Cape Town

Hello. Two things to say to start off with:
1. It's now about 9.50pm and I'm currently in that weird state between being drunk and awaiting a hangover after a day of wine tasting in the Cape Town wineries. COME ON POWERADE!!! DO YOUR STUFF!!! DON'T LET ME GET THE BEROCCAS OUT!!! Dave is sitting at another PC nearby and thankfully his hiccups have stopped now.
2. The blog website has been down for a couple of days so I've got an update I wrote yesterday that I saved and I'll just add to it and adapt it to make it look like I just wrote it today which is silly because I've already given it away that it was written yesterday. Adam, good to see you recognise truth from fiction. :) The weather bureau website seems to suggest that the Melbourne weather is picking up which is good. I don't want to come back to "suckacious" weather. That could hurt!

We are now in Cape Town, South Africa after spending a short time inVictoria Falls, Zimbabwe which was great fun. First thing we did was some adventure stuff. The great Zambesi River flows along Vic Falls with Zimbabwe on one side and Zambia on the other. By stringing cables over a gorge there, they have come up with some really cool things to do. First up was two shots at the flying fox. This was a simple cable spanning the gorge and you got strapped into the harness and ran at the edge of the cliff and jumped off Superman style and sailed across to almost the other side. The first time I did it was actually really painful. The guy who had put my harness on hadn't done it very well and it gave me the worst wedgie I've ever known. I'm talking on the scale of an Atomic Wedgie here! They adjusted it after the first go and the second go was much more comfortable and I could enjoy it much more. Next was the Foofie Slide. It's a dumb name and in some ways easier than the Flying Fox. You sit on the edge of the platform and hold onto a trapeze looking pulley thing and off you go cruising across the gorge again. Fun but not really scary. The final stunt was the best. It's known as the Gorge Swing. It's about an 80 metre drop straight down off the edge of the platform, then after the free-fall you swing across the gorge. Sort of like a bungee that moves into a swing. Trying to get up the nerve to step off the edge of the platform was the hardest thing. You just gotta not think about it. I jumped, starting yelling then for some reason lost my voice and eventually stopped falling and started swinging. Great fun. I was shaking afterwards with adrenalin. It's all recorded on Dave's video camera so I've gotta get a copy of it all.

The day before yesterday we did an elephant ride. It was two people per elephant plus the driver so it was a bloke called Noah (who obviously decided that of all the animals on the Ark, the elephant was his favourite) plus Dave and I. We had the biggest elephant of the lot. He was a 25 year old male called Doma who liked to stop in the middle of a walk to rip the odd branch or two off a tree to eat on the way. A funny elephant and much friendlier than Stampy from that Simpsons episode where Homer gets an elephant for the kids from a radio station. After the hour ride we got to feed him. You could either put the food directly in his mouth which he quite liked or put it in his trunk. Both options were fun but big on saliva. He was such a cool elephant though so there was no worry that he was going to cause any trouble like sample my arm or anything. It was also funny while we were feeding the elephants because a couple of local warthogs were hanging around and eating any of the food that the elephants poor eyesight had missed. They weren't quite getting close enough to touch (and I'm not sure I'd want to touch a wild warthog) but it was interesting to watch them. They are the sort of animal that has character purely because it's so ugly. Also because they tend to kneel on their front legs to eat which is kind of strange.
Yesterday we went to Table Mountain (Not a great name but better than calling it Flat Mountain I suppose) which is a rocky mountain with a flat top on it like a table and it's one of those sites that you have to see if you visit Cape Town. It was quite nice up there (we used the cable car to get up rather than climbing it for a couple of hours). We saw a hyrax too which looks like a cat sized guinea pig yet is actually distantly related to an elephant. I decided not to ride it due to the fact that I would have crushed it.

Today we did a full day winery tour. It was very enjoyable with about 25 degree weather. I think I drank way too much as you do on these tours. Fortunately we had a really good crowd of people about our age. The driver was very much against snobbish wine drinkers so taught us how to drink wine but at the same time was quite happy to make fun of them. Dave and I copped it because we were the "Aussies" on the tour so especially at the start if there were unfinished drinks, they were thrown our way. Tough stuff.

Tomorrow (assuming I come up alright) we visit Robben Island which is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for all those years. The tours are given by former political prisoners so should be well worth it. Then I think we are catching up with some of the people from our wine tour for afternoon drinks.

On Saturday, we get in the plane and head home. We'll arrive late Sunday and I'll be back at work on Wednesday. Unfortunately it's all coming to an end. Still, it'll be good to get home. I'm just about done with travelling for now.

Ok, Dave left while I was writing this because he's drunk way more than me and wants sleep. I've now gotta go back to the hotel and knock on the door until he wakes up and lets me in. NOT looking forward to that. :)