5th of July 2018
On Thursday morning Pauline and I packed up and started off for Durban because Veronica’s truck was due in the next morning and we were hoping she would be able to take delivery of it on the same day so that we could start our way down to Cape Town. It was quite a boring trip down on a busy freeway only broken by a massive traffic jam where we were bumper to bumper for over an hour. When we got to the area causing delay we found a huge pile of road base in one lane with about 12 blokes, one wheel barrow, one shovel and one Wacker Packer replacing a 30 metre length of the lane! We finally got into Durban and booked into the Bluff Eco Park which is where we stayed when we were waiting for our vehicles. It was a much more pleasing and balmy 23c! Friday morning we were up early and dropped our washing off, did some shopping and then waited for the phone call from the shipping agent to collect Veronica’s truck. Alas the news was bad, Veronica would not be able to pick it up until Monday at the earliest.
So what to do on the weekend? On Saturday we went for a look along the southern beaches and ended up finding a set of 360 stairs that led down from the Bluff to the beach.
From there you could walk along the beach to an old abandoned Whaling Station. It was very interesting and apparently the SA Army now use it for training soldiers in armed entry type work.
There is a massive amount of broken asbestos left over the entire area which is a bit alarming.
On Sunday we took the double decker bus tour of Durban which I thought was great because it gave us a different perspective of the city. It has some really poor areas and some really rich areas, lots of different shopping from Malls to spice markets and then of course all the beach areas.
On Monday we got the call at around noon and Veronica and I went off to meet the shipping agent at the Durban RORO terminal. What followed was just 5 hours of sitting around waiting for paperwork to be signed. There is no rush and it is painful to watch the people in the offices having great long conversations together and not getting on with their jobs. Eventually just before the 5 o’clock knock off time we were told we could pick up the truck from the dock. Of course it couldn’t be that easy could it. On getting to the dock we found her truck parked in by some massive trucks and machinery so we then had to wait some more to get the truck released from within its confines.
Crickey.......we're in Africa! 