Once, twice, three times a **** up?
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2007
1
7
21
Trip End
May 21, 2008
Perth, Australia
Friday, December 21, 2007
So imagine my surprise when checking in at Jo'Burg aiport only to find that Tim wasn't booked on my flight. His left the day after according to the helpful man at the desk. Memories of booking bus tickets around South Africa in the wrong direction came flooding back. Tim had pulled another fantastic **** up out of the bag, I honestly don't know how he does it. Luckily for him (perhaps not for me) they found him a spare seat after all and the rtw juggernaut was back on track. We were on our way to Australia. An important lesson though Tim - a spreadsheet is only useful if it has the right information on it.
Another day in the Berg
We spent the previous evening trying our hand at living the high life in the local casino. I strolled up to the roulette table, bought myself in with a crisp one hundred rand note and just minutes later walked away with a two hundred rand note nestled in my wallet. I'm in the process of re-routing my ticket to Vegas on the way home as we speak. Even Tim managed to leave the casino at evens, pretty good for somebody with the IQ equalling Homer Simpson.
Our image was helped by the fact that we were spending the night in a four star hotel, courtesy of a friend of Tim's. Of course we didn't tell anybody else that the room was free, the beer was free, our three course dinner was free and the aiport pick up was free. In fact, the only person who expected any money was the porter for carrying our bags five paces down the hallway. I slipped a fifty into his palm before he could even blink, gave him a wink and told him to buy his wife something nice. Real life is just like the movies sometimes.
It's not all been the high life though, we spent the last week hiking our way through the Drakensberg Mountains. On one of the days we took a side trip to Lesotho. Ok hands up whose heard of Lesotho? No looking at an atlas
The straight road to nowhere
. Dad you can take your hand down...anybody? Anybody else? Don't worry if you haven't because they probably haven't heard of you either - there were no phones where we went. Nor were there any roads which would have been fine had we not been driven there in a rickety mini bus. We drank Sotho beer and lamented the fact that we didn't get a stamp for entering the country. Still, on a serious note it was a good experience and quite humbling at times how friendly the people were.
So what have I learnt from my time in SA? I could bore you with a great deal of observations but I'll leave most of that until the conversation has dried up at the cow, which is code for I can't be bothered to write much more because it's sunny outside.
We leave Perth in a few days to Melbourne, home of Neighbours and a lot of Greek people apparently. I just hope Tim realises before it's too late that his national rail ticket from Perth, Scotland to Melbourne, Derbyshire isn't valid for cross country travel through Australia.
Pete
