had to join the same queue again to get a gate pass to allow us to drive through!! After this we attempted to cross the border only to be told we had to join another queue to pay 150 pula for the privilege. Now if only they had a big printed sign outside the customs office detailing the procedure everyone’s life would be much easier.

End of moans…because really we are soooo lucky to be experiencing all these quirky things that make travelling so interesting and exciting and on that note I will bid you all goodbye until the next time. Much love to all G. xxxxxx