Storms River and Jefferys Bay, SA

Ok, this post will be short and sweet and I'll update properly later on.

In a nutshell, we decided when we arrived at Storms River to stay 1 night and leave the next day rather than 3 as we couldn't rent a car from there and so we wouldn't be able to fill the time.
We got a lovely luxurious double room for a bargain because the people who were supposed to have it didn't turn up, and the next morning, we went on a canopy tour with a load of ziplines, then horseriding up into the mountains in the afrernoon, where we got to a rockpool filled with what looked like cold tea from all of the tannins in the bark and trees around which colours the river water, but is good to drink. Looked a bit spooky under the water, but was lovely.
That night we got the Baz Bus to Jefferys Bay, which is a huge surf town.
Our first day in what's known locally as J'Bay was lazy and spent looking around the town and getting some food in.
Today, I "learned to surf" in the loosest form in that a capable bloke showed me, then I fell off the board and made every effort to choke, drown and knock myself out.
Then this afternoon we went to the lion sanctuary, which turned out to actually be a bit of a game reserve, with lions, tigers, giraffe, wildebeest, springbok, leopard, zebra, serval (like whippet sized scatty leopard), crocs, warthogs, meerkats, and on another area, a place where we played with 3 1/2 month old lions, and saw some 5 month old tigers!

That's the long and short of it for the moment to put the photos in perspective.

Will update fully when I can in either Chintsa or Coffee Bay.

Cape Town, South Africa

Well we're now in Cape Town. What a city, really beautiful place, modern, friendly, and the intimidating Table Mountain looming over you at all times.

We left Ghana after a fairly unemotional goodbye from Auntie Love in Ghana, whilst Jo was still pretty weak from her illness the previous day. She was a trooper and got through it though. We took a taxi to the bus station and took a big luxurious coach to Accra, then asked an American couple if they wanted to share a taxi to the airport, which seemed like a great money-saving idea... until we saw all of their luggage. Cabman was undeterred, and somehow managed to fit 4 adults, 2 big rucksacks, and 4 suitcases in the back of a very old vauxhall Astra (mk 1). If it were painted blue, I'd have sworn it was the TARDIS.

Lovely flight with South African Airways, and was very impressed when I was given a beer and then offered "another drink to go with your meal", so I happily took a bottle of red wine too. 2008 Shiraz, and was sooo good. I felt mightily sophisticated until I realised I was watching Puss In Boots.

Got to Jo'burg for the connecting flight to Cape Town, but had to do the whole check-out, pickup luggage rubbish and then check-in all over again, but was fast and painless. Then had a coffee in arrivals. The airport is lovely, with a huge atrium in the centre where arrivals takes up the ground floor and is basked in light, but with a huge ceiling feature which looks like a pure white zeppelin has crashed through the roof.

Got to Cape Town, took the bus to our hostel, and was very pleased; its entrance is right on the high street, but you feel miles away from it in the courtyard.
Had a quick shower, and by this time it was 2pm, and we hadn't slept since 8.30am the previous day. Jo managed to get off but I couldn't, so after 5 mins staring at the ceiling, I went outside for a beer and got chatting to a couple of British lads who'd just arrived. Spent a few hours drinking in the sun, then Jo got up and we went for something to eat. I felt half-cut, but don't think Jo noticed :)

Next day we wandered around the city a bit, got our bearings, bought a SA sim for the mobile, and decided on what we were going to do.
Plan today was to go up Table Mountain, but the weather was a bit cloudy, and it rained, so we went out with the intention of just getting some breakfast. We then wandered to the marina/harbour area, had a look around, got a boat out to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners of apartied where held. We then had an early dinner, and booked our PADI Open Water course, starting in Simons Town on Tuesday! And Jo is doing it too! Can't wait! Also popped into Baz Bus on the looong walk back and booked a daytrip around the Cape on Sunday, and our travel tickets to get us around the rest of SA when we come to leave Cape Town!
Tomorrow the weather should be back to glorious, so we will be going up Table Mountain in the morning.

That's enough for now I think, so have good weekends everyone!