Chillin' in Port Macquarie

Thanks to my wonderful Qantas airpoints, I managed to get a short trip in to Port Macquarie to see Chloe, Israel and Alana on my way to London. I love the little planes that take you up there - there's really something about seeing the propeller whizzing around so fast until it becomes see-through which helps you imagine how it must have been like flying in 'the olden days'.

Chloe et al live in a great house which borders a huge reserve on two sides - full of kookaburra and frogs (which I heard), kangaroo (which I saw) and snakes (which, thankfully, I neither heard nor saw). Maybe the presence of Indie, their boisterous bull terrier puppy helps to scare them off! It was such a nice, chilled visit. We basically just hung out playing with Alana who's now eight and a half months old and cute as a button (particularly the hands and feet which rotate around like crazy whenever she's happy or there's food nearby - that generally makes me happy too so I completely understand), and had a few excursions to the beach and into town. Port Macquarie has such a lazy atmosphere - and considering it was 23 degrees and the middle of winter I completely understand!

It was lovely seeing Chloe again too - it's sometimes a bit of a challenge keeping up with everyone when we all live scattered over the globe but it's great when you can talk to someone and it's like no time's gone by at all, you're exactly as you were. Hopefully we can meet up again in London soon!

No photos yet as I've resorted to using my old film camera in place of my sadly departed digi. Hopefully they come out ok! The excitement of anticipation is half the fun though anyway.

Next stop, San Francisco!

Krazy Kroonstad

Kroonstad was definitely not somewhere which we had read about in the Lonely Planet and thought, my gosh, we absolutely can't miss it! In fact, I don't know if I even bothered to read past the introduction...

But, as the only place worth mentioning on the way between Lesotho and Johannesburg, it was where we were destined to spend the last two nights of our trip. We rocked on up to the near deserted, yet enormous, campsite. In fact, the only other people camping were the some workers...obviously Kroonstad's not a big winter camping destination! After spending the night out at a very 'interesting' Afrikaaner biker bar watching the Spain vs Germany game, we realised why - it was freezing! Luckily we had our fantastic Basotho blankets to keep us nice and toasty.

After a hearty breakfast of stale fat cakes rolled in sugar (we really were sinking to new lows of coronary meltdown by that point), it was off to explore! The tourism office was barred closed, but once the workers got over the shock of seeing some tourists, let us in to look over their paltry selection of pamphlets and gave us a list of the top 20 things to do in Kroonstad. While the white lion breeding centre could have grabbed our attention on another day, we were all animal-ed out, so instead decided to spend the morning doing practical things (i.e. the internet) then a bit of a historical jaunt around town.

While Emilia and I were at the internet cafe, Adrian and Dan managed to strike up a lengthy conversation with an extremely friendly local who owned not only the bargain goods shop, but the fish and chip shop next door. Next thing we knew we were being shouted a massive fish and chip lunch! And that was only the beginning of the generosity of the Kroonstad locals...

After lunch we decided a walk around the place was warranted. We checked out the market (Emilia narrowly avoiding, yet again, buying a traditional African dress which while very cool, was several sizes too big and probably would have languished helplessly in the back of the wardrobe waiting to be altered), then went to the local church. It was quite impressive, all round turrets and manicured gardens. One of the gardeners saw us trying the door to see if it was open and got the caretaker who gave us the grand tour! The door key was enormous, as were the bibles inside and the beards of all the ancestors in the photos on the wall! Inside it looked more like a theatre than a church, but still in quite an austere style - I thought it was a great combo.

After the church we decided to make for the jukskei museum. Jukskei I hear you ask? It's a traditional folk sport which is kind of like petanque - you throw these big sticks at another stick in some sand - and it's awesome fun! It's a really big deal in South Africa (mainly among the Afrikaaners) and the people at the museum were so friendly! The guy showed us round the museum, pointing out all the interesting things, and then actually took us outside for at least an hour and showed us how to play! I had a freakishly good start, knocking the stick over in the middle every time for my first three goes, but my form rapidly deteriorated after that... It was definitely beginners' luck!

Another braai followed the jukskei and then it was our last night in the tents and last night in South Africa... A drive up to Joburg the next day and straight on the plane! Strange that it was all over.

I will definitely, definitely, be back in Africa soon. It was absolutely wonderful and I'm dying to see more!

Where can you see lions...

Here are Adrian's photos of South Africa, and then of Lesotho. His are much more animal heavy than mine given the fancy nature of his camera and awesome zoom lens! If you ever want to see more animal ones, give us a shout - there are hundreds more where these came from...