One Man in South Africa

Easter weekend Saturday, this time I turned in the opposite direction along the N72 heading towards East London to see what I could see. Was that a pair of cats running across the highway? No, I realised at the last moment that the long tail disappearing into the bush belonged to a monkey. I pulled over onto the verge and waited by the truck to see if they would reappear, a horn blast from the other side of the road made me turn to see three more scamper across behind me. Hmm, this blog requires patience! I was rewarded after about 10 minutes or so by a head poking out of the bush opposite and the rest as they say is history. I came to realise that, just like buses, monkeys can be seen all over either darting across roads or playing around in the bush as I saw many more during the day.

The Bathurst Show is organised by the Bathurst Agricultural Society, probably around a pint in 'The Pig and Whistle'. It takes place around this time every year so that I was fortunate enough to be able to visit on the afternoons of Friday and Saturday the 4 th and 5 th April. I was thinking of heading the post 'Little Britain' and I do not mean this in a derogatory sense, perhaps it is the same in agricultural communities the world over, but this was a reassuring reminder of the shows I attended as a child with my parents and brothers and sisters and later with nieces and nephews and it gave a warm feeling being so far from home and having travelled so long. Turn left out of Bathurst on the main Grahamstown road, drive to the top of the hill and you will see the Agricultural Museum on your right. The show is held in their grounds and the entrance is a few hundred metres further on. Driving down the dirt track there were plenty of attendants on hand to direct me into a...

This year I decided to leave Tenerife for a two month sojourn in South Africa. A quick web search established that I did not require a visa and a quick trip to Tenerife Insurance Services in Las Chafiras gave me a flexible 90 day travel insurance so the next requirement was a trip to renew my travel concession document then onto the internet to find suitable flights. I advise using a desktop or a laptop, trying to complete the necessary on-line forms on my 'Tablet' proved slow and frustrating and I gave up in the end. Would you believe it was cheaper to fly to South Africa from Madrid via London than from Heathrow direct. Off to Tenerife Airport North at 07:45 on the 29th March having stayed overnight with my good friends in Santa Cruz resulted in a speedy check-in and off to Madrid at 10:00 courtesy of AirEuropa. Landing at Terminal 2 at 13:20 hours (the mainland is 1 hour ahead of Tenerife) I was surprised that I had to claim my bags, catch a shuttle bus to terminal 4 (about ...