Back to Africa P1

So I been back in Africa for a day and a bit now, landed in Johannesburg (South Africa) on Thursday morning. I thought I would do a series of blog posts to update you my progress over the next few weeks. Not all these will be publicly available as some stuff is private.

The trip was an extremely long one, Mousehole > Bristol > Paris > Johannesburg > East London > King Williams Town. But it’s good to be back. As I type this Mum is negotiating with Bono my Setter who has commandeered the sofa…

Ross drove me up to Bristol from Mousehole and helped out with a few things, thanks again Boet! We had a bit of wait in Bristol and check in was later than we had planned and drive up went very well. After a few coffees I managed to check and was on my way to Paris! Farewell Britain! No drama’s at the airport thankfully…

Landed in Paris early evening. They busy doing some upgrades to the airport and all seems to be going ok. The new terminal building we where in was great. Must say though that things seem very spread-out, but perhaps it’s just because of the shear size of the place!

Found a nice take away/restaurant place with sofa’s and power points. French fast food rocks, those chaps know a bit about food they do! Had about 3 hours to kill there before my flight so just chilled out on the sofa.

We where flying on the new A380 to Johannesburg and it was my first time on one, in one word – big.

As I mentioned already I landed in Johannesburg yesterday morning and was really pleasantly surprised by how efficient it now is after the World Cup upgrades it’s received. I remember my last trip back through it and my first thoughts where, “welcome back to Africa” – and not for the right reasons… Now from the moment you enter the terminal, you greeted by a shinny clean, spacious airport. Passport control was 5 mins tops, fan bloody tastic I say and well done!

I had a few hours to kill before flying down to see my folks in East London, so had lunch at the Mugg & Bean, loads of restaurants to choose from, and chilled out waiting for my flight. I raised an eyebrow or two at the prices of things which have really shot up since my last visit, cup of tea R11! But hay-ho, I was expecting this.

Flight down to East London was pretty uneventful. The pilot promised some “turbulence” as there was some “weather” that we needed to fly through. Turbulence? Bollocks. Nothing at all, bloody let down. I was hoping for some wing bending, gut wrenching free-fall but we hardly had a bump! 😉

Mum picked me up from the airport, so fantastic to see her! We then drove to King Williams Town where my folks stay. We had a fantastic sunset on the drive there…

I ended the day with a very long over due catchup with my Mum and Dad over dinner. Really really good to see them both. Happy days.