Hi people...

Happy new year...! I have done and seen so much cool stuff I'm beginning to feel like a slave to the internet in just putting pics and vids on, here is a taste of South Africa life so far...I have a great Story of my Bulungala experience so watch this space...

Hope everyones well...i know what you mean about the weather, it's been bad here also, some days going into the +30C's !!!

Love to all

Rob

written by  willrob on December 15, 2009 from Durban, South Africa
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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I've still got a heap of cool stuff to show you from South Africa...including my magical time in The Krugar National Park so please watch this space...I promise it'll get better...

I hope your all well, back in the distant UK. I really feel like I'm living on a different planet than the rest of you...it's the most bizarre feeling...

Below is some of the best from New Year time in the Drakensburg, an area in land from Durban, (a city on the coast, east of the middle of South Africa).

Also check the pictures as I'll add a few new ones and the Map at the top of the page for a more up-to-date of where on earth I'am now...!

Rob x

(Big thanks to Enno the infamous German who crossed the gushing river with me several times in order to complete one of my all time greatest adventures in the Amphitheater, Northern Drakensburg....!)

written by  willrob on January 3, 2010 from Harrismith, South Africa
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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Hello Peoples…

Sorry for the years I’ve taken to add Blogs to my Blog..! I’m now in Sri Lanker (arrived 20th Feb) and leave for Tokyo tomorrow (24th arriving 25th Feb)…excited or nervous…I’m still deciding…

Here’s hopefully the rest of South Africa...after the Drakensburg I headed down to Durban City…the 3rd largest community of Indians outside India (behind Birmingham, believe it or not…?!) I stayed here for a while, recharging my batteries and leaving my camera at the Back Packers every time I went out for a walk - whether it was broad day light or you were a local African - the likely hood was at some point you’d be mugged…as a pale tourist I wasn’t taking any chances…many times when I did venture out into the city among the lovely food smells I found I was the only white person on the many over populated streets I walked through…It quite literally felt like I was an ‘alien’ from another world…I loved that feeling…

After Durban I headed to St Lucia, 4 hours along the coast, east, to Hippo and Croc country…here on the first day I went on a ‘booze cruz’ and saw many Hippos and was amazed to find you could canoe along the river where Crocs the size of well… canoes were swimming along side you.

Guide: ‘don’t worry they can’t get you if you’re in the canoe’..!
Rob: and if you happen to fall out?!...
Guide: silence.

I didn’t go anywhere near a canoe in St Lucia.

However I did go to my first real safari park, ‘real’ in the sense that if you stepped out of your vehicle you’d most likely become someone’s dinner…and around the park in some places there was no fence…just a ‘natural barrier’ ie, an easily cross-able river…The video is of my first wild Giraffe…and the picture of the 'Big Five' I guess is a warning...?!?!
...hee hee

enjoy….

R

written by  willrob on January 12, 2010 from Saint Lucia Estuary, South Africa
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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When I arrived in Nelspruit...the town close to The Krugar National Park, I was disappointed with my first day...My idea was that I would meet someone...hire a car and drive round the Park with more freedom than the over priced tours of Krugar...

I moved from my Back Packers 'Funky Monkey's' which to be honest wasn't Funky at all...and I certainly didn't see any monkey's...
At the new Back Packers I met two 'Ozy chicks' (I m sure they won't mind) Lea and her friend (sorry forgotten the name...! I know I'm terrible)...they had made other arrangements and had already been in the park for a week...! they loved it with a passion...!

I ended up going out with them for '1 beer' (why can it never be just 1..?!) in a restaurant not to far from where we were staying...we got talking to the owner of the restaurant the infamous 'Garth'... who then drove us along with others to a night club...there were moments where we feared for our lives driving at break neck speeds in a Subaru down dodgy pitch black lanes at midnight but we finally reached our club and had a night of shots...strange conversations and a mix of world music including 'I would walk five hundred miles...' I have to admitt I felt a little homesick...

Garth and Sarah-Marie invited us to come along with them to a lodge near by the Krugar Park where Garths parents were staying... We laughted about the previous night and the absurdity of what had had happened and how we came to be in their car driving off for a relaxing weekend...

I can't thank Lea, Garth, Sarah-Marie and Garth's Parnets, Phillip and Louise for a a trully special and memorable time...in their company I was fortunate enough to be taken into the Krugar Park 3 days in a row!!!, Sample Phillips Superb Braai's! (BBQ's), see 4 of the big 5 including wild dogs, (a very rare sighting, as Lea will agree..!) and the greatest day spent in Maputo, Mozambique, where we ate some of the best sea food platters I may ever...! and got pulled over and fined for doing a 'U'-turn in the road...corruption at it's best...!

I can't say enough about these people, their generosity and kindness made feel very privileged indeed and like I told them...they became my South African family away from home...Thanks you with all my heart.

Enjoy the vids...and I'm nearly in Bahrain...there's a thought...!

R x

written by  willrob on January 15, 2010 from Nelspruit, South Africa
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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