The great white shiver

As it turned out we did get our shark dive after-all. We headed from Oudsthoorn to Mossel Bay after a tip that the area was more sheltered and we might get out for a look at the sharks. We headed out on Friday afternoon to a small island seal colony not far off shore. Water temp was a nice chilly 15 degrees so cage time was limited by how long you could shiver for! We saw about half a dozen great whites - I managed to score pole position and had a couple try and stick their head in the cage about 2 inches in front of my face. They weren't massive, but at that range they were big enough. The vis wasn't fantastic but it was still pretty cool to be in the water with them.

From there we headed up to Addo Elephant Park for our first wildlife viewing. Was good fun driving around spotting critters. Not surprisingly there were plenty of elephant, but also lots of Kudu, jackels, meer cats, wart hogs etc. Nicole wouldn't let me chase the wart hogs in our Yaris, but I definately think we should get them in Aust as they are way cooler than our feral porkers. The SA parks kick arse and they should send our parks crew over here to have a look at how the Africans do things.

We have headed quite a few hundered km north now and are in the Drakensburg Mountains after a dodgy overnight in Mthatha. We arrived in the dark and all the razor wire/electric fences (more than we had seen elsewhere - which is a lot) didn't inspire confidence. We found a good backpackers with razor wire and guard dogs and it was all good.

Taking a tour tomorrow into Lesotho which hopefully will be good. Have to get back to my beer now. Will update again shortly. KT.

You should have been here yesterday....

We are currently in the ostrich capital of the world - in the cyber-ostrich internet cafe. Apparently they have ostrich biltong here somewhere. So far we have eaten more animals than we have seen, kudu being my favourite to date, but with some game parks to visit in the next few days I will have to keep my eyes open for more biltong varieties to sample. After Brian's reports of what happens from trying to eat a whole scrambled ostrich egg I might give that a miss though.

Our first day in Capetown we headed straight to Table Mtn only to be told the cable car was on its first day of a 1 month scheduled shut-down. Being the ultra athletes we are we decided we had better walk up instead - I can nearly use my legs again now which is handy as there is no room for a wheel chair in our Toyota Yaris. Still, the view from the top was fantastic and well worth the pain. We then headed inland and camped in the mountains - which was beautiful if a touch cold - before heading down to Gansbaai to go shark diving. We arrived with a cold front to be told that there were no boats going out for a few days as it was going to be too rough - they had seen heaps of sharks that morning though....

In order to keep my Uncle Rab happy, in addition to climbing Table Mountain, we have also visited the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Argulas, the most southerly point in Africa. I have also learnt that speed signs in Africa refer to a minimum, rather than maximum, speed and that hats/water on mountain climbs are clearly only for Aussie idiots.

All in all though we are having a great time. SA is a fantastic country, the people are very very friendly and no one has even shot at us yet.

In Africa!

We have arrived safely in Jo'berg. Flight was fine and stayed in a nice B&B last night. Currently in the airport awiating our flight to Cape Town. Was pretty cold here last night, down around 0 degrees. Can't wait until we start camping and have to use outdoor toilet blocks! Brrrr.