34 Going home

Pictures
Route
1 Windhoek to Joburg
2 Views and gold
3 Kruger bound
4 Elephant and rhino
5 To Olifants
6 To Blyde River
7 Swaziland beckons
8 Ezulwini Valley
9 To Dundee
10 Zulu battlefields
11 To Hluhluwe
12 Hluhluwe & coast
13 to Winterton
14 Wits End
15 The Sphinx
16 Bus day north
17 Kimberley mine
18 Through the Karoo
19 Plettenberg Bay
20 Pootling about
21 Buffalo Bay
22 South of Africa
23 On to wine lands
24 On to Paarl
25 Wine and port
26 Cheetah and eagles
27 Paarl and Stellenbosch
28 Paarl to Cape Town
29 Museum and art
30 Robben Island
31 Cape of Good Hope
32 Around Cape Town
33 Table Mountain
34 Going home

South Africa to United Kingdom

Cape Town to Reading

Monday 22 May 2006

Boys singing in the Company Gardens

On our way home

World Travellers, that's us

I can see our house!

Today really was our last day as this evening we headed home on our flight to Heathrow. It was a strange day for us both with the only constant really being the Cape Town weather, yet again it was a wet, cloudy and miserable day. We spent the day packing up our stuff amazed at how much crap you can accumulate in a relatively short space of time. We ran a final load of washing through, repacked our packs and then tried to work out how best to get back the left over wine and bits and pieces we have carried with us from Namibia that are likely to fail a customs check if they stop us. Our cool box provided the answer and it was probably rammed more full today that it has been throughout our time in Africa.

We had a last stroll up to Company’s Gardens, stoping for a bite of lunch on the way and taking in the usual smell of people smoking dodgy tobacco quite openly in the grounds. Our attempt to get into Parliament was blocked by a friendly guard who even though it was our last half an hour still refused to let us in without the proper permit. Ah well. With the rental money stuffed into the coffee jar as agreed with Maryke we loaded up the car and said our farewells to Cape Town.

On our way to the airport we again passed a huge shanty town, this one right next to the road and stretching for a good few miles. It still shocks me to see this even though it has been a regular occurrence in a number of places we have been to. Surely it can’t be that expensive in the overall scheme of things to lay on running water and electricity to at least improve some of the basic aspects of life.

At the airport we opted to have our picnic box and walking sticks security sealed for the trip. Ironically it cost us more to have our sticks wrapped up than they cost us in the first place but at least we could now check them in rather than having the hassle of keeping us with them on the flight. Having not been able to reconfirm our seats on line, we got to the airport early and joined a few other people waiting for check in to open. We needn’t have panicked as our seats had been pre-allocated so we were simply left with a longish wait at the airport. They are soulless places in the main and we were surprised at just how small Cape Town airport was. There were only two or three international flights that night, our being the last to leave, and as we joined the queue to board all the shops shut up for the night and the staff went off home.

The flight was about par for the course and again we both remarked at how British Airways are now a little behind some of their competitors in terms of comfort and the quality of the overall flight experience. We both managed to sleep pretty well though and awoke to sunrise streaming through the windows as we crossed the Mediterranean on the last leg back to London.

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