Camping

We have survived our first two nights of camping!

We had to be at a hotel in Windhoek at 10 am on Wednesday to meet our tour. We expected to find a big safari truck, but instead we found a guy with a sign and and a van. And there was only one other guy on the tour! (Plus the four of us). Hmmm, this might be interesting.

And it got even more interesting when our van driver was stopped at a police checkpoint outside the city and had to turn back because he didn't have a fire extinguisher!

Once we got underway again, we got an unexpected chance to appreciate the scenery while our driver changed a flat tyre...


Once we got to Sesreim though, we discovered our Van Man was just a transfer and we met up with the real tour, and an actual safari truck:

Our tour group is cool - with 14 people in total; 5 Australians, 2 Danes, 1 Portugese... as well as 2 Italians who don't speak much english! There are two guides as well - Rino and Willie, who are great fun.

We set up camp under the stars: (bonus points for whoever names the constellation visible here)

The camp was actually really well equipped - with a toilet block and hot showers... but somehow I don't think they'll all be like that!

And then went out for a sunset walk in the dunes. The next morning we got up ridiculously early to see sunrise from another dune, but I think you've seen enough sand for the moment, so I'll skip those 300 photos :-)

Later that day we did a 5km walk in the desert (which is HOT) and saw the Dead Vlei - which is ESPECIALLY hot and dry - even by desert standards!

That evening we took a walk down into Sesreim Canyon...

And saw our very first (WILD) live snake! It was pretty small, but also very poisonous, and sounding very pissed off the way it was hissing!

Yet another gorgeous African sunset to finish an amazing (and tiring) day!

We are heading north tomorrow, away from civilisation, so I'm not sure when we'll get to the next internet cafe. We'll post when we can though - so keep checking!

J&J

PS: Also got a chance to try out the underwater camera the other day.... and it works!

Twas The Night Before Take-Off

Twas the Night before Take-Off
And Jason and Juliet
Were just so Excited
They couldn't get to Bed

The Bags were all Packed
The Lists Ticked Off
Just a few more Hours
And then we'll be Off!

Do you like the clever way I rhymed 'off' with 'off' there? Amazing.

So, we're all packed. And we've managed to come in at the right weight with our luggage which is nice. We have no problem with the airline's 20kg limit, as the safari tour we are going on has a 12kg limit each! Lucky we're light packers!

Our flight leaves at 1:15pm tomorrow. Helen is picking us up to take us to Auckland.

Not sure when we'll get to do a blog after that - so here's a run down of the plan:

Fly from Auckland to Bangkok. 3 hour stopover.
Fly from Bangkok to Johannesburg. 12 hours there (6am to 6pm). We only have two objectives for our time in Jo'burg - see the Apartheid museum, and not get killed. We'll let you know how we get on.
Then at 6pm we board a bus for a mammoth 19 hour bus trip from Jo'burg to Cape Town. It is 1500 kms - the same as the distance from Hamilton to Invercargil.
Arriving in Cape Town we will pick up a rental car and drive to our accomodation for the first shower in a very long time!

Wish us luck!

(I have my phone with me (Jason), if anyone wants to text).

J&J

PS: Got another email from the travel agent today - saying the airline have changed the flight time again. The day before we leave. Awesome. Just about fainted, but turned out it was only a five minute change to the departure time from Jo'burg on the way home. Why even bother to tell us that? We have to be at the airport three hours early anyway!

The Final Countdown (do de doo do, do de do do doo)

Holy crap, three days till takeoff.

And no posts here for over a month.

Shocking.

(I know, you're not shocked at all).

Strangely, I've had heaps to blog about too - just no time. That's not very promising for future posts I guess, but we'll see how we go.

I've even set it up so I can blog from my cellphone - if I have coverage of course.

So in the last month... what has happened. Hmmm.

We finished all our jabs at the doctors. I ended up having 8 jabs in total, and two bloodtests. Juliet got away with only 5 jabs and one bloodtest. We had to have the bloodtest to see if we were "rabies proof". We both got good antibody results, but we still won't be lining up to be bitten by any wild dogs/monkeys/bats/used car salesmen etc.

We went to the theatre and saw Cats with Zac. You can read about that on his blog. Oh, hang on, he hasn't posted for 5 months! tee hee hee. (Hello Kettle, I'm Pot, you're black!)

We picked up our tickets from the travel agent. We had a mild heart stoppage when we got home and found that the e-Ticket for the airline had the wrong date for travel. We had changed the dates since we originally booked, but the e-Tickets still showed the old dates. Got back in touch with the travel agent and found that the booking is actually correct - we are booked for the right days but the airline doesn't actually provide new e-Tickets. We just rock on up to the airport with the wrong date on our ticket and apparently that's OK. Riiiight....

We went and saved the environment with Jess and Frosty. Took part in the Hubbards Carbon Crusade and went for an 8km walk and planted four trees each.

We got a phonecall just last week from the travel agent - saying the airline had changed our flights. Queue major heart stoppage - seven days out from departure and all our accommodation is booked - how can they be changing flights? It was OK though... turned out to be only the very last flight home from Bangkok to Auckland that got changed. Now we are having an extra day in Bangkok (at the airline's expense) and oh deary me, have to have another day of work. :-)

Then of course there's be all the last minute organising - getting a house sitter in so we don't leave our shiny new house empty for 5 weeks ... buying up half of the stock at Kathmandu for our safari tour ... and last night we started to pack!


Lord knows how I'm going to sleep the next few nights. I'm way too excited.

J&J

Stop The Presses

Stop The Presses!

I bought petrol tonight, and it was under two dollars a liter! Sure I had to use a discount coupon, and even then it was only $1.989/L, but still worth celebrating I thought. Now this week I might have a little money left over for cheese...

While I'm on the topic of petrol, time for a rant. I don't really mind that the price of petrol is going up. I know the world is running out of oil. (Doesn't explain cheese though - what's up with that? Damnit I'm getting sidetracked). What really gets my goat is the fact that these places still call themselves Service stations. I can't remember the last time I got anything remotely resembling service at one of these. In fact they make you do everything yourself. And they're so paranoid about people doing runners that everywhere is Pre-Pay. Which means me having to line up TWICE. Once to say "I'd like to top up my car at pump seven please, I promise I won't run away" and then again to pay. (What's next? Pre-Pay CHEESE? Sorry, tangent again). And why are the lines so long each time? Because there is only one munter of a staff member when you have forty-three pumps, a mini supermarket AND a coffee shop to run.

(calming breaths)

One day. The people will revolt.

(end of rant)

The other bit of excitement for us today was going in to the travel agent to pay up the balance of our air fares and safari tours. No going back now! Can't wait until the tickets arrive. Only 45 days until takeoff now!

J&J