Who ever thought this day would finally come? We had emptied the car and packed our bags for the final time yesterday so this morning’s getaway would be easy and with mixed feelings we said farewell to Ernest and Michelle and admired the beautiful snow capped Drakensberg Mountains lit by a bright sun under a blue sky - typical!
Our journey took us back over the Oliviershoek pass and past the Border Post, home of Simon the Phatt Chef and Megan, where we’d spent an enjoyable evening at the end of May. As we had plenty of time we called in to say hi and ended up staying nearly 2 hours chatting. They had had heavy snow on the Monday night and told us they had been mobbed the following day as apparently South African’s go crazy when there is a snowfall and travel for miles to play in it and there were still the remains of melted snowmen on the grass where the hoards had been. Megan also told they lost electricity for nearly 24 hours, which left them struggling to cater for their guests and the day visitors.
Leaving the Border Post we continued along the scenic R74 then made our way to the motorway and sped along the next 200km until we reached Heidelberg, where hunger finally got the better of us and we found a Steers burger restaurant, the South African McDonalds, and pulled over to repeat our first South African dinner, this time with a twist. This morning we had a lot of food and some wine left over so once we had our burgers we sat at an outside table in the sun and added some vegetables that we’d steamed before we left then poured some Cederberg wine into borrowed glasses to enjoy fast food in style.
After our meal diner we rejoined the motorway and covered the short distance to reach the sprawling outskirts of Johannesburg where we promptly ran into a massive traffic jam. With only three and a half hours before our flight left and the rush hour approaching things became a little tense but we were saved by the Sat Nav, which found us a way along some back roads and through an industrial estate to get us to the airport on time.
The friendly car rental guy checked the car and joyfully told us we could leave any spare food in the boot so he inherited the remains of our last bottle of Cederberg (which broke our hearts to leave) and some other goodies. Checkin and boarding was painless and we were soon sitting in our seats on the plane for the 12 hour flight home reminiscing about the amazing experiences we’d had over the last year and pondering our next adventures.
In the morning we traversed Heathrow arrivals in record time to be collected by our, soon to be, daughter-in-law Jess and Grandson Riley, who is now 3 and very chatty, and headed along the M4 to sunny Wokingham - home for now!
A big thank you to all our followers, especially those that left comments. You kept us sane.
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