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The following morning we continued our short drive south onto Orange River, the natural land border between South Africa and Namibia. The campsite was on the banks of the Orange River and we had a relaxing time soaking up the sun and swimming in the ohhh so cold river, it really did take your breath away. After dinner we retired to the bar for a few drinks, card games and then onto drinking games, naturally. Kevin introduced us to flip cup - basically there are 4 of you lined up against another 4. Each of you have a cup of beer to scull and then you have to flip your cup from up side down to standing up on the bar with just your finger and then onto the next person until the whole team of 4 have finished, the first to finish is the winner. Shannene ended up being the teams secret weapon, reckon that was just down to her being not as drunk as the others though!! What a great game. We ended up going to bed once the dare and truth game started up (always a good move). We were lying in our tent listening to the music and carry on at the bar when we heard whispers outside and giggling, Adam and Rachael's tent was the target of the evening. A few of them had decided to move their tent without them knowing about it. We thought we'd stay up and listen to see what happened next. We heard Adam saying "where's our tent?", he was really confused and in his drunken state he thought ours was their tent as it was next door to where their tent was originally. He started to unzip our tent, but Guy yelled out "no this is our tent". Adam really thought he was getting into his own tent and then thought that we had hijacked his tent and convinced Rachael that we had as well and she came knocking trying to get us out. Finally they realised that their tent had been moved, which they eventually found and had to drag back as it was quite some distance away. The inside of their tent was like a hurricane had hit, no idea how they managed sleep in it.
The following morning we headed to Cederberg, driving through the beautiful wine growing regions of Namaqualand and Ceres. The region is well known for its prolific display of Namaqua wildflowers that occur each spring. That night we spent at a campsite in the Cederberg area where the neighbouring wine farm provided us an opportunity for wine tasting. The wine was very nice, we sat around a table and a man gave us a presentation on the wine and how we are to drink and taste it. There was a spit bucket but no one used it, surprise surprise. Instead of the presenter coming around with the bottle and giving us all a taste in our glass he gave us the bottles to pass around and fill our own up. Big mistake!! To start off with we poured the first glass the two finger level, although Guy's fingers are way bigger than Shannene's so not sure how that is fair. But by the end of it we were pouring half a glass and more, we even ran out on one round and he had to open some more bottles. We carried onto the bar afterwards as the bottles of wine were for sale and then that's when Charity's "Therapist" game began - it's a little bit involved, remind us to tell you about it sometime, it was complicated but a lot of fun. The following morning came a few sore heads, but Cape Town was in our sights. A half day's drive through the citrus growing region of Citrusdal and over the Piketberg pass and we made it to Cape Town the last city in our tour and no more camping - yah!! We ended the tour at Ashanti Lodge, in dormitory accommodation and it has to be one of the best hostels we've stayed at. That night we all went out as a group to a game restaurant and Guy had crocodile a starter, and a mixed grill for a main consisting of ostrich, kudu, springbok and oryx- a meat fest !! We carried on after dinner to a a couple of bars and what do you know, the first night out in Cape Town and Shannene gets her bag stolen - her bag which contains our passports and her credit and debit cards - great !! The bar we were at had pool tables and a dance floor. Guy was playing pool and Shannene wanted to dance, so she gave her bag to Guy while she hit the dance floor. He was standing with a group of friends with a leaning post/table behind them which is where the bag was, directly behind Guy. He saw 2 strangers come and stand beside him, he looked back to talk to someone and 2 seconds later he noticed the strangers had gone and he turned around and saw the bag was gone too. He bolted down the stairs and saw a woman with the bag, he just said "give the f'ing bag back" and she did and said sorry. Thankfully everything was still in it and Shannene was still dancing oblivious to what had just happened. Obviously this story is going to get exaggerated each time we tell it -the guy was really six foot tall and built like a brick sh!t house, you should have seen what damage Guy did to him!! Guy really was the hero of the night though.
The following day, Saturday, saw the Tri Nations game, New Zealand vs South Africa, which we went to a bar called Mitchells along the Waterfront to watch. What a great result, but not so sure about some of the ref's decisions. There were only a handful of Kiwi's in the bar, but we sure did get some stick from the SA's over Dan Carter's miss conversions (Guy had just praised Dan's kicking skills to our Canadian friend Kevin who had no idea what was going on during the game, when he proceeded to miss all of them). But the SA's in the bar were eating their words when we finally won the game, they all went pretty quiet. We had a quiet Saturday night as we were still recovering from Friday's partying. Sunday we went up early to Table Mountain with Todd, we got there around 9am. There was only a 20min wait but when we came down the queue was huge, glad we made the effort to get up early. The view was incredible, not a cloud in the sky. Sometimes the clouds can come in and cover the mountain which they call the table cloth, but we had an awesome day. We took the cable car up and down (you can walk up or down if you want, takes about 2hours), but the cable car is an experience on its own - the inside of the car swivels around 360 degrees so everyone gets a great view. After the cable car we met Shannene's friend Hayley from New Zealand who has married a South African Williem and is now living in Port Elizabeth (they were in Cape Town for the rugby game, they went to the actual game) so we caught up for lunch. They took us on a tiki tour around the town and then we went for lunch along the Waterfront. It was really nice to catch up with Hayley and meet her hubby Williem and their friends, we both had fantastic arvo. Monday we checked out of the Ashanti Lodge and moved to the Ritz (fancy nancy !!) well not "the Ritz" as we know it in London but a 3-4 star hotel which was about the same price as the hostel for our own room with a double bed and included breakfast - bargain!! The same day was Adam's 30th birthday so we all went out for dinner that evening to celebrate. We wandered down the road and decided on the first restaurant we came to. There was a group of 15 of us, they tried to put us out the back, but as it had no roof, an outside table it was quite cold so we asked if we could be moved inside, they got a table ready for us. It wasn't until we were looking at the menu and came across some unusual adverts (naked men in stiletto heals) that we realised that we were sitting in a gay/lesbian restaurant (no wonder they wanted to put us out the back). We promised Adam that we would never speak of it again, but we couldn't help it - yes Adam you spent your 30th in a gay restaurant, we hope you had a great time, because we did. The following day we did a tour of Rubben Island where Nelson Mandella was imprisoned. Tuesday we hired a car with Adam, Rachael, Vicky and Kevin. We drove to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, stopping off at Simons Town along the way where we just by chance spotted some whales, one of them dived out of the water, quite spectacular. Not sure if any of us were quick enough on the trigger finger to snap a photo though. The Cape was unbelieveabley windy, kind of surprising none of us got blown off the cliff. On the way we also saw the fattest seal ever, not sure if the RSPCA would be happy with poor old Pretty Boy. You paid R10 to get your photo taken with him and of course you had to feed him a fish, so now you can see the reason why he is so fat. On the way back we stopped off for fish and chips - yummo. The rest of the week was spent chilling out and saying good bye to people from our tour. We had such a great time it was really sad to see everyone go, but with Facebook it makes it that much easier to stay in touch. Thanks to everyone for such a fab time and remember to look us up whenever you're in NZ - our back yard is open for tents !!
Our next stop in South Africa was Durban where we stayed with our friends Leigh, Glynn and their baby girl Emily. It was so nice to hang out with friends, stay in a proper house, in a proper bed and do some much needed washing. The first night we went out to Glynn's brother Kevin's restaurant, Splashes. The menu was amazing, had everything you could imagine from sushi to steak to pasta to seafood. It sure was hard to decide on what to eat - Shannene recomends the calamari and Guy recomends the ribs if you're ever in town. After dinner we ended up at a couple of classy establishments that the names now we can't remember (Leigh you'll have to remind us) or maybe it was too many springboks and jeigerbombs that we can't remember. We do remember the bar/club had a surprising amount of old age singles/divorcees. The rest of the time was spent recovering from our hangover from Friday nights shinanagans, trying to catch up on our blog, chilling out and organising our Chinese visas which unfortunatley to date we haven't been able to do. We've been advised that we should be able to sort them out in Mongolia, so fingers crossed, otherwise we'll be changing our travel plans. It was so nice to finally meet Emily who is such a little Angel, we hope to meet her again real soon. Leigh and Glynn thanks so much for a wonderful time, we love your house, even with it's fortknox security and electric fences surrounding it. Next stop on our trip is Moscow, but not before we fly from Durban to J'burg, then to Heathrow to catch our connecting flight to Moscow - 24 hours of traveling, oh joy !!
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