Melbourne

Melbourne city scape from our apartment

April 17, 2017
Still tough getting up at an appropriate time as we still seem to be on South African time.  Eventually did get up and moving into the city centre.  Parking is a bit of an issue as parking downtown is $50 minimum, but we were able to find some more reasonable parking areas.  Even the donuts are $7 each, or $25 for a four pack of donuts.  Needless to say, the boys did not get any donuts.
We did a walking tour which are highly recommended.  The tour is free and the guides request a gratuity at the end.  Our tour was about three hours and was excellent.  We highly recommend these tours, and they are gaining popularity around the world, as we did one in Brussels as well.

The street art in Melbourne is very interesting.  It is legal and constantly evolving.  Poor art is quickly painted over, while better art will have a longer lifespan - maybe two or three weeks.  Show up in a month, and the street will look totally different. 

Yarra River in Melbourne

We have to get this figured out!!!

In Singapore, even the guy to the right is tired.

Getting ready to leave our second continent almost ended like trying to leave our first continent, with us not getting on the plane.  Our arrival at the Singapore Air check in at the Johannesburg airport had us informed that we do not need a visa, but we do need an eTA which is an electronic visa.  This should not be an issue as they are applied for online and require no time to get.  However, we are in Africa and if you have been reading, Internet in Africa is not good.  Our data on the phone is not good enough to get the process going, and none of the airlines in the area have internet.  We then race to the Vodacom shop (South Africa's version of Bell), but they do not have internet - where they sell internet.  We end up in the Dry Cleaner's store next door and bribe the girl 30 US to use her computer.  The eTA visa takes about 7 or 8 minutes to complete, and all five must be completed individually and from scratch.  Then my credit card is denied after doing the first three completed.  Even MasterCard is against us.  We finally finish and run full out back to the check in desk.  The desk closes at 1:05 pm, and we are checked in at 1:03 pm.  We get a personal escort through passport control and all the way to our plane.  Not even time for a washroom pitstop.  On the plane, we are all rattled but on our way to Singapore.
Remember the unabridged birth certificates we required for South Africa.  Well we did need them for when we first landed into South Africa.  However, when we departed South Africa into Swaziland, and then reentered SA, and when we departed South Africa yesterday, the birth certificates were not required.  So our thoughts that South Africa was trying to curb illegal adoptions is false, they seem to actually be trying to prevent more kids from entering the country. 
Singapore Air is a fantastic airway.  Our flight was about 10 hours to Singapore and another 7 to Melbourne, with a four hour layover in Singapore, felt way shorter than our flight from Brussels to Capetown via Addis. 
Good internet in Australia, we are closely checking into the requirements for the Asian countries while listening to the Toronto / Washington overtime game.

Soweto tour

In front of Mandela's house.

Thursday, April 13
My first time into the Soweto district of Johannesburg.  Originally a township, and still classified by many as one, it has approximately 5 million people living in it.  Our guide explained that this is often the starting point in South Africa for all blacks coming to Johannesburg looking for work.  Soweto offers cheap accommodation (squatter residence) that is not available elsewhere in Jo'burg. When I was here in 1990, I could not get a tour into Soweto due to fighting, and at the time decided I would just drive in and out on my own.  I chickened out as I approached due to the fear of death.  Today, it is a thriving tourist destination with B and B's all over the place (in the tourist districts).  We visited Mandela's home, and then then walked down the street to where Desmond Tutu resides.  The only street in the world with two Nobel Peace Prize recipients on the same street.  Soweto also has the largest hospital in the world, and four shopping malls.  They look like any other, minus the tight security to drive both in and out.  There are two massive decommissioned power generator stacks that are now a symbol of hope and you can also bungee jump off of.  They were located in Soweto, powered Johannesburg, and made the blacks in Soweto ill.  The local government now boasts that 70% of Soweto has power and water.  My math adds that up to being 1.5 million people without.  But it is progress from no one having power or water.  Now for our last night in Africa, and then a pleasant 24 hours to get to Melbourne. 

It's a protest march.

Wednesday, April 12

Took a drive to Pretoria today with the mission of seeing the Voertrekker Monument and the Union Building with the statue to Nelson Mandela.  The Voertrekker Monument is the largest monument in Africa and has the world’s largest frieze.  The frieze is a carved in granite depiction of their trek in the mid 1800’s.  Quite beautiful.  I noticed that white men fight (and defeat) Zulu men, but the Zulu men are killing women and children.  Propaganda is always alive and well, even in the 1930’s when the momument was erected, but even they had their limits as one of the original casts had the Zulu warrior swinging a baby, not the torch as is now depicted.  This was an excellent visit and a very well developed museum.

As close as we could get to Mandela statue.

Next we were off to the Union Buildings.  Our drive kept getting diverted by road blocks, and we soon discovered there was a major demonstration and march going on to put pressure on the South African president Jacob Zuma to step down.  We ended up walking in the city centre and also noted that the many businesses were closed up, and a very large police presence.  Not sure if there was going to be violence or not, we elected to avoid the protest and went for lunch.  We made another attempt to go to the Union Buildings after we heard that the march was over.  Police were putting away all the razor wire.  News video after showed a packed square.  Everywhere we have gone in South Africa certainly seem to want Zuma gone.  Guess when you use government money to buy friends birthday presents, like summer homes, people lose their faith in you.  Who knew?  Elections are not until 2019, but the feel is that Zuma can do lots more damage in those two years.  Zuma is remaining vigilant that he is staying on as leader.  Interesting politic times in South Africa continue.

Farewell Capetown

Monday, April 10
We went for a walk in downtown Capetown to have one last look at possible souvenirs, but nothing of interest for the boys was found.  It was then a trip out to the airport to drop Nancy off for her flight back home.  How quickly six weeks went with having her as our travel companion.  Her backpack was considerably heavier as we had her loaded down with stone carvings to take home.

Tuesday, April 11
Now we are off for our flight to Johannesburg.  We land mid afternoon, pick up our CRV and head to our accommodation.  After seven weeks of training myself that the signal indicator is on the right side of the steering column (and avoiding the wipers coming on every time I go to turn), the CRV has the blinkers on the left side.  Back to the retraining.  Turns resulted in both front and back wipers going on today.  Our accommodation is nice, but the neighborhood is awesome.  No evening walks here.  And driving... here you truly must look both ways at green lights, as in the five minutes of driving in this area it is clear that running a red five seconds after the conversion is acceptable.  I am alright with this practice, but Cindy does not like my new driving style.

Our Capetown apartment, one last time.

What a garden!

Mandela Gold

Sunday, April 9

A great day.  While in Plettenburg Bay on our way north, we camped next to a couple (Chris and Michelle) from Capetown.  They invite for lunch upon our return to Capetown.  A fantastic visit and incredible food.  How good was it, our boys sat at the table the whole time, and after we left could not believe we had been there for four hours.  We then stopped in at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, reportedly the best in the world.  We will not argue that.  After dinner, we worked at packing Nancy up for her flight out tomorrow.  Lots of stone and wood carvings making their way back to Canada.

Kirstenbosch Garden, one of the paths

Wine and Raptors

Friday, April 7

We will drive to Stellenbosch today.  The drive is rainy all the way, until we pass Sir Lowry’s mountain pass and drive into sunny and hot weather.  Set up camp for one last time in South Africa.  Boys enjoy the campgrounds mini carts (which are pedalled), until they have to push them uphill back to reception.

Saturday, April 8

Wine tour time.  We head first to Spier.  The grounds are amazing, and while Cindy and Nancy try the wines, us boys head to a bird recovery area, more accurately, a raptor rehabilitation facility.  Birds of prey that are injured are brought here.  Of the several hundred birds they receive a year, 60% are returned to the wild, and the others are either kept in the facility or have to be destroyed.  For not being bird people, we had a great time.  The eagles can exert 500 lbs per square inche pressure with their talons, glad the owls are more gentle.  We then headed over to the Muratie Winery.  This, in contrast to Spier, is one of the oldest and undeveloped wineries in the region.  A very unique experience to visit this winery, and the surrounding areas were beautiful.  We then returned to Capetown.

Muratie Winery