ARRIVAL

After an epic 30 hour journey (including a 3 hour delay at Joburg (when someone booked through to Cape Town got off the plane) we eventually touched down at Cape Town at 11am on the 8th Dec.

Due to the delay we were the only plane in so it was quiet at passport control. First question from the white Afrikaans immigration officer "how long do you intend staying in South Africa? " reply "2-3 months" next "Please let me see your return air ticket" (oh bugger here we go again!.)

With beating hearts we explained we didn't have return tickets and told him about Rupert and our intended journey through Africa showing him the Carnet and our shipping documents as proof. For what seemed an age he looked at them all very closely and then suddenly to our great relief he stamped our passports.

However, he wasn't quite finished yet as he handed them back he couldn't resist whispering that we were lucky we had gone to him as the other (black) officers would not have understood and would not have been so lenient and with that he waived us through, we were back in Africa!

Picking up our hire car we made our way out to Hout Bay a small community on the coast south west of Cape Town where we were booked to stay our first eight nights in a self catering apartment run by Mike & Travis at their Four Seasons Farm which is also the base for their safari company Just Done It.

We had opted for this as it would be very convenient to be on site as Mike and his guys would be doing all the last bits of kitting out Rupert our Landrover (once he arrived) in readiness for the trip.  

Neither Mike or Travis were around so Gareth their head mechanic showed us to the apartment and left us to settle in. After all our travels we really just wanted to relax but we couldn't afford the luxury as we needed to visit the local supermarket to get some provisions to tie us over for the coming week, so after stopping just to drop off our bags we were off out again.

Fortunately after years of living in various countries we are used to this but even so it always feels a bit surreal walking around a supermarket doing something as mundane as a food shop, battling with currency conversions and unfamiliar brands when less than a day before you were in the UK, certainly our first few hours in SA were hardly glamorous!

At the supermarket we phoned Rohlig Grindrod to let them know we had arrived and we would shortly bring in the Carnet which they stressed before we left the UK they would need on our arrival in order to book a slot with the customs people. However, we now found out that Rupert's container ship was delayed due to bad weather so instead of docking tomorrow he would now arrive in three days time on Sunday the 8th so we could relax and bring in the carnet tomorrow, a bit of a relief.

Mike & Travis have four big dogs, two Golden retrievers, a young German shepherd and something Gareth had called a "Boer Bull". The first three we met on arrival but the 'Boer Bull' was nowhere to be found, Gareth had warned us to be careful of him as he had just had a fight and his ear got mangled so he was feeling especially grumpy.

On arrival back at the apartment we began unloading the shopping from the car. My job was to climb the steep outside stairs to the apartment whilst Sue stayed downstairs and unloaded. On my first stint I was bending down in the kitchen to put a bag down when I suddenly heard very heavy breathing behind me, whipping round I saw this huge English type mastiff coming towards me, ah so that is what South Africans call a Boer Bull!  I'm not afraid of dogs but know its best to be wary of strange ones who may be on guard especially if they are suffering from a mangled ear!

Luckily after the ritual sniffing test he proved to be a big softy and we ended up great mates, his name was Askari which in Swahili means guard or soldier. Over the following two weeks Askari stayed each night with us, living up to his name by keeping guard whilst relaxing on our couch!

Mike and Travis had arrived home and they came over to say hello. Mike was not at all happy on hearing the news about the shipping delay as he told us everything was rapidly closing down for Christmas so it would further reduce the amount of time he could work on the vehicle before letting his guys go for their holidays. In South Africa Christmas also coincides with their summer holidays so factories, shops and offices close down big time. The clock was ticking and we now had an ominous feeling this was just the start of a frantic race against time, not what we had anticipated at all!

So despite feeling knackered first thing next morning we headed into Cape Town with the rush hour commuters to meet Ross our clearing agent at Rohlig, who armed with all our paperwork assured us all he required from us was the Carnet. Stressing to him the importance of getting Rupert out of the docks ASAP he promised to do his best but reminded us this was Africa! He also warned us that the ship would not arrive till 8pm on Sunday so the earliest we could get customs to look at it after being unloaded was Tuesday the 13th. The ominous feeling just suddenly got a lot worse!      

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