During October - December 2007 and January to March 2008 I worked in Pietermaritzburg which is the capital of the Kwa-Zulu-Natal Province and is an hour north of Durban.During my first period of stay I was living with Sam our South African manager and her son in a house outside of Maritizburg which was great fun.

I worked from the house as well and it was good to get into a routine again. In the morning I would go to the local gym which was about 4km away do a work out and then jog back to the house and start work. I was establishing new and exciting projects for our volunteers which included things such as surfing, cricket coaching courses, paragliding, conservation projects as well as others.

During my second stay in PMB. I was living in Umphiti backpackers which was a great laugh as I got on really well with the owners Kim and Kelvin who were only a few years older than me but great people. Living in a backpackers was good fun but you got a little sick of having the same conversation with everyone coming in and out as people would only tend to stay a day and then go off again so making friends with travellers was short lived.

During my second stay I started to play football for Savages FC which is the oldest football club in Africa which is 125 years old. I use to go training every Tuesday and Thursday and the standard was not to bad I was presently surprised. The guys in the team were a nice bunch and we even had a Scottish coach. I only played in a pre season tournament as I had to go an work in Tanzania but all the same it was good. I also got to join a gym and work out in the mornings at 7am as well as playing touch rugby with a bunch of guys on Monday and Wednesday so all in all I was keeping very fit all the time.

Living in PMB we were also very close to the Drakensburg mountains. Myself and one of my football buddies Antony went mountain running one Sunday which was amazing although tiring as it provided us with some great views and the scenery was stunning. Pietermaritzburg is overall quite a nice place, there is not a huge amount of things to do there but living there I soon got to know the locals and make friends that I could do sport with and watch sport with which was great.