World Cup Trip Update 3

update 26/6 morning

(now coming to you from sunny London!)

The 5 hour drive from Swaziland back to Joburg, was uneventful apart from the border guard at the Swaziland – South Africa border telling us that Nelspruit (the location for the 3^rd Aussie game) was only 90 minutes from the border. This made us quite depressed as the days of driving that were coming up basically amounted to driving around in a circle!

Arrival back at Mufasa Lodge saw a mad scramble to get the tents up as quickly as possible so that we could watch the Germany- Serbia match on TV. The result was one that we were definitely not expecting, with the Serbs winning 1-0. When the game was over, some of the group went into Nelson Mandela Square to do a spot of shopping and to check out the scene and soak up the atmosphere. The shopping center itself was huge and walking around it felt like we were outside the opening ceremony, with many of the teams being represented.

Leaving Nelson Mandela Square, we caught a cab to the Total Sports Travel official function, which was an opportunity to eat and drink as much as we could and watch the poms play one of the most boring games in living memory. The lowlight of the night was the interview of Kevin Muscat, who was over here doing some charity work and somehow became the special guest for the function.

The next day saw another long drive in the morning towards Rustenburg, for the Australia - Ghana match that evening. Rustenburg is the main centre for an area that is dominated by Platinum mines and it shows! The ground was miles from town and the traffic getting towards the ground was at a standstill. Despite leaving more than 3 ½ hours before kick-off, we didn’t actually get into the ground until 45 minutes before the game started.

The game itself was a memorable encounter, with an Aussie goal through a keeper error, another Aussie striker being sent off (this time Harry Kewell), and a great second half with the Aussies looking a better side despite playing with a man down.

The end of the game saw a lot of rueful shaking of heads knowing that the Socceroos now had a mountain to climb to reach the knockout stages of the tournament. The leaving of the stadium was even more chaotic than entering the ground, with streaming of people walking in all different directions, no definite answers from authorities about where we were supposed to go and few buses to take people to where they parked their cars. Eventually after a 3 km walk we made it back to the bus, where we sat in traffic for another 1 ½ hours trying to get back to out accommodation. It was at this point that we came to a conclusion that Australia should host a world cup soon as at the very least organising the supporters in and out of the ground won’t be a problem.

We woke the next morning to frost on our tents, with the temperature getting down to -6 over night. We quickly warmed up however, as we were going to Sun City that day. Our arrival at Sun City was met with high expectations by some of the gamblers in the group. I on the other hands was interested in checking out the world-renowned golf courses, which play host to the Nedbank Challenge every year with 1^st place winning $2 million US. The golf courses didn’t disappoint, they looked beautiful despite the cold temps over night and the lack of rain to the area in recent months. Some of us discovered that there was a big screen within the entertainment part of the complex that was showing the football so many of us congregated there to watch the kiwis play the Italians. In the end I almost started cheering for the All Whites as the Azzuri became more and more frustrated by the New Zealand “bus parking” tactics. The drive back to camp saw some very heavy wallets as the gamblers had cleaned up at the tables.

The next day, after another morning frost, saw a drive of some 650km from Rustenburg to the gateway to southern Kruger National Park, Hazyview. The day before the last group game saw many of us taking a full-day game drive through Kruger National Park. The drive got of to a great start with 3 cheetahs walking along side the main road just 20 minutes into our drive. The rest of our day was spent spotting rhinos, elephants, buffalo and other wildlife that call Kruger home.

The day of the game saw another early start for me as I took up the opportunity to do a walking tour of a private reserve next door to Kruger. The walk was very educational as our 2 armed guides showed us various tracks and marks and explained about how the wildlife live within the park. Thankfully we didn’t run into any big animals during our walk, however people who did another game drive manage to see both lions and leopards thus completing the Big 5 for them.

The afternoons saw a drive into Nelspruit to watch the English and US attempt to qualify for the round of 16. The English should have won by a much more comfortable margin, whilst the US waited until the 93^rd minute to secure their place at the top of the group. At the end of the early games, we boarded a bus from Fan Fest towards the stadium to soak up the atmosphere before the game.

As the players warmed up we knew we were in for something special. Australia started the game a little nervously, but at least had some strike power up front with Kennedy and Cahill. The half-time whistle came and we found out that it was still 0-0 between Germany and Ghana as well.

The second half was a whirlwind ride, with euphoria with 1st “Super” Timmy Cahill scoring then a wonder strike from Brett Holman finding the back of the net. However, the mood became quieter as we found out the Germans were up 1-0, which meant that Australia had to score 2 more goals to qualify. This was unfortunately not to be as the Serbs got a goal back through a Schwarzer fumble. The last frantic minutes saw neither team add to their tally and the full-time whistle was met with mixed reactions; happy because we won, but sad that our world cup dream has come to an end.

At the end of the game there was a lot of Australians who stayed behind to watch the players do a lap of honour, and to finally salute the team on their performance. Leaving the ground there was an attempt to try to swap gear with any Serbians who were left at ground. Unfortunately they all had left and it wasn’t until we made it back to our truck, that we found a busload of Serbs and I was able to swap my Aussie supporters jacket with a Serbian national t-shirt. We returned to our base tired but happy that we had seen Australia win.

The last day of our tour saw us take the Panoramic Route north of Havyview, through 3 viewpoints; God’s Window, where you look out over the edge of the escarpment to the rolling plains below, The Potholes, where millennia of erosion has created rounded holes in sandstone where water has flowed and some surrounding waterfalls and finally The Roundabouts, where the edge of a mountain range has created 3 circular peaks. We eventually arrived back in Joburg that night, after listening to the heroic kiwis record their third straight draw, but be eliminated from the world cup.

Thus ends my South African adventure, stay tuned for the English leg…

World Cup Trip Update 2

update 17/6 afternoon

(Apologies for the delay, who knew Internet access would be hard to come by in rural Africa!)

Our arrival in Durban was memorable to say the least. Another truck that we were travelling with arrived at the site where we were supposed to be staying a couple of hours before us only to discover that is was over 60km from the centre of Durban and didn’t meet our needs. So while the other operators where finding somewhere else for us to stay we sat by the edge of the road and waited. After an hour or so we received conformation that another place had been found. By this stage we were much more concerned about finding a pub to watch the USA vs England match, thus we made our way to a beach-side pub to watch the game and have a feed. After the game, when we left the pub we were amazed to discover that the accommodation that had been provided was a 3 ½ star hotel on the beach south of Durban CBD.

The next morning, we made our way to another camp-ground close to the centre of town, where we set up our tents and got dressed in our Socceroos gear then headed to Fan-Fest Durban which was on the beach about 3km south of the Stadium. The Fan-Fest was epic, with Ghanaians, South Africans, Germans and Aussies all watching the Ghana- Serbia match on a big screen with vuvuzellas being blown and everybody getting more and more excited about the game coming up.

After the evening game we walked down to the stadium with much good-natured ribbing between each set of supporters. Entry into the stadium was something you are used to seeing on the sub-continent with massive lines, people pushing in and a general sense of chaos, with all the supporters having to walk up several ramps to reach the stadium; as a local explained, “the ground will have a capacity of 40,000 after the World Cup, and the average crowd will only be 15,000, so the stadium didn’t need to have many exits or bars to accommodate the weekly crowd.” As the playing field came into view, my eyes where drawn towards the roof structure, which is incredible. Even 1-½ hours before kick-off, the atmosphere was electric with gold shirts out numbering the white of the Germans, however the Socceroos numbers were swollen with the locals wearing the shirts of Bafana Bafana. The anthems were sung with great passion, as I struggled to believe that the world cup had started and I was a part of it!

The game was a disaster with the revolutionary 4-6-0 system back-firing massively.

The Germans were far too good in all respects, their passing and movement through mid-field made us look like navy witches-hats at time. The sending off of Cahill was met with disbelief from the Aussies, who couldn’t believe that their worst nightmares had come to life.

Moving forward, without any knowledge of what is going on in the camp; Kennedy and Kewell both have to start, as we need to score goals if we are somehow able to pull off a miracle and beat Ghana. At the back, Beauchamp should play, as Craig Moore is simply to slow to be able to compete at this level.

The next day, we woke hoping that the night before was a illusion, however reading the local papers our worst fears were realised, the press was even more scathing of the Socceroos that any of our supporters. With the Durban behind us, we pushed up the coast to St. Lucia where we went for a evening wetland cruise. We had only gone 250m up the river before spotting a large herd of Hippos wallowing in the shallow waters. This quickly made us completely forget about the match the night before, as the hippos swam next to the boat.

The next day promised even more with a full-day safari in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve. Driving through the gates at dawn, we immediately saw hyenas on the road and zebras and giraffes in the scrub. After a couple of hours of driving along the tracks spotting antelope, a call came over the radio that lions had been spotted with a kill. We immediately drove there to find a dead baby rhino, 2 female lions and 2 cubs about 15m of the road in amongst the scrub, after watching for 15 minutes a roar was heard close by and a male joined the group. Eventually we left the area to start heading back towards the gates for lunch. After lunch, still recovering from the Kiwis stealing a draw from the their 1^st game, it became even more exciting with gnus, zebras, giraffes and buffalo forming big packs in the grasslands. After seeing an old bull elephant giving himself a mud bath, we turned a corner to find 2 female elephants with 4 young elephants in a clearing ahead. The bigger female saw us and mock-charged with ears flapping and a resounding call before ripping a bush up and throwing it to the ground with its trunk. The young started to make a move so we backed up and watched them walk past our truck. The baby elephants knowing they had a captive audience then started dancing and playing on the road in front of us, so we watched and took photos as they seemingly played up to the crowd. After a while they moved off the path so we could drive past.

Almost around the next bend there was 3 giraffes feeding at the roadside before taking off up the road behind us. It was amazing to watch these gangly creatures break into top speed up the track. Before the end of the day we also spotted a pair of rhinos, marking of 4 of the Big 5 African animals in a 24-hour period. The day was capped off by watching the plucky North Koreans holding Brazil to a 2-1 scoreline.

The next day saw us cross a land border into the Kingdom of Swaziland, where we were reliably informed that the king has 18 wives and chooses another each year, during the reed ceremony (Google “Swaziland reed ceremony”, you will not be disappointed!). From the border we headed to our campsite at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. On the drive from the gate we spotted warthogs, antelope, zebras and ostriches. Watching Bafana Bafana lose last night was quite sad, as all the locals had spent the last 2 days telling us how they were going to win it all!

Today saw us do a few activities around the reserve with monkeys, antelope and zebras being spotted by almost everybody. We went to a local village at lunchtime to meet the chief and see how the locals live, and spent the arvo watching hippos being fed.

Who needs the soccer anyway!!!

World Cup Trip 2010 update 12/06 mid afternoon

Arrival in Joburg – got through customs and went looking for taxi rank, the 1^st person I asked for directions told me he was a charter car operator and he would be happy to take me to my accommodation. Entering the freeway, I knew I was in Africa as the pick-up truck in front of me had 3 passengers sitting in the back. After a uneventful trip where I tried to explain to the poor bloke the plot to District 9 (a sci-fi movie set in Joburg that came out last year) we arrived at the spot where the total football village was supposed to be, it however was actually across the road. The “village” was still in its infancy, with only 20 people there that night, and another 25 arriving the next day.

Daylight brought a scene that was almost at direct odds of what they were advertising the village to be. Small cramps bathrooms, dorms with 2 bunk beds squeezed in, an empty pool and a reception with also doubled as a dining room, waiting area and a football viewing room. Good news was at hand after breakfast, as 3 boys from Heathcote checked in and were informed that they were doing the same tour I was. This at least gave me someone to go up the street with, to the local shopping centre in Randburg. There the scene was organised chaos, with people blowing vavoolas, 80% of the locals wearing south African team colours, car horns going of, dancing and singing starting at the drop a hat. Our group wearing the mighty green and gold of Australia, were embraced immediately, with people coming up to shake hands, have photos taken and the most frequent; “hello Australia, welcome to South Africa!” shouted out from shop fronts, this was usually followed by a somebody blowing a vavoola as a sort of punctuation mark.

The next day, after an impromptu soccer match and another trip to the shopping centre, the overland tour commenced. The trip from the village to the eastern outskirts of Joburg saw us pass through some really nice areas such as Newtown, which is the business centre of Joburg, and some other areas of suburb after suburb of high-rise apartment blocks. The thing that struck me was the amount of upmarket cars there was on the streets of Joburg, obviously the rich of Joburg like to show off in style. The other notable thing about the drive was that 75% of the cars had South African flags around their side-mirrors, more often then not with a South African flag attached as well.

Arrival at the lodge at nightfall, we met up with the rest of our tour group, who had mostly arrived in the country that day as well as the tour leaders; Melvin and Zanzou. After a hearty dinner, we bunked down to our first night of camping at Mufusa Backpackers in the eastern outskirts of Joburg.

The next day we made an early start towards Durban. After a couple of hours drive through country-side that was not to dissimilar to the northern tablelands of NSW, with maize fields as far as the eye could see, we stopped at a town called Harrismith with the eastern-most point of the Drakensburg Mountains on the outskirts of town. We stopped to pick up blankets as we were told it would be very cold in the mountains that night. After lunch at the man-made Sternfontein Dam with the mountains getting higher in the distance, we arrived at our camp-ground just in side the entrance to Royal Natal National Park. When we arrived we were met with a problem with an answer that everybody already knew; did we want to set up our tents now or after the opening match (South Africa vs Mexico)? We took the popular decision to go back to the Mont-Aux-Sources Resort and watch the soccer match with the locals nearby villages.

It was a nervous mood in the 1^st half, with the crowd becoming more agitated as the match went on. The goal to Bafana Bafana in the second half was greeted with euphoria from the locals and it wasn’t hard to get caught up in the spirit. However, the equaliser was met with deafening silence from the locals, which matched the soccer city crowds’ reaction.

It was quite a site to be watching a world cup soccer match in the bar of a hotel with the mountains looming towards the south and east. As the game came to an end and it got dark outside, over the mountains towards where we were camping a tremendous electrical storm was in progress. As we drove back the storm passed us, with lightning, thunder and small hail hitting the truck as we drove. Luckily, the storm had passed by the time we arrived at the campsite, where we set up our tents and had some dinner before going back to the resort to watch the second game of the night between France and Uruguay. This was a dour affair with neither team getting an advantage until 10 minutes from time a Uruguayan player was given a red card, which lead to a frenetic attack by the French until the end which was not rewarded with a goal.

After a good nights sleep, half of our group went for a 3 hour hike up into the Drakensberg Mountains. This was a beautiful walk that was only marginally spoiled by some inclement weather. The highest of mountains rose to over 3200m, with the valley carved through a kilometre below leading to some breathtaking scenery. with the little creek that created the gorge ending a huge river by the time it reaches the coast 400kms away.

If any of you can provide some info into the make up of the Drakensburg Mountains, it would be much appreciated. To my eye, they appeared be made up of various sedimentary sequences, with an igneous cap upon the highest ridges.

Currently, we are making our way towards Durban and have heard that the South Koreans have beaten the Greeks 2-0. We hope to find a pub tonight to watch the Poms play the Yanks, and to find out if anybody still cares about the Springboks who play France tonight in town.

more updates to come...