After Durban we headed down the coast to Warner Beach. We never did manage to find how to get to the beach but the hosel was really nice and looked out over the ocean.
We were there to do some diving (yes more diving) at Aliwal Shoal just down the coast a little. We had an absolutely gorgeous day for it so the water wasn't too cold! On our first dive we saw 7/8 raggie sharks! They must have been almost 2 meters long and we got quite close up to them which was pretty cool. There was also a really big loggerhead turtle and plenty of the usual reff fish.
After a break for breakfast we were back in the water for our second dive. It was probably the best dive we've done on the whole trip. Saw another shark, a huge manta ray, then a pod of maybe 10+ dolphins swam past! Towards the end Kerrin signalled for me to go over to a sandy bit. I was a bit annoyed because I couldn't see what on earth he was wanting to show me. Once I got there he got down on one knee and signalled 'will you marry me'. So i said okay! Then we realised we were both getting low on air so made our way back up to the boat where I got my ring! Since he had to take it scuba diving it is a kids platic purple one with a big love heart. Looking forward to going ring shopping when we get to Cape Town.
We got down to Durban and are here just now. Its mental but a really nice place. There is a huge indian population here so the indian quarter was our first stop. It's just as you would imagine India would be, people buying and selling everything and people everywhere. We had someone trying to sell us a cat our of a beerbox within about 5 minutes of getting there.
Their speciality dish is the Bunny Chow. It is a half loaf of bread with the insides scoped out and filled up with curry. Amazing so we had that for lunch the past couple of days. The beaches here are meant to be the best in SA. Not got back on the surfboard yet, but mabye soon.
The huge new Durban stadium for the World Cup next year can be seen from all over the city so we went to see how it was gettin on. It looks like its gonna be really smart when its done. Then we went to the aquarium today. Lesley got chosen to take part in the dolphins show - had to go down and sit in a little boat at the side while a dolphin went past and did a belly flop beside her and got totally soaked. Then she got to feed one of them.
We are heading on tomorrow but we are not sure yet where to. It will either be Aliwal Shoal for more scuba if the prices arent too high or down to Port Elizabeth, will see how it looks.
After a great time with Ian and Lorna, it was a big shock when we got to Jo'Burg where we werent allowed to go about in the city centre because there was a chance we would get mugged! We got our taxi chased up the street on one of our first days so we stuck to getting lifts around the place.
After a couple of days we headed to Kruger for a 4 day safari which was awesome. On the way we saw some of the beauty spots of Mpumalanga province with amazing scenery and saw lots of 4 of the Big 5 in the park. Including a lion eating a freshy killed Giraffe and a pack of lions hunting. We had lions, buffalo, loads of elephants all crossing right in front of us. But we didnt see any leopards, determined we will see one on the trip though. Had a brilliant safari group.
We went back to Jo'Burg for a couple of days and visited the Apartheid museum and Gold Reef City theme park. They were both really good, although a tiny wee bit spoilt when I heard that United missed out on Europe.
I soon had other things to take my mind off it. We did some scuba diving at Sodwana bay (one of worlds top 10 sites), really good diving seen a few rays, turtles, lionfish and other cool stuff. They have whale sharks around there but there were none around.
In between times we had a night in Swaziland, whch was just a quick stopover, we didnt see much of it but had a great night at the bar.
We had a few days in St Lucia and seen lots of wild crocs and hippos in the water down by the estuary as well as seeing Zebra, buffalo, warthog and some of other things on our morning walks outside the park.
One night coming back from the shop there were 2 huge HIPPOs just grazing outside a holiday apartment, we sat and watched them for about half an hour and got pretty close. They were huge and it was so cool to see them out of the water. We had a day at the croc centre and got to hold a juvinille croc, so cute!! Then headed off down to Durban.
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