Days 4-6 You want to take the boys down to the beach...?
How does this thing work again? Having not been on blog duty for 12 months, I must apologise early on as I try to get back into the groove of things.
So, 3 days crammed into one. Here we go.
Day 1 – Jeffrey’s Bay / monkeys (not Elephants)
Day 2 – a stag do starting at 11am / walking a cheetah
Day 3 – a mountain pass / Prince Albert (middle of nowhere)
Phew. Still got it*
*- Meg appears to be unhappy with my entry, so I shall try and elaborate a little more. The first day was in a surfer’s haven (something about supertubes and a Billabong surf comp.), where we did a little wandering about, and picked up our team mascots – Mikah and Miah (two porcelain elephants, that I want to glue to the bonnet as a much less streamlined Jaguar logo, but I suspect they would not last 5 minutes. And if they did, then I have a worse suspicion that when we take them off, they will take half the bonnet paint off with them – not good for Melvin’s resale value). We also got some spare car keys made up. Not sure why, as if we ever lose the main set, then we won’t actually ever be able to turn the alarm off, but it gives me a sense of ‘preparedness for all eventualities’. The stop that evening was Plettenberg Bay, a little further along the garden route. As the main attractions are surprisingly close to each other, we arrived at ‘animal alley’ (monkeyland, elephant sanctuary and cheetah sanctuary all within spitting distance of each other). We decided to pass on the elephants. It was £45 each to hold an elephant by the trunk, and to be honest, there are a lot of “a once in a lifetimes”, but holding an elephant by it’s nose and walking with it, is not really going to feature when I reel off on my deathbed all the things I’m glad I managed to do. Well, please do let that be one of my major life regrets. Damn, now I’m regretting it, just talking about it… Anyway, monkeyland was cool. But mostly because of a massive tortoise, tipped forward with back feet in the air, trying to drink water from a bird bath on the ground. Just clumsy. The next day was Cheetah sanctuary day. An amazing, if a little surreal, experience. It’s obviously a proper conservation place, with intro videos explaining how important animals are, all to the Lion King soundtrack, and ‘Evergreen’ (Westlife?). You get to roam in their pens first, and then take them for a full on stroll around the park at sunset. They do what they want, and start to run off every so often, but as they have been in captivity since birth, they’re a pretty well behaved cat/dog. The next day we did a bit of a detour to Prince Albert, via the ‘Ostrich’ capital of the world. Not that I’m sure anyone outside of the 19th century has the requirement for an Ostrich feather in their bonnet, but I hear it was all the rage at the time (as was making your face as pale as possible, and using leeches to cure all ailments, so I wouldn’t judge them as the most successful of periods in time). Even Ostrich racing looks like it should have been something for another era (but, then again, dwarf throwing is obviously making a comeback, so I won’t jump to dismiss it just yet). The main reason for taking this detour, was because there was meant to be a couple of impressive ‘passes’ through the mountains, leading to & from Prince Albert - the place that time forgot. Hard to describe. There were ladies that were doing lunch, but as the nearest town was two hours away via a small road, it seemed a long way to ‘do lunch’? But, on the way out we took the dirt road back, and that was definitely what adventures are all about, and gave us a little insight into what we should hopefully be able to expect for the rest of the trip, and the proper Mzanzi Trophy – i.e. lights coming on the dashboard that shouldn’t, brakes failing, tyres rubbing against things they shouldn’t, 4WD getting locked and impossible to get out of, and flat tyres. I’m not going to even go into it here, as I don’t want to dismiss poor old Melvin so early on, but I’m also hoping we’ll find a garage(s) soon, and all will be forgotten/fixed and these heart stopping moments and panics, will all be a distant memory. Oh please let that be the case. Please….