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Hi everyone! Hope you are good - obviously not too good though cause you are all missing us so much! Lol. We are currently at Denise's house clock watching as we leave for AUSTRALIA in about 6 hours! Scary stuff! Will give you all a quick run through of what we have been up to; although it's been a while since we've written a blog so it may take a while to remember…
Friday 7th March - we were incredibly lazy today! We spent the whole time watching movies and swimming in the pool! Woops! Never mind - we had fun anyway! Incidentally, Dan is now a Star Wars convert - go Bekki!! In the evening we went to a charity quiz night and had the most GORGEOUS curry ever! Plus stopped off at a pub on the way home for another drink. We found it very strange that we now say 'I'll wait outside in the warm' instead of 'I'll wait Inside in the warm'!!
Saturday was fantastic! Janet dropped us off at uShaka - it is a water park and aquarium type place! We spent the morning on all the water slides (Dan braved the tallest slide in the South Africa but Bekki chickened out - hated the slide below it so wouldn't brave the highest!). After lunch we went over to the marine world where we watched a dolphin show & a sealion show. The dolphin show was soooo amazing! Brilliant creatures, they really are! The sealion show was designed for children more and was quite cheesy (Dan did NOT enjoy it!) but Bekki thought it was well funny! We also walked around the aquarium and watched the penguins being fed. Went back to the Wet'n'Wild place for a few (well a lot) more slides! There are a few shops at the exit and we spotted a tattoo and piercing place…and thought 'why not?!' Look at our piccis and you will see the results! Hope you like them!! Went out in the evening to karaoke - apparently lots of people sing Afrikaans songs so we could get to know some of the culture! SA karaoke is a lot different to English karaoke - the people can sing!!! Really well! So well that we refused to try our hand at the microphone! We were asked by a couple of guys to join them across the road at a club for a while so we, along with Janet and Sandy, went over with them. Were bought the most disgusting shots and had great fun dancing in a Durban club! Everyone dances just as rubbish as English clubs - the difference is the guys are NOT drunken louts trying to jump into bed with every girl he meets and going AREET BUYS every 5 seconds!!!
Sunday was another amazing day! We went with Janet and Sandy over to Karkloof to do a canopy tour!!! OH MY GOD! I (Bekki) have never been so terrified and excited at the same time! Petrified of heights and we were sliding from tree to tree over 35m ABOVE the forest canopy!!! Pretty damn scary - but fantastic views!! After this adrenaline rush we went to a lion park (a bit like the lion part of Longleat) where we saw 14 gorgeous lions! They are soooo amazing and adorable! They loved car tyres though so every time they moved towards the car we had to drive further on! We also got too see a bit of kitty action - not the most coy of all animals! We also visited a small zoo where half the animals used to be in a circus. Quite sad actually - the cages were tiny and they all looked depressed and lonely. Especially Roy - the orang-utan (we named him Roy because he reminded us of a guy we met at Nkosi Zondi's party!! Poor guy!).
Monday was pretty laid back - Janet took us out to lunch at some little outside shops - very pretty little place. Then we went to the Pavillion shopping centre so Janet could buy her neice and nephew a birthday prezzi for the weekend.
Tuesday was a strange experience - the evening was anyway! During the day Janet took us down to the South coast of Durban (near a place called Dududu - hehehe!!) where we went to a crocodile farm! We had missed the feeding and tour of the breeding place but we asked at reception if we could see the babies and a guy took us for our own tour!! Great! So we watched the young ones being fed, saw a horse being skinned (their dinner!) and saw the tiny hatchlings!! Had a gorgeous lunch of... CROCODILE!! We had a croc burger, a croc kebab & a croc pie between us - very nice! Tastes like a mix between fish & chicken! Went to a beach for an hour or so then travelled back to Jan & Brian's to get ready for quiz night! We are total converts now - we will be looking for quiz nights in Plymouth when we get back… how sad! It started raining soooo hard and had a massive storm while we were at the quiz! So bad that we couldn't leave as we couldn't drive in that weather! Pub quiz was great - drank alcoholic milkshakes and slush puppies; what could be better?! After 2 hours of constant thunder and lighting like a flickering light bulb (baring in mind that the average storm in their rainy season lasts about half an hour then clears!), it had calmed down enough for us to brave it! Sandy was driving with Janet in the front and we were in the back with Shirley. So to set the scene, we were in a tiny low Subaru… Almost all the roads were flooded and had tons of mud over them! We got part way down the freeway and notice all the cars driving towards us! The road had completely flooded up ahead so we had to make a U-turn in the middle of the freeway! We tried many different routes - all of which were blocked! We stopped for petrol in an extremely dodgy area cause we were about to run out. All along the 3 or so different routs back in to the centre of Durban were completely submerged card and lorries and to make it all better the lightening had struck the oil refinery near by so we had 3 blazing funnels ofoil in the distance. Failing miserably to get home we decided it would be a lot safer to drive back to Carro & Allan's house which is over in Toti (the pub with the quiz is also here). After an hour or so, Sandy's dad came and we followed him down some random back-roads that were still okay and we arrived back at about 3am!!
Slept in for ages on Wednesday (I think we deserved it lol) but didn't do much else. We had planned to go to North beach again but it was such a miserable day we were stuck indoors! Never mind! Still went out in the evening to Jan & Brian's bowling league and went for dinner over the road were we got annoyed with the waiter over tipping. They automatically add 10% to the bill when it goes over R100 and don't write it down-they leave you to add it on even though it's compulsory! Charming! Well being broke students from England we were very good at getting angry and complaining to each other then doing feck all about it! Haha! Any who, had a game of bowling back at the alley then went to get a drink and bumped in to…… our waiter!! He asked us to play a game of pool with him so we did! Well, Dan did. Then Bekki tried and made an arse of herself! First time at playing pool and was hopeless! But he was really nice and attempted to teach me! As did everyone in the bar! So embarrassing! The crowd was gradually getting bigger and bigger as they watched me waving my cue around, missing every ball!! Great fun though!
Thursday we spent packing and saying goodbye as we left late afternoon for Jo'burg. Bekki & Jan were squashed in the back seats of the Bukky (they are half as long as normal seats so our legs were at awkward angles! Arrived at Denise's house (Janet's mum) at about midnight.
Travelled over to Sue (Jan's sister) & Graham's house on Friday morning - oh my god! It is massive and so neat and tidy! Big swimming pool, very modern and clean. We did not fit in! haha just kiddin! In the afternoon they all took us shopping and out for lunch as Brian and his brother in-laws played golf. They are very serious about this. Dan was invited along as the coolbox carrier, but thought the idea of food in a restaurant sounded so much more appealing!!!
The evening was very good. We all had a braai (South African BBQ) ate lots of meat-incidentally South African hate veggies and like to eat meat of the bone, raw (Biltong) or in a giant sausage (Boerworse)! Loads of Sue and Grahams friends came over and we both spent the evening drinking and being used as horsies… for the kids not for Sue and Graham! It's was so fun but very tiring having to clip clop along their lawn with a load of little guys having from your neck! Hehe! But we really enjoyed our selves-all the Gillespie grandchildren are sooo cute! Vonnie (Dave Drury's worst nightmare) had, and I'm sure he'll be glad to hear this, totally forgotten him! She now Dan's admirer! As she has grown up so much! Beautiful, tall, long blonde hair! You'll regret going back to England when you see the pictures! Loulou has grown up a lot too and is a very pretty little girl! Then there is Robyn and Luke- the two most adorable kids I-they live in a area where they go to an Africaans school-so a lot of the English they are exposed to is from T.V. and they have a mixture of American and South Africa accents and when the can't pronounces their L's yet and say Bawoon instead of Balloon-it's soooo cute!!! That we spent playing with the kids and being a walking fun ride!
The next day we went to Gold Reef City! AMAZING! Big theme park type thing - like alton towers but smaller. Unfortunately the weather kept getting rainy then sunny again so not all of the rides were open. But we still managed to get on most things. The mine underneath the park was closed for renovation so we couldn't see this either. Dan loved the big rides - especially Anacoda - but Bekki was a big wimp (as usual!) and went on the tame rides! We left just in time as the rain started pouring down! Went back to Patrick's (Jan's brother) house (with us in the boot as there was too many people for one car!!) for drinking and taco's in the evening! Bekki now drinks anything she is given - was drinking whisky and water!! Strangeness… Travelled back to Denises house for the night.
Sunday we slept in a bit then went to the Spur for lunch for the kids birthdays. There were about 40 of us - took up half the restaurant for 3½ hours!! Dan had the most gorgeous lamb shank and Bekki ate the chilli nachos with chicken and jalapenos! Well nice food! Plus the birthday cakes were adorable! Robin (5) had a Barbie cake - an actual Barbie in the middle and the cake was her purple sparkly dress! Nicholas (2) had a train with bright blue icing and biscuits for wheels! Said goodbye to Janet and Brian afterwards as they headed back to Durban!! Quite sad really! Went back to Patrick's again afterwards for further drinking! This time we both ended up with brandy and coke & orange wine! Orange wine was horrid - tasted like sherry! Slept round Denise's house again along with Ali, Leon & their kids Robin & Luke (we wanted to take them home with us they are soooo adorable!).
And here we are now!! Spent the morning playing police with Luke & Robin, said goodbye & packed!! NOT looking forward to the flight (well Bekki isn't lol). Not sure when we will next be writing so take care everyone! Hopefully won't be too long!
Love you all
Gugu & Sambane
x x xx x x
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