We were up early to pack our bags, as we fly today from Port Elizabeth to Durban. I will never know how we managed to close our cases! We had packed all of the wine we'd bought in Franschhoek - up to now we'd been able to leave it in the car boot.
We had an easy run to PE airport. Quite funny, as our Dutch friends were also flying out of PE at about the same time as us, and they had a GPS system. When we saw them at PE, they told us they'd ended up in the middle of a township!! Did we have any problems? Nope, just followed the airport signs!
On check in our luggage was 9kg overweight. Eek. However, the nice lady on the desk said she would be lenient with us and ignore it.
We flew Kulula, a low cost domestic airline. It was hilarious. I have never laughed so much on a flight - the safety announcement was comical (deliberately so). They call all their passengers "kulula fans" and deliberately make the announcement funny so that people keep listening. Clever really. Some excerpts:
"Buckle those belts around your gorgeous hips, kulula fans".
"In the event of landing in water... put on your stunning life jacket (it's just your colour) and if you feel it deflating then find this tube and BLOW baby BLOW. You never know - you might just make this!"
"In the 1,000,000 to one chance of Robert Mugabe ever stepping down, or decompression in the cabin......... Now we recommend fitting your own oxygen mask first and then helping just one other person. So if you have 2 children with you, then now is the time to decide which one you love most".
There was a load of other stuff but I'm not sure how well it will translate to blog so I'll leave it there!
We landed spot on time. Gordon and Margaret (my aunt and uncle) were there to greet us and drive us to their home - our base for the next week. The weather is not great (20 and cloudy) despite Durban being known as the Sunny City! We arrived at their place mid afternoon and sat and chatted. The views from their house are wonderful - I felt like I knew the place because, when Dad was ill and G&M came to visit him, they bought lots of photos and video clips of their house as Dad wanted to see it. They only moved here 2 years ago - my uncle designed it himself and they had it built on a plot of land they bought. When my Dad visited, they were living in a different part of Durban.
The area they live in now borders a nature reserve and there are Zebras who stand in the field at the bottom of their road....
http://www.sa-venues.com/attractionskzn/kloof.htm
Soon after, Gail (my cousin) and her youngest daughter Candice arrived and they started the Braai (South African BBQ). This was wonderful - we had the most tasty fillet steak and Gail made fantastic sweetcorn fritters and something called putu-pap. This is mealie meal (maize) cooked until crumbly and served with tomato and onion gravy - very tasty. Another recipe I've since repeated at home.
We had an assortment of other meat too and plenty of red wine was consumed.
The sad thing we learned today is that my cousin Barry is ill.
We were all in bed by 10 - it's very much an early to bed, early to rise type of life style and we're fitting in to that quite nicely!
