South Africa - Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg

After a wonderful break in PE, we finally made a move on the 7th February. We stopped at Beachcombers Horse Trails and BushCamp, just outside Kenton-on-Sea, intending to stay the night. The bushcamp is fantastic, 2 open huts, one sleeping 2 and the other 4. Unfortunately, there was no-one else staying and the farmhouse is about 3 km away. As a result, we did not feel that we would be able to get a decent nights sleep, being the only 2 people in the middle of the bush in an open hut! The location is glorious, overlooking a small lagoon leading down to the beach, only about a 5 minute walk away. We saw eagles and ducks during our short stop and were disappointed not to have got the chance to stay. If you are planning on using this stop, make sure you book ahead and check how many people will be in camp.

We moved on to Port Alfred, the Backpacker there has closed down but we found a marvellous beach cottage, "The Spinning Reel", for only R120 per night in a totally self-contained cottage. They are set amongst the dune vegetation with wonderful views over the sea. They are, however, a way out of the central town so you can only really use them if you have a car. They also have B&B available at R340 per room. Unfortunately, once again Keith did not get a chance to surf as the sea was far too rough. One place definitely worth visiting is Sculptured Rugs factory. They make the most amazing handmade rugs, to any design you choose, with sculpturing which gives them a 3D effect. There are also lots of birds to be seen in the area, including the 'resident' Egyptian Geese in the marina.

From here we stopped at a small village called Hamburg and stayed at "The Oyster Lodge Backpackers". It is an old wooden house with glorious gardens, run by a Hungarian couple. There is lots of birdlife; we saw pied kingfishers, herons, egrets, terns, whimbrels, mousebirds, starlings , weavers - and a whole host of others that I couldn't identify. Along the way to Hamburg, we stopped at "Bira Crafts" which sells some really lovely traditional crafts. We also tried to get a horse ride at Thornfield Farm, but again it was a case of book before you arrive.

We then travelled up to Hogsback - right up in the mountains and with the last 10km being dirt track. But the views were stunning, we stayed at "Away with the Fairies". We did a walk to the Swallows Tail Falls, the last bit was quite a vertical drop and climb but well worth the effort. They have a treehouse, 15m up, which I climbed VERY nervously - but once up there it was magnificent, looking over the entire valley. We saw a number of Knysna Loeries and I later saw the Cape Parrots. I could happily have spent a few more days - but Keith heard that the surf in East London was good, so the next day saw us headed out. On our way into Hogsback, we picked up a R50 speeding fine - not much but the one and half hour wait to pay it was a real pain in the butt!

We spent the next 3 nights at "The Sugar Shack", a backpackers located right on Eastern Beach in East London. Keith caught up with an old friend, Craig, we had dinner with him and his wife and heard all the news since Keith had last been in East London over 13 years ago! He got some surfing done, I just lazed around and did a lot of reading. We then made a short move to "Buccaneers" at Cintsa, a short way out of East London. It is set on a lagoon, with wonderful views and a beautiful, long, golden beach. Keith met some more old school friends and spent most of his time surfing. Buccaneers put on quite a range of trips and entertainment so there was always something going on. We caught up with Jed, a guy from the UK that we had met at Hogsback. This happened quite often throughout our trip - the backpackers generally follow a similar route and we were continually bumping into people we had met before. The bird life around here is also quite spectacular.

We then moved on to the former Transkei region, making our first stop at Coffee Bay, staying at the Coffee Shack, owned by the same guys as "Sugar Shack" & "Away with the Faeries" (and also former school mates of Keith's). The interesting thing was that the 3 hostels operate a combined system whereby you get the 7th night's accommodation free. Coffee Bay is totally isolated from the every day world, some of the locals have never been more than 10km away from their homes. They do understand the concept of tourists having money, though, and make continuous but friendly attempts to sell you everything from beads to grass to 'magic mushrooms'. Needless to say, alcohol was not the main substance being extensively used! Although the location is superb, I found myself feeling irritated by the constant approaches - I couldn't even sit out in the garden and watch the birds without being asked a number of times if I wanted to buy something. There is nothing threatening at all, it just bugged me as I was there mostly to enjoy the peace away from towns and cities. Needless to say, Keith LOVED it as the surf was just about perfect every day! I had mixed emotions when we left - glad to be away from the hassle but sad to leave a truly beautiful place.

Next stop was Port St Johns, which has been a holiday village for a long time and therefore does not suffer with the hassle factor as much as tourists are basically old hat. The local population is far more advanced - but as a result is not as friendly and open. I suddenly realised that perhaps I had not appreciated Coffee Bay enough! We spent two nights at "Ikaya", run by a very enterprising and pleasant couple. They also have a craft & clothing shop on the site, where I bought three wonderful batik paintings.

Margate was a stop (Margate Backpackers) as we wanted to dive Protea Banks, renowned for it's sharks. We did one dive from Shelley Beach - R160 EACH! - and got to see at least 100 sharks. However, there is little else to see as it is pretty deep and you spend most of the dive mid-water. AS I am primarily a fish and coral diver, although it was thrilling to see the sharks I got a bit bored after a while.

So we headed for Umkomaas, base for the Aliwal Shoal, which we had dived before and loved. We ended up staying at "Aliwal Shoal Adventures" for 2 weeks, as Keith decided to do his DiveMaster course here. At under R3000 for the entire course (manuals, dives etc) - that's around £200 as opposed to around £500 in the UK - it was well worth the stop. I spent some time painting, checking out the local Craft markets and also went on a day trip to St Lucia. It was nice just to stay in one place for more than a few days - we are beginning to get a little tired of the continual moving. The major problem is the amount of gear we are carrying - 2 full sets of dive gear in an ENORMOUS dive bag, a surfboard, one small backpack for clothes. The diving was great - lots of colourful fish, the odd shark, turtles, rays, some really colourful corals and loads of nudibranchs.

We tried to change our flights to give us another 2 weeks in SA, to visit Sodwana and Kruger - but there were no availabilities until the end of April! This meant that our last few days were very rushed. We stopped at my cousin, Darryl, in Pietermaritzburg for one night. I had not seen him for about 12 years, so it was good to catch up. We had a lovely stay - the highlight being the sighting of a crowned eagle chick which stays locally! It was really thrilling as we got a very good, close view of it sitting in the trees. Darryl and Rory are running an tour company which does 13 day trips up to Mozambique - we were really sorry that we couldn't do one of the trips after reading the brochure! We also popped in to see Nikki and Mel, meaning that we got to see the whole family after a very long time!

Our last stop was in Johannesburg. We had hoped to catch up with an old friend, Wayne, who lives nearby but unfortunately ran out of time. However, we did get to see Willie & Adel (and Elaan & Liam) in their very posh "White House". We had a wonderful stay, catching up on old times and promising to keep in touch now that we both have email addresses. It really does make keeping contact so much easier!

So our visit to South Africa came to an end. Most of our experiences had been good, however the 3 hours spent in the airport outdid any good that had been done over the previous 8 weeks - it is an absolute shambles! Our visit also made me, more than Keith, realise that I could not go back to living with the level of security that has become the norm. Although there was always quite a high awareness, and many people said to me that not too much had changed - the problem is that I have changed and become too accustomed to my freedom to do as I like, as a woman alone. It is a very sad feeling as South Africa will always be my home, the final positive realisation that I will not be going back is quite painful.

Australia

Perth has developed quite a bit since we last visited 10 years ago. We only had one week here, so we did the necessary checking out of the city as quickly as possible and then headed over the Rottnest Island, about 20km offshore. On our last visit, we had enjoyed 3 very peaceful days on this reserve. How things have changed! There are now 2 restaurants, 2 pubs, a few shops (even a hairdresser) and it has become a "hip" place for the young to come partying on the weekend! Needless to say, we did not enjoy our Friday and Saturday night there, although Thursday night was as we remembered. We did one dive, but were so disappointed at the lack of environmental and conservation consideration and the slack standards of the dive operator that we didn't bother with another one. For peace and quiet, I would suggest a midweek visit, out of season and probably in winter!

Sydney was the next port of call - again just for one week. Unfortunately we did not get to see much off it - apart from the emergency department of the local hospital - as Keith came down with a viral infection which really knocked him for a six and had us really worried. He has improved, although his body temperature control is still a bit loopy and he is suffering bad headaches. Our next stop in Brisbane - one week - and then 2 weeks in Fiji before returning to the UK around the 23rd April.

Brisbane was wonderful. We spent 2 nights at the Brisbane Homestead Backpackers before hiring a car and heading north along the coast as far as Noosa Heads. The coast is beautiful, very green with clear water and the weather was hot - wonderful! Keith managed to get some surf, although with it being Easter weekend he had to fight of hundreds of other visitors! We returned to Brisbane via the inland route, checking on the properties and enjoying the spectacular views around the Glass House mountains. Brisbane has definitely got more appeal than Perth at the moment, although it was not a fair comparison as we did not get around Perth much.