Just in case any of you were wondering what a holiday would cost you in S.A, here are some figures. The rand fluctuates around the 10 / 11 to 1 mark. As in you get 10 rand for every British pound

Flights costs: 500 pounds per ticket
Car rental (the cheapest model): 7 weeks (49 days –with 200km free each day): R 7500
Excess for wrecking it: R2500 to R5000
Petrol is around R 5, 60 a litre – R300 to full the tank (600 km)
Double room in hostel/backpackers – R175 to R250 depending on place
Spur meal (2x steaks plus kiddies menu) R 175
Toll roads between R 22 and R 48
Coke: R 5 in store, up to R 9 anywhere else
Debonair pizza: 2x large R120
Entrance to Kruger: 2 adult and 1 Kid R 300
One night in rest camp: R 475
Entrance to other parks between R 5 to R 30 per person
Internet: R35 /hour or R60 if you use only part thereof
Phone call: 5 minutes to Colombia: R24
Cell Phone Costs: 2 short calls to a cell phone and kiss your R28 credit goodbye.
Box of litchi’s: R18
6 Ripe Pineapples (road side) R 20
11 medium avocados (road side) R20
Sun tan cream: R 65
Doctor: R175

I’ll add to this list as I got along .

After a killer journey from Kruger the night before, we somehow managed to wake at a reasonable hour, and headed to St Lucia beach. A light south westerly blew and there were clouds on the horizon, tell tale signs of an ensuing cold front, and more rain.

Emilia , enjoyed the waves for an hour or so, but the weather got worse , so we scurried back into our self catering double room and turned on the aircon , and promptly went back to sleep. We also took the opportunity in the afternoon to catch up with all our stories from the last 5 weeks.

The following day I woke to find Maria hugging the toilet, another bug, this one particularly nasty. So I left Maria to sleep and Emilia and I headed into the nearby wildlife park, in search of Cape Vidal beach.

Today the wildlife was suicidal and don’t mean that in a positive way.
We came across a Kudu that had just pegged. We had passed it 5 minutes earlier and it was on it last legs. Then shortly after that, while cruising to the beach , a bush buck jumped out of the long grass and straight into the side of the car, while we were traveling at about 65km an hour. It wrecked the front bumper, wheel and front door. I felt pretty sick about it, along with the thought that I just added another 2500 rand excess cost to our trip! I also managed to run over a swallow – I thought the fricken thing would move –I was wrong. Then on the way out another bird flew straight into the windscreen.

However, apart from some rare buck, that I managed not to kill, I did get a close look at a group of rhino’s that were taking shade under a tree on the side of the road. Pretty amazing stuff.

We will have to see what state Maria is in tomorrow, as to what our plans are.

As of now, we’re up the north coast 3 hours from Durban. We plan to stop off for a day or two to sort out the car and then we drive down to the Transkei again, stopping off at Port St John’s, and the Hole in the Wall. After that we are probably going to Tsitsikamma Nature Reserve, and maybe one other stop before we get to Cape Town.