Last breakfast in the park. I was not ready to leave, especially as it meant our holiday was half over. So this meant we finished off everything in the fridge (juice, cereal etc). We left the butter, cheese, milk etc - I am sure the cleaners can make use of this. I also took our 5litre empty water bottle, filled it with water and dishwashing liquid and gave the car a good slucing around the bottom and the wheel arches to remove most of the signs of us driving on non-sealed roads. It made a small difference.
We loaded up the car, checked once more for anything left behind, and then headed out by 8:40am. Dropping the keys into the box at the camp gate.
We then took the road to Pretoriuskop again. There were a few nice sightings along the way, including this zebra crossing (tee hee)
And a nice little relaxed herd of elephants...
The same lovely views...
And then onwards to Pretoriuskop to fill up the car. We had a lovely female attendant for a change - and she could really FILL a car.
The road on the way to the gate also gave some great views.
And then on to Numbi gate itself.
I went and checked out, and then we were off on to the road to the airport. My sister had given me some excellent directions on the back route to avoid going through White River and it was certainly worth it. What she had not focussed on was the potholes in the roads - they were absolutely incredibly bad. You coud not switch off for a moment without potentially disappearing into a 6 foot hole. And when driving the TinCan this was certainly a concern. The villages and areas around the Kruger are quite interesting - SS took a number of photos below from the speeding car. They don't show the heat, but the day was again over 30 degrees.
We dropped TinCan off in the carpark, locked it up and headed in to the airport to drop the keys in the Hertz box. It is a very small airport, with a large thatched roof. There really isn't much to do apart from going to Wimpy for lunch, so we joined the rest of the passengers in there, got a nice seat on the covered porch area overlooking the runway, and watched the planes coming in (about one per half hour so not exactly a busy airport!).
I grew up without McDonalds (since it was not in South Africa in the 80's) and so Wimpy (or Wimpybar as it was known then) was our mainstay. I had not been to one in over 20 years probably, and for some reason I went for a burger. Normally I am not a burger but I ordered the one with cheese bacon and hashbrown. SS went for the cheese bacon and avo burger (large). He had a mango juice, I had a coke zero. Again, not my normal tipple. We also shared a greek salad.
And here they are - truly wonderful burger I must say, we finished the lot! Fries were not so good to be honest, but I did my best and managed to finish them.
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Entertainment during the lunch was provided by the little family at the next table. Mother/Father/3 year old boy/baby girl. The 3 year old boy reminded my of children when I grew up in South Africa - the most well behaved little thing! He was playing with his toys, and wandered around a little, but as soon as one of his parents turned round and called him, he came immediately and happily. He wasn't loud or unruly, just talking to them, and entertaining himself. He wasn't a mini-adult, just a sweet little boy who had such respect for his parents.
Looking out the window, our plane had arrived and was being turned around for our flight.
So we finished up at the Wimpy and headed through to departures (along with pretty much the entire Wimpy restaurant - they have very predictable busy times there!). This was all nicely managed, and as is usual in South Africa they were MUCH more concerned with whether we had firearms than anything else - there was certainly no liquid restrictions. After a short wait with more interesting people watching, we boarded. SS decided that Mr Strong needed restraining for this flight, so I got to share my seatbelt with him.
Then we took off. Unfortunately since I could not access online checkin we had been allocated nasty seats under the wingspar and so photos were a little challenging to take, but here are some highlights of the 2.5 hour flight. Makes you realise the size of South Africa vs Europe let alone vs the UK - 2.5 hours and we were not quite going the entire length of the country!
We were given a snack onboard which was very nice (I sampled but did not eat after that large lunch!). Smoked chicken salad, and jam swiss roll. We were also given juice boxes and drinks.
I took some more photos coming into Cape Town.
A glimpse of Table Mountain through our limited window...
And of course all the shanty towns which still surround the airport on all sides.
As it was a domestic flight, we got off (and were bussed to the terminal gate). We got our bags and headed across the long walk to the car rentals. Luckily I had prepaid and all was in order, and this time we were allocated a Chevrolet Sonic. Such a nice solid car after the TinCan. This one was manual, but had real pull and power (necessary for the drive between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek over the mountain pass). But it was still not a big car and so luckily fitted into the driveway of SS's friend's house. I did not have a map or directions but luckily remembered exactly where we were going from our last holiday, and so we made our way to Franschhoek without incident. Got to Akademie Street easily, but SS had the wrong number written down. Luckily after a couple of frustrating drives up and down the road, I remembered I had saved the address from when we visited K on our last trip. So we found the house, pulled the car into the driveway (it just fitted) and opened the door. Unfortunately K had provided alarm instructions to SS, but he had not really understood them, and so we set the alarm off. We switched it off quickly, but then as I was unpacking the car I could hear the phone ringing. From experience I knew this was the response team calling to see what was going on, but by the time I ran in to tell SS to answer the phone, it had already rung off. Sure enough, 2 minutes later the armed response car pulled up. We explained what had happened, and the guy was nice about it once he had matched our details to what Keith had sent through. Phew.
The house itself is lovely - we are really lucky to be able to borrow it for a full week. Here is the main room with kitchen down one end and sitting area and mezzanine TV area at the other.
Outside was a stunning pool where we got lots of sun during the week.
And the main bedroom which was made up for us.
We went out for an acclimatising walk, checked out the real estate windows and any new restaurants and shops, and stopped off at the Pick N Pay express in town (which had opened since we were last there) to get some dinner (pizza and stir fry) and some breakfast basics for the next morning.
Back to the house, and I made dinner. We relaxed in front of a DVD (Burn After Reading) which was truly not a good film, and then took ourselves off to bed, ready for some serious wine tasting!
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