A very big blog post...

Good afternoon from a sunny South Africa! Its been a busy few weeks for us three travelling up and down the coast of South Africa so I'm going to split the blog up into weeks 14, 15 and 16 (this is what happens when I forget what day it is and skip another Sunday blog update).

Week 14 and 15 (10th - 23rd of December)

This was the real start to our Christmas leave and as we were still on base at OB we did lots of swimming. We had hoped to drive to Coffee Bay on the Friday 14th but there was an issue with the tyre on the car we hired meaning we got it much later than we had planned. We agreed to start the 10 (ish) hour drive the next morning so our Friday ended up being a trip into Sedgefield for pizza then to the beach for the rest of the day. The stretch of beach we went to was really nice and although we couldn't swim in the 'actual' sea as the waves were way too strong, we got to swim in the mouth of the estuary (between the lifeguard flags of course). Again, the sea here is much much warmer than it would be back in Scotland this time of year...

It took us the whole of Saturday to drive to Coffee Bay but we did see much more of South Africa - driving through countryside, small towns, bigger towns, the edge of Port Elizabeth and through nature reserves. The scenery as we drove through the rest of the garden route and into the Eastern Cape was spectacular! What was not spectacular however was the last stretch of road leading down to Coffee Bay. The mix of fog and an unbelievably high number of potholes made for some tense driving!

We stayed at Coffee Shack Backpackers which is located right next to the beach for the four nights we were away. It's such a lovely backpackers and everyone was super friendly. On Sunday afternoon we went for a surfing lesson and loved it so much we went back the next morning (at 7.30am!! We're committed to the surf life). In fact we loved surfing so much we went everyday while we were there! I didn't expect to find surfing easy so I was pleasantly surprised when I manged to get it - I even got to upgrade my beginners board to a hard board. While we were there we crossed paths with other PT volunteers making their way to Cape Town so it was nice to see them all again.

We headed back to Sedgefield on the 19th then it was Scott's birthday on the 20th. We spent the rest of the week staying out the sun and watching some more Game of Thrones from the DVD rental store in town. On Sunday night we got a lift into town and had dinner before trying to get our bus to Cape Town! The bus company we booked with is notorious for driving right past you at the bus stop so when we saw multiple buses drive past, I made a few phone calls to try and see what bus we'd be getting on. Thankfully one finally stopped for us just before 11.30pm (only half an hour late which is not late at all in SA terms) so we got on and settled down for a night time bus journey to CT.

Week 16 (24th - 30th December)

Unfortunately I didn't really sleep on the bus so when we arrive in Cape Town just before 8am we couldn't wait to get to our Airbnb so we could sleep. Christmas day was a strange one. Being ridiculously sunny all day and with the temperature being around 24°C, it was much different to the Christmas climate I'm use to. As most of the other SA volunteers are here we ate a Christmas dinner together. Credit to Josh and John for masterminding it all and for their excellent cooking. As we have a oven in our apartment we helped out by cooking some of the food. Afterwards, we (SA, Botswana and Zambia volunteers) all went down to the Victoria and Albert waterfront to have drinks. Me, Talitha and Andrew also went on the big wheel after being offered 50% off...on the child tickets. What a bargain!!

On Thursday we went to Robben Island to have a tour of the island and prison. Our guide Wendy was amazing and it was incredible to hear all about the island. We were shown around the prison by an ex political prisoner who was held in the Robben Island prison. It was very interesting to hear the stories he shared with us. We also got to see Nelson Mandela's cell. It's quite surreal to think he spent 18 of his 27 years in imprisonment in that tiny cell. If anyone hasn't read 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Mandela you really should! And if reading isn't your thing the film 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom' is a must!!

South Africa is know for its wine so of course we've done a bit of wine tasting. We went to Vergenoegd wine estate which was really lovely...although I didn't find the wine lovely at all. We also climbed Table Mountain with some of the Zambia volunteers, which is another must for anyone visiting Cape Town. The views from the top were spectacular (it is 1085m high!) and before the clouds came rolling in we could see all the way to Cape Point which has its own special biodiversity especially in the sea as the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet and mix. The clouds at the top of table mountain are really quite cool as they're known as the 'tablecloth' and can be present even when the rest of the sky is clear and blue. This is because of a south-easterly wind blowing up the mountain slopes. It then meets colder air at higher altitude, leading to condensation forming and a thick mist soon coats the top-most regions of the mountain. As the cloud cover pours over the side of the mountain, the process is reversed. Clouds encounter warmer air layers lower down, where the moisture evaporates, making the clouds disappear. Who knew clouds could be so fasanating!

So there's lots of pictures to go with this blog post so in order of appearance...

The first two are of the beach in Sedgefield. The next four are of our time in Coffee Bay. There was many rural villages we passed on our way and Coffee Shack does a lot of work helping kids from these local communities get through school and into further education or employment. Rusty (the dog) belongs to Coffee Shack but like most dogs in the area is free to roam so he decided to come along with us when we went to explore the rocks and hills - he was an excellent your guide and knew the way like the back of his paw. The beach you can see in the photo is where we did our surfing! The rest of the photos are from our first week in Cape Town. The photos show the view of Long Street (Cape Towns 'party street') from our window, our Christmas dinner, me and Talitha being kids in the local park, Robben Island and Mandela's cell, wine tasting, a view of table mountain and finally table mountain itself.

Enjoy the photos and hopefully I won't go three weeks without another blog update!

Rachel :)