THURSDAY 25th NOVEMBER
The title above reads "Goodbye Africa" in Africaaner and Zulu.
I watched the Spurs v Werder Bremen live on Wednesday night and did all my packing, so come Thursday morning I was all ready for breakfast, and checked out my luggage at 10.00am. The weather had improved with the sun shining, so I went for a walk up to the Casino complex. There were chairs and beds laid out on the seafront so I took advantage and had a lay down in the sun. However by midday the clouds had drawn in, the sun was gone and the wind was up. I wandered over to the shopping centre and invested in a paper that I took back to the Casino complex, bought a banana ice cream and settled down to read the paper. By the time I had finished reading the paper, the clouds had cleared and the sun was shining again, so I returned to the sea front, found a new chair and had a bit of a snooze. About 3.00pm I returned to the hotel to await Ricky and my cab to uShaka Airport. He duly arrived at 4.00pm with his young daughter in the back for the ride. We had a chat about this and that and he told me that the firm had been put on the Australian Tourist Board approved list after one of his customers and given them a favourable report. I arrived at the airport in plenty of time, got my suitcase wrapped in cellophane for 50 Rand, and headed off to Jo'burg on time.
This leg was on South African Airlines, and although the flight was only an hour they still managed to serve us a drink and a sandwich. Although my flight to Perth was from the same terminal, I had to collect my luggage and check in again. The check in was a nightmare! There were notices saying "Please be patient and help us implement the new system". Well by the looks of it, patience was needed in abundance, and the system was not working too well. When I eventually got to be served the check in girl asked me where was my Australian visa, having gone through the entire passport. I replied that I had an electronic visa, but was able to produce the receipt I got on line that I had fortunately printed off and brought with me. After detailed examination of this document she seemed to accept that I had a valid visa. She then wanted to know my ticket number. I told her I didn't have a ticket number, only a check in number as supplied by Trailfinders. This involved lengthy checking on the computer and eventually she accpted I had a valid ticket. I guess it must have taken me at least 15 minutes to check in at the desk. Then a lengthy walk to security check, got through that and a long walk to gate A1. I was nearly there when I saw a check in board and noticed that the Perth flight was leaving from gate A5. I checked my boarding card and sure enough it was A5! I had to retrace my steps and head in the opposite direction. To get to gate A5 I had to show my passport for the 4th time - I eventually arrived there 5 minutes before boarding time. There was one more hurdle to overcome. Handing in the boarding card and having it scanned. The chap in front of me had his scanned, and was promptly asked how many bags he had checked in. He replied it was one, but the girl stated that the system was showing two, and therefore wouldn't accept his boarding card. Numerous phonecalls failed to resolve the problem whilst we all stood and waited. Ultimately the poor sod was asked to stand aside and wait whilst the rest of us were processed. Whether he made it onto the flight I don't know, but he had already joined two others who had been asked to wait as the system wouldn't accept their boarding cards. Fortunately I had no such problem.
Drinks and an evening meal saw out the day, followed by Robin Hood (the film), and I then attempted to snooze for a few hours. The Flght time was around 9 hours, which certainly is better than the direct flight from London, where I gather it is getting decidely cold!
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