The sea fog is still out to sea when we wake up and we wonder how Kalliope will fare when she tries to get in this morning. While I drink my tea (made by me today as Mike is using the “I don’t know where anything is” excuse) I stand on the veranda looking out over the lagoon with the binoculars. There’s no sign of them and by 8 am it’s obvious that they are not coming in.
We leave with Ann and Terry for the journey to George Airport to pick up our hire car. There’s lovely scenery to see and they point out various things that we will do over the coming weeks as we go.
We pull into the airport car rental area and as we cruise up the lines of cream and white cars. There’s a lone electric, lime green one which I point out and laugh at. I bet it’s ours. Naturally, it turns out that it is! The trouble is it’s smaller than what we have paid for through Holiday Extras, and there’s not enough room in the boot for our luggage and Victoria’s so Mike goes back to Hertz to point out that there’s a problem. There sure is – they have no other cars for another hour and we don’t have the time to wait. He says we might be able to change it at Cape Town airport but when he rings them, they don’t have anything either.
We inspect the car thoroughly – Hertz are meticulous about damage and we don’t want to lose our deposit, then squeeze our smallish bags into the boot, and ourselves into the interior. Terry has hired a car the size of a bus for all of us and he offers it to us but we decline as the rear is totally open and we couldn’t conceal any luggage if we parks up somewhere.
We kiss goodbye and start off in our lime green sardine tin. We have nearly 300 miles to cover and potentially three sets of road works which can hold you up for 20 minutes at a time.
The scenery is varied as we travel through. It starts off very green and lush with what looks like forests of pine and fir, but as we travel further west it opens out and there are mountains in the background. At times we could be in Wales, or the Peak District in England. Bits of Switzerland also come into view, and vast open sweeping plains of the mid west of the USA. Not breathtaking stuff but the changes are interesting. There are lots of horses, sheep and ostriches.
We stop at a petrol station and buy some snacks to see us through then plough on, just stopping once more at one of the pit stops by the side of the road to let the air blow through the car.
As we near Cape Town we go through vineyards as we are at the edge of the wine growing area. Outside Cape Town we start to see the townships, sprawling for mile upon mile, some looking worse than others. Rubbish spills out onto the so far pristine roads and through the fence we can see rows of portable public toilets, everything in sharp contrast to the beautiful property we have seen in other areas.
We arrive at the airport turnoff two hours too early as the predicted road work stops didn’t materialise so we continue on into Cape Town looking for the Waterfront area. The traffic is amazingly light and we manage to park right there and wander through the marina, quickly spotting two of the rally boats, Destiny and Wild Tigris, but no one is on either boat. We walk around for half an hour or so, just to get the feel of the place.
We manage to find our way back to the airport with the help of our sat nav system but are confused by the term ‘parkade’ and pass most of the car parks before realising that this is what the term refers to. By the time we park we are miles away from the arrivals area and have to hot foot it back. Victoria’s flight has just landed and - process the passengers quickly and within half an hour they start appearing. We wait and wait. Victoria doesn’t appear. Then then regular flow turns to a trickle and one girl comes out without her luggage. We hear she has a British accent. Bugger. Was she on Victoria’s flight from Birmingham to Dubai? A few minutes later, Victoria emerges, also without her luggage.
After huge hugs and kisses we hear the story of how the weather was so bad in Birmingham (they had to defrost the wings of the plane before it could take off) they left late and she had to run for her flight in Dubai. She made it but the luggage didn’t. Hopefully it will be on tomorrow’s flight! However, the most important part of the consignment has arrived – our daughter!
We find our way to the hotel and decide to eat there rather than bothering to go back into town. The restaurant is characterless and there is very little choice on the menu. Still it fills a hole. Although she says she is not tired, by the time we have eaten, Victoria is ready for bed and so are we after all the driving. The beds are large and comfortable, and we tumble into them.
Tomorrow we will explore.
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