The Wright's on Vacation: Anaconda's for Sale?

Dear Blog,

Bonding time with Grandpa

It’s been over 3 weeks since my last confession……..it’s actually quite hard to keep up with this and as the time stretches on I find myself thinking “gosh I have to remember this, or that for the blog etc”. That’s about as stressful as life gets there though so I can’t complain.

Typical informal settlement

South Africa still struggles with crime and although there are just as many “informal housing settlements” with huts made of everything you can imagine (plastic, mud, iron etc) and roofs held down by rocks I have noticed better housing going up in the same areas. Kandy tells me this is called “sub economic housing” and it means the blacks have brick and mortar houses with running water and electricity which is great.

We have managed to fit quite a bit in over the last wee while. We took a trip up to Durban. We have good friends Marty and Ang Schultheiss who have a house in Zimbali which is not far from Durban. We visited with them and their two kids Matthew and Taylor for a weekend. Leo was in heaven because Matthew is only a couple of years older (with VERY cool toys) and Taylor only a year older. Zimbali is a huge golf course/resort/nature reserve that has houses built around it. To live there every adult in the house must join the golf club whether they play or not and you can’t own pets (because of the wild animals) but it is lovely, very private and very safe.

Durban Soccer World Cup Stadium

Zimbali is just one of many gated communities, surrounded by electric fencing and guard posts but apart from that everything feels quite normal. Marty and Ang took us to a Stormers Vs Warratahs rugby game in Durban with the kids which was great (Leo’s first rugby game!). We had a corporate box which was a nice change from the stands. In South Africa it is tradition to park your car in the car park at the game and have a braai with a few drinks. You then pack it up and head to the game and afterwards there are bands playing and a big party, very festive and quite different from NZ where we all head to game and then off to various pubs.

Leo at his first Rugby game

Spence and Leo in awe of Sea Turtle Ushaka

Durban Waterfront

Dolphin show at Ushaka

On Sunday we all went to Ushaka Underwater World where we were blown away by the aquarium, dolphin show and kiddies park. The Durban Waterfront goes for MILES and is quite something, apparently on New Years Day it is so full of blacks who congregate to party you can’t see the sand. When we were there though; it had bike parks, boardwalks, piers, rides for kids etc and lots of surfers. Justin had a tough week on our return struck down by some mysterious tummy bug promptly followed by putting his back out rather spectacularly.

Because Justin spent most of his life in Johannesburg he has many friends there and I’ve been lucky enough to have met them many times before mostly during our time in London. Two of our dearest friends here are Jason and Gill Nathan so we travelled up to the big smoke to visit them for about 4 days. We are on the coast and to travel to Jo’burg takes about 5-6 hours, you head straight UP…..first into the lowlands, then the midlands of Orange Free State and finally into the high fields of Transvaal. Jo’burg is 6,000 feet above sea level and a lot colder than the coast. You can almost feel the moisture being sucked out of your body…our lips were dry, our noses stuffed, my hands were a mess and Spencer’s curls suddenly straightened out!

Near Van Reenen's Pass on the N3

Golden savannah's for miles

South Africa

is truly beautiful though, most of the trip was along the Drakensberg mountains which loomed in the distance and are very majestic. There are undulating golden savannahs which go on for miles broken only by patches of acacia trees. There are double lane highways almost the whole way and I was very impressed with the Ultra City’s which are posted about every 200k’s. These are great for kids…petrol stations; café’s, restaurants, clean toilets, parks and one even had a petting zoo for the kids!

Just and Jase with offspring

It was wonderful to see the Nathans again; Jason and Gill also have 2 kids almost exactly the same age as Leo and Spencer. Josh and Leo took to each other immediately and Spencer and Tory sussed each other out pretty quickly too. The Nathan’s have a house in Sandton which is the new CBD of Jo’burg (the old one became to run down with crime gangs and squatters) On our first day we went to Zoo Lake which reminded me a bit of Western Springs in Auckland. I was thoroughly enjoying the walk with the two kids running about until Justin said “It’s times like these I wish I had a gun”. Well….that certainly took the shine off things and I then started noticing a few dodgey characters loitering about. Needless to say we finished our walk pretty quickly.

Leo and Josh at bouncy castle

On the Saturday we all went to a lovely café called River café that had a great playground and a huge bouncy castle for the kids. What a blast. The kids were in heaven and the adults got to have a few coffees and catch up. Although the nights are very cold in Jo’burg (about -3C) the days are gorgeous and definitely t-shirt weather. That afternoon a few other mates came around including Jay Lee and Mike and Shelley Steyn with their gorgeous 2 week old son Adam. We had a few tipples and laughs and made plans to meet at the zoo the next day.

Johannesburg Zoo is actually quite something and has things like mountain lions and bears which is out of the ordinary for us kiwis. Leo, Josh and Jake were in their element and Spencer had a great time too. Watching the guys pushing their offspring around in pushchairs was quite funny….a far cry from the partying boys of Tooting that’s for sure.

Leaving was a sad affair and Leo and Josh felt it the most, they really became best buds. Leo still talks about Josh every day. The Nathan’s are making plans to move to Perth in the next few years so I’m sure that will be a favourite holiday destination for the Wrights in years to come.

The only thing about mixing pre-schoolers together is the inevitable spread of germs and both our kids came home with colds and sore throats. Unfortunately for Leo, his developed into bronchitis and pink eye which was not pretty. The antibiotics then gave him the runs and made him vomit for a few days so he was very under the weather and the Wright Seniors have been thoroughly re-baptised in the art of sloppy excrement, runny noses and projectile vomiting hahaha!

Fishing at La Pont

We still managed to get out an about though and spent a lovely picnic lunch at La Pont which is a caravan park on the river that used to act as the border for Natal and Transkei. It’s called La Pont because that is how they used to cross the river. We also took a trip to Pure Venom which is the largest reptile park in Africa and saw some the biggest and scariest snakes. One cobra actually struck the glass while we were looking at it and gave us a real thrill. What really scared me was that they had HUGE anacondas which I’m sure could easily swallow a child FOR SALE for 300 rand which is about NZ$60. CRAZY.

Spencer getting up close and personal

We have had a mixed bag of weather for about a week and most of the rivers broke through to the sea. There was a report of a 2 metre Zambesi shark being spotted cruising up Uvongo river near us and they took down the 350 km’s of shark nets that run up and down the Wild Coast because the sardine run was about to start so there is NO WAY I’m swimming in the ocean at the moment, give me the rock pools any day.

Estuary Country Hotel Villa

Mmmmm spa bath!

Kandy and Pete very kindly shouted Justin and I one night at the Estuary Country Hotel in Southbroom. Needless to say Justin and I took full advantage and even tagged another night on after that. I mean, when are we going to get this chance again? As it is this was the first weekend without the kids in 3 years. Estuary is a lovely resort with beautiful views out over Port Edward beach. It has rivers running through it, a spa and a pool etc. We had wonderful time but were definitely ready to come home and see the kids. Leo was still a bit sick but Granny and Grandpa did a wonderful job of taking care of our babies.

Justin at work

On 20 June and whilst at the beach we spotted the first action that signals the sardines aren’t far away…dolphins! It was really lovely, apparently there have been a few pilot pods of sardines pass already so now we are waiting for the whales, sharks and everything else to start coming in. Justin is very keen to get out with his fishing rod so I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of him this week. I might have to join him because the sardine run is the most spectacular thing apparently and normally doesn’t come until July so we are lucky to see it at all. Today we actually saw whales jumping! A wonderful sight to behold, let the sardine run continue!

We only have 9 more days in South Africa before we jet off to London to stay with friends and head off up to Wirral to see Kelv, Cal and the kids again. Our aim is to chill out at the beach as much as possible and of course we have Spencer’s first birthday on 28 June so that will be a nice affair. I almost forgot to mention our new nephew – Jett Austin Fletcher Hay was born on 30 May in New Zealand. A beautiful son and brother for Steve, Eloise and Ashlee. He looks a lot like Steven did as a baby.

Roll on the next leg of the journey!