Hi all, I'm going to try and give a summary of what we've been up to so far in South Africa...! We are now staying with Andre (a friend of Claire's) and his family, and being very well looked after. We hope to see the sights of Cape Town over the next few days, although at the moment we are sympathising with everyone back in the UK as we have torrential downpours and thick cloud which looks set for the week, but fingers crossed we'll have some photo opportunities! Until just recently the weather has been brilliant, quite cold but sunny most days, so much nicer than the UK summer, despite a local claiming it was the harshest winter here in years! 

We flew into Johannesburg, and were pleasantly surprised with where we were staying - we didn't get shot like many people expected, and our hostel was in the suburbs where it was safe to walk around at night. Whilst in Joburg we went to a Lion Park, which we drove around and saw zebras, cheetahs, lions, hyenas and finally lions. We were lucky to see some white lion cubs playing, and some adults mating... pictures to follow! You could also go into an enclosure with some cubs which were very sweet (Andrew wants it to be clear that I'm writing this because he would never be so soppy!). We also went on a tour of Soweto (South Western Township) where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu lived. We saw the outside of his old house but were unable to go in due to a dispute between him and Winnie as to what to do with it! We were surprised with the quality of most of the housing and the level of security they had, and that Soweto contains the largest hospital in the world. The highlight was probably walking down a shanty town road, where we were immediately taken by the hand by local kids and made to swing them between us continuously! Didn't actually take in much of the shanty town but the kids were great, they especially enjoyed seeing their photos on our cameras! We also went on a gold mining tour in Gold Reef City, which was also a theme park (but pretty rubbish unfortunately!) and to the Apartheid Museum, which was really interesting to piece together everthing else we'd learnt but slight information overload by the end of it! 

We then headed down towards Durban through the Drakensberg Mountains, which we stopped in for a couple of days. We were met by our hostel owner at lunchtime and he told us we had 5 minutes to get ready or a hike! We had adjusted well to African time where everything happens about an hour after everyone is ready so this was a bit of a shock to the system! Despite feeling slightly like we were on a school trip during our stay and always being late, it made us make the most of our time there and we did some good hikes. The scenery was stunning, with snow capped mountains in the background. We tried to climb as high as the snow but didnt quite make it! One morning we even had a frost!

We reached the coast at Durban, but despite staying at a hostel called On The Beach, we arrived at night and left in the dark the next morning so still hadn't really seen the sea! Our next stop was Port St John, which had nice beaches and we went on a hike to a blowhole. The wind and tide were just right to make it pretty impressive, just as well as it was a mission to get there, scrambling up and down through a gap in the rocks! We carried on to Cintsa, staying at a 'backpacker village' which had free canoes, body boards and table tennis to keep us entertained. We even braved the sea to play on the boards! As we left Cintsa the weather was getting colder and even started to rain on our transfer to Hogsback, which is the tail end of the Drakensberg mountain range. We spent 3 days at Away With The Fairies hostel, following mountain trails to impressive waterfalls and 'the big tree', which was a big tree! The garden had resident monkeys and parrots, but we only found the monkeys, swinging from the trees outside our room, but they always managed to run away as soon as I got the camera out! The hostel also has a renowned 'scariest treehouse ever' which was about 20m high, with the dodgiest ladder ever, which had half the rungs missing or snapped off! The view from the top was worth it though, and we were just in time to catch the sunset. We also went to the local labyrinth, were very disappointed that it wasn't a maze but a path to spiritual enlightment!!

After a day back on the coast at East London and a night in Port Elizabeth, we headed for Cape St Francis. Despite rubbish weather and not liking the hostel owner it was a pretty place, and we managed to get some good views from the lighthouse when the sun came out. We also spent some time at a penguin rehabilitation centre and more walking along the beach!

Our next hostel was one of the nicest we've stayed at, very African with a cozy fire inside and a massive bonfire outside. But we hadn't come here to relax, Storms River village was our base for the 216m Bloukrans Bridge bungee jump! The first day we had missed the shuttle to it so we went for a waterfall zipline tour in the Tsitsikamma National Park. The scenery was stunning (combination of water, forest and mountains) but we suffered the grumpiest guide ever, it was a lot shorter than expected and we didnt get our free lunch :( ! The next day was much more exciting... The bridge is over a steep gorge with a river running through it, we could see the sea in the background and mountainous forest the other way, so a pretty awesome setting! We were told that the walk to the middle of the bridge where we would jump from would be the scariest part of it all... A massive lie! Although my scariest part was seeing a "Snakes, Beware" sign on the path to the bridge! The walk across the bridge was through a mesh cage below one of the main roads in South Africa! I was expecting there to be a large queue of people waiting to do it before us so I could watch them and prepare myself, but no, it was just us mad enough to be there! Andrew went first and I watched from the other side of the bridge, which scared me much more than i had been before.... He was such a small dot down in the valley (see photos)! I wasn't sure whther he hadn't screamed or if I just hadn't heard it because he was so far away, but apparently he was too scared to scream! As soon as he was back up they dragged me off to the other side to be attached, before I had time to find out from him whether I should bottle it! Neither of us can really remember what happenedin our final few moments on the bridge, but from the DVD it looks like I did look down! I could feel the crews hands on my back and knew they would push me if I didn't jump, so without really think threw myself off the bridge! There were about 7 seconds of freefall... quite a lot of time to wonder what the hell you're doing! I screamed all the way down to the bottom until i felt the biungee cord take up, but on the second time down you get another shorter freefall... so the screaming started again! Slightly sore throat for the rest of the day! It was an awesome feeling and we were both tempted to do it again, but eventually decided it wasnt in the budget! I amost had my first horse riding lesson that afternoon, but we were too late.

Our next stop was in Wilderness - stunning cliff top location looking down over the beach but unfortunately very English weather! That evening we went to the local night market that evening which was full of traditional African souvenirs and food stalls.

The next day we headed to Hermanus, which is famous for land based whale watching. We were lucky and saw a few breaching in the bay. Unfortunately storms were coming our way and we weren't able to go sea kayaking with the whales in the marine reserve or out whale watching on a boat (I think Andrew was glad!). Luckily we had been out great white shark cage diving the day before. Shark Alley is in between two islands off the coast of Gansbaii, a section of water that the sharks migrate through. They were attracted to our boat by dropping fish bait over the side. We were able to see the sharks circling the boat and trying to attack the bait. In the cage one of the boat crew would shout when we needed to go down, as the shark was swimming past. If the shark went straight for the bait, the bait would then be pulled towards the boat (and cage!) so that the shark was heading straight for us, showing us their jaws! It was an amazing but slightly surreal experience. Hopefully we managed to get some good underwater photos! Our last day in Hermanus was fairly leisurely due to the weather, we walked along the coastal path and tried to whale watch, although it was difficult in the wind! We celebrated my birthday by eating out for lunch rather than our standard tuna and pasta meal which was very exciting, and caught our final bus to Cape Town that evening, where we met up with Andre. We have spent most of today hiding from the rain and making use of the internet, catching up and booking our internal flights for Australia and Asia. We plan to get a bus round Cape Town tomorrow (a bit like the Guide Friday ones) to find out where everything is, and hopefully get up Table Mountain if the weather improves. We also have a Cape Peninsula tour booked for Thursday, and are going to try and fit in a wine tour as well. Might give Robben Island a miss as apparently Mandela's cell is currently being refurbished, and Andrew's stomach could probably do with a break after the shark dive boat trip! 

I hope that at least some of you have made it down this far!! Love to all, and thanks for all my birthday cards and messages. Keep in touch, Alex and Andrew x