After nearly a month of travelling we have at last fixed the website and can start updating (and backdating) in ernest! We started off our travels spending time in Cape Town being well taken care of by Miss Rhonda Mercer (Flavia's old flatmate). We cunningly decided that walking up table mountain would be too much of a struggle with our accountant bellies, so we took the cable car up and walked down - this seemed a sensible option at the time, but then we found we couldnt walk for a few days afterwards. On the 14th February (according to Michael that's Valentines day, but I dont take any notice of such things) we climbed up Lion's Head to have a picnic whilst watching the sunset. Dead romantic! And we even saw the green flash. From Cape Town we took off down the Garden route. Being backpackers we obviously hired the most inexpensive car - with no air con and no radio - fulling believing that our fantastic chat would be sufficient to while away those long drives. Lesson learned - get radio! We started off going to the Cape of Good Hope (and yes the views we had were just like the postcard picture). We were fortunate enough to arrive here fairly early and had the whole place to ourselves before the truckloads of other tourists arrived and turned this peaceful setting into an overcrowded photo opportunity. We even saw a large pod of dophins playing in the waves just for us. And some baboons bonking on the beach (M laughed and F was very embarrassed). Stellenbosch - It was here that we discovered an obvious highlight of South Africa- the wine. During the course of several wine tastings we have come to consider ourselves self-educated experts (ie. we can distinguish between the red and white). And there is now photographic evidence, Mr Boyd, of Flavia with her head in a vat. Literally - in fact she almost got thrown out for contaminating the product. From here we headed on to Montague where we had heard of a 'popular' trail to the local hot springs (which happened to be at a 5* resort). So off we went in the fading light, and the path got less and less pathlike and F got less and less amused, until eventually we were blazing our own trail through the bottom of a river in the reeds ankle deep in mud. And when we eventually made it they'd locked up and we had to shout to the other guests through the fence to get someone to let us in. After this we carried on to Oudtshoorn, famous for its caves (which Mike got stuck in - see photo), and its ostriches (which Mike rode and fell off in quick succession). Our favourite place was Plett where we stayed outside the town in the most unbackpackerlike backpackers we've ever seen. We had 2 balconies all to ourselves and those pristine white curtains that blow in the wind (from the movies). We also had miles and miles of empty, unspoiled beach which we claimed for ourselves for those few days. It was idyllic. We then had a bit of a schlep to Hermanus (6 hours with no radio), during which F got caught by a speed gun attached to a small man in a bush. We await what we presume will be an enormous speeding fine as the car was vibrating at the time, and F was just saying she hadnt realised it would go this fast. The highlight of Hermanus was great white shark diving, very big and very scary (note to mothers, we were in a cage at the time). Then a slower drive to the airport where we dumped the car, avoiding all questions of potential law breaking, and got on a plane to .... see next postcard, lol mike and flavia xxxxx