Thursday Oct 4th – Sunday Oct 7th - Sundays River/PE

Thursday we had a quiet day on our own, writing the blog for the previous few days and preparing the photographs for posting (the elephants!). Late afternoon we drove into PE to the internet café to make the post and pick up email. From there we went to the Humewood Golf Club where we had arranged to meet another old friend and one time work colleague, Jim Gray. Jim belongs to a fraternity known as the “Dipsomaniacs” who meet once a month to play golf, playing at different courses in the area. We returned home for dinner.

(Photo omitted from a previous post).
Friday, I drove into PE to have lunch with members of the “Springbok Stein Club” (notice that these fraternities all have names related to drinking!). I was chairman of the club in 1976 and was impressed to find that a number of members at that time were still attending, including Ross Clements, who at 72 looks 10 years younger, also, “Porky” Connor, from whom we bought Alison’s second engagement ring (she lost the first one in a big surf at the beach). It was good to see them again. In the evening we drove to the home of Jim & Debbie Gray and had a drink before leaving to have dinner at a restaurant called “The Butcher’s Block”, owned by James & Jenny Mackenzie whose wedding we went to around 30 years ago. We had a great meal and then returned back to J&Ds, where we talked very late before retiring (as planned).

Saturday morning we watched the qualifying rounds of the Chinese F1 Grand Prix and Hamilton, to everyone’s surprise, ended up in the pole position once again. After breakfast, we went back to Sundays where I had a date with Bernie Hoffman for one last fishing trip on the river. I got very lucky and caught a very nice spotted grunter measured at 65cm (you do the conversion). At 3pm we (including Bernie) were settled into our seats in front of the TV to watch one of the quarter finals matches of the World Cup rugby, England vs. Australia, in which England had an unexpected, but deserved victory. This was followed by an early braai as the second quarter final started at 9pm – New Zealand v France. France won the game in another unexpected upset.
Sunday was moving day, but first the Chinese F1 Grand Prix at 8am, which was extremely exciting and ending disastrously for Hamilton as he left the “track” while actually on pit row, got stuck in the gravel and had to retire. This means that the World Championship Driver will be decided at the final race of the season in Brazil in two weeks time, with three drivers competing for the title. We piled everything into our rental vehicle and drove to our new accommodation in PE, a little self-catering apartment near the beachfront, in the grounds of the home of our “hosts”, Christian & Marlies Meyer. All this had to be completed in time for us to get to Vic & Carol’s by 3pm when the big quarter final of the weekend was to take place, Springboks v Fiji. Another old friend, “Chippie” Henderson joined us to watch the game. The Springboks were huge favorites and were leading 13-3 at half time, but with 15 minutes to go the game was tied at 20-20. The Springboks went on to win by a comfortable margin but they certainly had their fans and themselves worried that another upset was on the cards. After the game, Chippie’s wife Pam joined us and the six of us had dinner at a beachfront restaurant, the Bluewaters Cafe. A misnomer considering the weather conditions that day.

Apologies that there are few photographs, but the game park and sight seeing side of our travels are over for a while and now it is all about meeting old friends and former colleagues, most of whom will only be known by Melanie and possibly Clare who was only seven when we left SA.