Blog Day 37 Sun 12th June 2011
For breakfast this morning we have ………………………………….the same as yesterday! We manage to use up our ingredients which give us one less bag to carry. The Baz Bus arrives around 12ish so we jump back on that & are pretty much on it for the rest of the day & evening. We get to a place called Randburg which is an area of Johannesburg. We are the last people to get dropped off, so we don't arrive there until about 9pm. Rob and Val (friends of Dan's Dad) are waiting there to meet us. We load our stuff into their car and make our way over to Krugersdorp, just outside Jo'burg. We pull up to their house which is in a private estate and WOW……. what an amazing place! They have a roast dinner ready & waiting for us though Val thinks it may be no good, as our bus ran about 2 hours late due to traffic & an unscheduled stop for a silly couple leaving their passports on the bus. But it turns out great though and is just what we have been needing, some real good home cooking! After dinner we spend some time chatting with Rob and Val before turning into bed.
We cannot believe how lucky we are to have met so many people out here that have just taken us in and treated us just like their own family!

Blog Day 38 Mon 13th June 2011 & Blog Day 39 Tues 14th June 2011
These 2 days we pretty much end up just chilling out, catching up with the blog & friends & sorting through our pictures etc. Rob & Val are great & we literally feel like part of the family, they love the fact that there is someone else around to make tea, and that we are just making ourselves at home. They very much remind us of Trish's Nan & Granddad, the hospitality, the fresh, beautiful house & little routines they have like a glass of wine in the evening. We were going to make use of the swimming pool but it's just too freezing cold. They both love cooking & we have some great meals while we are here. We have a lovely lamb Potjie on Monday with some of the family & a Braii on the Tuesday, they show us how do vegetables & meat with seasoning on the Braai-awesome more tips for our book. We also attempt to go out & play Golf, Trish has never done it before & definitly needs some lessons, Dan's game is pretty shocking to so we give up after 9 holes, this is probably the hottest day we've had away so far so this doesn't help matters but it was a lovely course & nice to get out.

Blog Day 40 Wed 15th June 2011
For breakfast today we are shown how to do the best Mexican Omelets ever, so easy & simple, & so tasty it's a definite winner. Once we are ready we head with Lindall (Rob & Val's partner in work) to the Apartheid Museum. We only really want to go here because we didn't do the Robben Island tour in Cape Town. It's a huge museum with so much information, it's unbelievable & pretty hard to take it all in especially if you're not a reader (Dan). We are not allowed to take pictures which we don't understand & is a shame because the sheer volume of pictures & information is mind numbing. After a couple of hours it's hard to take in anymore so we leave & get something to eat at a Mugg & Bean café. We also pick up our car tonight at 6 ready for our Safari- it's a Kia Picanto of course the only car out there suitable for a safari! Although it's not exactly elephant in stature its definitly elephant in color so we will have to have our wits about us. The last thing we want is a horny elephant flopping his trunk on our little safari mobile!
We are cooking for Rob & Val tonight as they usually are out on a Wednesday night & don't get in until late, so we decide to do one of Dan's currys. Its difficult getting all of the food we are used to cooking with but it turns out delicious & we are all over the moon with how it turns out.

Blog Day 41 Thurs 16th June 2011
Today is a public Bank holiday so Rob & Val take the day off, we go to the Clearwater shopping Centre just to have a mooch around. We get treated to lunch at a place called the Meat Co, which can only mean one thing- STEAK!! The food is delicious, the best steak we have had here by far & the meal is huge. We have Beef Carpaccio for a starter which is new to us but we've been wanting to try it & it's a definite winner. We head back to theirs for a nap & Val rustles us up some toasties for dinner, we are all still stuffed from dinner, so they definitely hit the spot.

Blog Day 42 Fri 17th June 2011
Today we decided to head back to the Clearwater shopping Centre. The main reason is to pick up the South East Asia on a Shoestring Lonely Planet Guide. We are starting to worry a little about what to expect when we get to Thailand and are hoping that this book could get us out of a pinch. Trish also needs to pick up a jumper as the weather is a little on the chilly side in the evenings. We get these bits & some food shopping bits ready for our safari trip tomorrow, we are so excited. There are more family members there when we get back & a gorgeous smelling roast dinner on the go, outcome the cards again & the kids love it. Robs son puts on a DVD of news footage from 1986, when he & a group of people went trekking up in the Drakensberg Mountains. Unexpectedly the weather turned on them, snow showers meant that they got completely lost. They are faced with avalanches, no food, no clothing that was warm enough for such icy conditions & some losing their shoes in the snow. They came to a stop & one guy pushed on until he came across a cabin, where he couldn't go on any more and collapsed into a bed. The next day the decision was made to make one final search of the area, which resulted in the guy in the cabin being found and the others being saved. The next news report was of them in hospital all recovering from the severe conditions they went through. They were all very lucky to be alive, and we were in awe at hearing this, what a lucky escape.