It’s clearly Food Day on thirtyfootscrew.com, having breakfasted at Fuzzy’s Grub and having lunched in a Cafe Nero I found myself in need of dinner roundabouts Piccadili Circus. Being Tourist Town I wasn’t too otimistic about finding much interesting but in the end I found a red double decker bus converted into a vegan restaurant!
In the heart of Soho, not far from the Trocadero and right next to the famous Zilli Fish th place stands out like a sore thumb but makes a welcome break from the usual shops and restaurants.
Vegan Routes offers both take away and eat-in options though I’d recommend the latter sincethe staff are genuine and friendly and you get to soak up the Soho atmosphere watching people passing by (often with quizzical expressions). Food-wise I had a green tea, a chickpea stew and a smoothies to finish and they were all excellent, I shall definitely return!
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: bus, double decker, Food, vegan, vegetarian, veggie
This morning I had breakfast from what I believe is the best breakfast joint in the city of London – Fuzzy’s Grub.
My favourite is a fried egg sandwich, on toasted white bread, buttered, with ketchup, made with two medium-cooked eggs. All the breakfasts are classic British fare, served very quickly and capably by friendly staff. The only downside is that it’s take-away only but most people are taking their brekkie onto the office anyway.
From what I gather, there are a few if them dotted around but the one I frequent is just down the road from Bank Tube at 56-57 Cornhill, EC3V 3PD.
Note: I’m posting from the iPhone now but I’ll stick a map up later.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: breakfast, city, Food, London
Best Hotel
We stayed in a lot of hotels along the way but the winner in terms of hospitality, quality of service and atmosphere has to be The Wayside Inn (Knysna). The two features which put it instantly ahead of others are the ability to have your breakfast delivered via a hatch in the door and the honesty bar. The best breakfast however came from the Diamond Protea Lodge in Kimberley, a buffet breakfast with a great selection.
Best Restaurant
This is a tough one, I love food and I love eating out so I thoroughly enjoyed most of the places we went to however there is one clear winner which stands out for quality, service and atmosphere. The winner has to be Strega, just off Loop Street in Cape Town – the food was superb and probably the best of any Italian restaurant I have been to (odd being so far from Italy). Other close runners up are Cool Runnings and Mama Africa (both Cape Town) and One Baker Street (Swellendam).
Best Bar
We also went in a lot of bars and did a lot of drinking, the best is a clear winner for both drinks and atmosphere and has to be Cool Runnings (Melville, JHB). The very close second has to be Kennedy’s Cigar Bar which had great service and a nice laid-back atmosphere with live jazz evey night.
Best National Park / Reserve
This has to be Addo National Park, we saw so much in an hour that the prospect of being there for a whole day would be amazing, they also offer on-site accommodation with night-drives with experienced wardens. Both the Karoo Nature Reserve and the Rhino & Lion Reserve were also great but didn’t quite capture the magic of Addo.
Most Welcoming Town
Knysna – pure and simple – the people were friendly and I felt safer here than any other town in South Africa. Most other towns had a darker unsettling feeling in the background but Knysna was easy-going from the start. The only major challenger is Cape Town which was immensely welcoming and the people there are so laid-back and friendly, the only downside is that there are far too many people on the streets to feel entirely safe.
Most Scenic Area
Despite it’s absolute barren emptiness the Karoo wins the most scenic area, the view from the Valley of Desolation is spectacular and the bleak desert landscape really drives home the fact that South Africa is actually Africa (the Western Cape and the Garden Route have an almost European feel to them). The second place must go to the Cape National Park, both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point are sights not to be missed.
Best Beer
A controversial choice here as I would personally go for Windhoek – not South African but actually Namibia’s national beer; it has a clean crisp taste – not unlike German beers such as Becks. Castle is the only possible challenger here as it beats the other South African beers single-handedly but it has a very light taste to it.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, awards, bar, beer, hotel, national park, restaurant, South Africa, Travel
Well that about rounds up the trip – the most amazing holiday I’ve ever had and one that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. In the beginning when I was first invited to Karl’s wedding I immediately thought that I couldn’t possibly accept as it was in South Africa, I didn’t decline the invite and in the back of my mind I’d probably already decided to go. This was an opportunity of a lifetime, to see the marriage of a friend and to see a part of the world I might otherwise have never seen, when these opportunities come up you just have to take them.
I have a lot of people I would like to thank for this trip – first of all Karl who is the reason I went in the first place, I wish him all the best in his marriage; I would also like to thank James for coming with me and putting up with me for two solid weeks – a good test of a friendship and I think we both passed. I also have to thank Ann in Port Elizabeth and Anne & Bill in Johannesburg for giving us a place to stay and giving us a chance to meet genuine South Africans, it really gave us a different perspective on life in South Africa both on a personal and a political level, I would also like to thank Anthony for showing us some good places to get drunk in Johannesburg. Finally I would like to thank everyone we met along the way in hotels, bars, restaurants and not forgetting the stewards and stewardesses on the planes.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, South Africa, Travel
Maybe it’s because there wasn’t so much excitement or maybe it was because we were so tired but I managed to sleep fairly well on the flight back, it was still fairly long and punishing but certainly a lot easier than before. Once again the KLM staff worked tirelessly through the night serving drinks and snacks but this time I wasn’t awake for the whole time. Arriving back home was a strange experience – it felt like I’d been gone for a month or more, we’d been to so many different places and seen so much. James and I both caught different busses back home and I ended up sat opposite a South African who was on his way from Germany (where he lives) to Milton Keynes so we were talking about the trip and everywhere I’d been, a funny coincidence.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, heathrow, South Africa, Travel
I happened to wake up early and saw the market traders setting-up stall at about 6am – these guys work tirelessly from 6am to 6pm, setting up and taking down the stall each day – it was quite a sight to see. We got up and had the buffet breakfast, pretty good but not really the best we’d had during the trip, we weren’t as impressed by the Holiday Inn as we’d hoped – especially for the price. We’d booked the Holiday Inn for a little bit of luxury and comfort (i.e. not just a B&B) but ended up being disappointed – I guess the South Africans know a lot more about hospitality than the Americans.
 After breakfast we began our whirlwind military-planned mission around Cape Town, stopping first to change up some money in the Tourist Information office. Armed with money we went back to Edgar’s to buy a couple of items of clothing (not too much due to space constraints) and then on to Shoprite to look for South African hot sauces which we couldn’t find. The next item on the agenda was to storm Greenmarket Square in search of gifts, we had a great time wandering around the market, it is a pity we didn’t have more time. In contrast to what the guidebooks had told us these guys on the market love to barter and you could pick up some real bargains if you work for it, one stallholder just kept on dropping and dropping his prices, unfortunately it was for a mask about the same size as my rucksack so I couldn’t really have got it home. I went back to the room to drop off the purchases we’d made as they were starting to slow us down, after another spell on the market we went back to the hotel to check out, and left our bags with the concierge. By this time we’d run out of money again so we cashed a few more cheques at Tourist Info and went back to the market for James to buy some more gifts.
The one shop we had left to go into was the Hemp shop, selling a variety of souvenirs where we bought wire key-rings in the shape of chillies, the obvious hemp-marijuana connection was made as we left the store and were offered some dagga (the local term for weed). We returned to Global Car Hire where they had nothing new for us so we agreed that we would pay for the damage on the lowest quote via James’ credit card as long as they would inform us before they took the money.
We still had quite a while left before we had to leave Cape Town and were at that awkward stage in any trip where you know you’re leaving but you can’t really do much more so it all comes down to waiting around, we did the only sensible thing we could and headed straight for a bar. The bar we found was just off the back of Greenmarket Square and sat on the balcony looking over the hustle and bustle of Long Street. We were served by a girl no older than ten who seemed to be the daughter of one of the waitress, we were quite amused by this and gave her the nickname of ‘mini-waitron’ (waitron is the asexual term for waiter/waitress in South Africa). We had a few beers and listened-in to the conversation on the next table, a few American sociology lecturers and some students. The amusing part was that it was so obvious the students were trying to impress the lecturers, they all got quite tied-up in mindless sociological banter – in the end we had to leave.
After on last quick trip to the market to buy some African Hot Sauce (later noticed in both Tesco and Sainsbury’s back home) we collected our bags from the hotel and were offered a cab to the airport by the concierge at a pretty good price, handy as we were keen to miss the greasy cabbie from the previous day who was still due to turn up. The facilities at Cape Town airport are sparse and we managed to get the ubiquitous toastie and a coffee for lunch and have a wander around the wine shop and the duty-free. I used both my own and James’ duty-free allowance to bring back a couple of bottles of Cape Velvet, Van der Hum (tangerine liqueur) and some Kaluha; I also bought myself a souvenir tie with the big-five animals on it, a little something to remember the trip by. After a little more waiting around we boarded the plane and off we flew, a sad moment as it was the end of a thoroughly amazing trip.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, Cape Town, market, South Africa, Travel
We got up and started packing ready for the off, by this time we’d accumulated quite an amount of souvenirs, gifts and other non-essentials which needed to be squeezed into our baggage. For the first time since leaving Cape Town I managed to fit my own shoes into my own rucksack, until now poor old James had been carrying them but I decided it was time to start using my own hand-luggage bag. We left at about midday for Johannesburg International Airport, Bill drove us there telling us stories of the different areas we passed though on the journey (approx. 1hr). After check-in we had lunch at Juicy Lucy, selling toasties and fresh fruit juices – I had strawberry, the best fresh juice I’ve ever tasted and from an airport of all places! We didn’t have long to wait until boarding – just enough time for lunch and to buy some newspapers in the kiosk. We flew British Airways for this internal leg of the journey and we had quite a bit more legroom than on the KLM planes but this was a short-haul flight so the comparison may not be totally fair.
We arrived at Cape Town Airport at roughly 16:30 and jumped in a taxi, the car was a dilapidated old Mercedes driven by the greasiest cabbie I think I’ve ever seen. He was friendly enough though and offered to drive us back to the airport on the following morning which I accepted to save us having to bother the next day, we arranged a time then paid him. When we arrived at the hotel (the Holiday Inn, Greenmarket Square) James told me he didn’t feel safe with the driver and there were no seatbelts in the back so we decided to abandon the driver and get a cab from the rank on the next day. We checked-in and dropped the bags off in the room which had unmade beds and hadn’t been cleaned, we mentioned this to the receptionist on the way out.
We went to Global Car Hire to try and sort out the mess and perform damage limitation if we could, but the woman there behind the counter was a tough one to deal with and it ended up half-discussion and half-argument. They showed us a quote for the repairs at R1600 (£100) which seemed a bit steep so we made sure she was going to get more quotes, it’s always hard to know who to trust in these instances but as everything is cheaper in South Africa anyway (not just because of the exchange rate) this would be the equivalent of a much larger quote back home. We left having achieved little and got the feeling that either way they would end up winning as the damage was not specifically written down on the check-out form, this officious attitude was in stark contrast to their previous attitude of “as long as comes back with six wheels and five doors it’s fine” (this is the moral of the story). We arranged to come back the next day to see another quote and finalise things then returned to the hotel, showered and went to Computeria (the Internet café).
For the evening we went to Kennedy’s Cigar Bar; we had drinks in the bar and were looked-after by the waitress that James had met whilst I had been at the wedding, she kept making sure that we had drinks and then took us upstairs when we decided to eat. The bar area downstairs is decorated with enormous photographs of famous cigar smokers (pride of place being reserved for JFK himself) and framed covers of Cigar magazine, the restaurant area is decorated with a touch of class and gives the impression of an exclusive gentleman’s club with smoking lounge adjacent to the dining area. The food was good though not the best we’d had throughout the whole trip and the service was reasonable, we couldn’t find anyone to give us the bill so we transferred everything to our bar-tab downstairs so that at the end of the night the waitress got our tips and not the restaurant guys. We sat drinking cocktails in the downstairs lounge until we could drink no more, a cigar seller kept offering us a wide selection of cigars but we both declined.
Back at the hotel we made a list of the things we had to do the following day and the most efficient order we could do them in, this took a while as we had lots of things to do, little time to do them in and we were drunk.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, Cape Town, Cigar Bar, Kennedys, South Africa, Travel
I got up at around 9:30am and went through to the main house for breakfast, helping myself to cereal from the kitchen, James didn’t surface until 11am! We worked out that we’d like to go to Sterkfontein Caves, an archaeological site where evidence of early man has been found so I called them up to get directions and it turns out that they are closed on Mondays! We’d not had much luck so far with closed attractions starting with the Diamond Mine, the Cheetah Sanctuary and now this! We decided to go to the local Rhino & Lion Reserve instead and luckily I called them and they do indeed open on Mondays. James also called Dominic from Global Car Hire to arrange collection of the vehicle at 4pm.
 We left for the reserve via a city route planned out for us by Bill, everything went smoothly and we got to see a bit more of Johannesburg as well. Since the end of Apartheid a great deal of the road names have been changed as they were previously named after former colonials or members of the government, this made navigation a little more awkward as Bill’s map was printed before 1994. We found the reserve with little trouble, though we did have to stop at the information hut to make sure we were going the right way. By the time we actually got into the game area it was lunchtime so we stopped at the picnic area where we were able to get toasties. As we were eating, a Springbok was wandering around and actually came up to make an attempt on our food, whilst I knew these were not dangerous animals I was a little worried that they might be similar to goats which will eat anything from clothing to fingers. A warden kept calling the Springbok away from us (it had a name too) and told us not to worry about him, it was quite amusing all the same. After eating we had a wander around the shop and a look at the Crocodiles (in a pool by The Croc Pub) and took a few photos of some Lion cubs in a small pen.
 We had a drive around the Cheetah and Lion enclosures and didn’t manage to see either but we did manage to see some Wild Dogs (which looked like Hyenas) which James managed to spot hiding under a tree. On the lowlands (and out of the main game area) we also got to see herds of Wildebeest, Zebra, Eland and Kudu. We left the park in good time to arrive back at the house to hand the car over to Dominic at 4pm but he didn’t turn up until about 6pm, with a little crew of people – presumably for safety as he also carried a gun. He had a look around the car and noticed damage to the right-front headlight which James and I were almost certain we didn’t cause, there had been a previous impact on the car and he also tried to blame us for the bonnet being misaligned. Anne negotiated with him for us and got photocopies of the forms etc. and off he went with the car, he wasn’t particularly professional through the whole thing and was on his mobile for a while trying to sell a car. All we could do is wait until we got back to Cape Town and go to back to Global and speak to Shane.
We had drinks and dinner with Anne & Bill before being picked up by Anthony to go out for the evening, we went to a bar called Rhapsody where we met up with Michael and Jurgen. The bar was good, a nice atmosphere and there were waitresses to bring drinks to your table. We sat outside on the terrace until it began to rain (spotting at first), when we moved indoors. This was a very smart move (by Anthony) as a couple of minutes after we had gone inside the rain came hammering down, like nothing I’ve ever seen in Britain – this was HEAVY rain. The rain was pounding the roof of the bar so much that it was impossible to hear eachother talk, when it finally stopped we settled up and left for Cool Runnings in Melville, another bar in the same chain as the bar/restaurant we visited in Cape Town. The bar is situated near two universities and we went around the time when all the students were returning after the Christmas / New Year break, the place was absolutely rammed full and the atmosphere was great, I had a Rizla Sizzla cocktail as unfortunately they didn’t serve the Pan Galactic Gargleblaster. We left about 1am and Anthony took us on a drive-through tour of the city-centre and Hillbrow, two of the worst areas in Johannesburg. From what I could see there wasn’t much specific trouble but it looked rough as hell with fires burning on the streets and people sleeping rough everywhere. We got home at 2am and slept like a log.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, Johannesburg, Park, South Africa, Springbok, Travel, Wildlife
Got up around 9:30am and had breakfast outside on the patio cooked on the braai by Bill, Anthony, Gail and Christopher had joined us. In keeping with the Johannesburg tradition of drinking whenever possible we had champagne with breakfast which was novel but also very satisfying. Anne had offered to do some washing for us so we sorted out a bunch of clothes to be cleaned.
For the afternoon Bill drove us all in Anne’s Jaguar, we went to Hartbeestport Dam (‘The Dam’) where there is an enormous curio market full of traders from the whole of Southern Africa hawking their wares. We then went to De Wildt Cheetah Sanctuary only to find that appointments are mandatory and the next tour was on Tuesday, we did however get to see one Cheetah in an isolated pen, along with a large bird of prey in the neighbouring pen. Whilst we were standing around in the car park working out what to do a guy turned up with a half-dead cow on the back of a trailer, went to talk to the gatekeeper’s office and then left (with the cow). We could only guess that the guy was trying to sell his half-dead cow as food to the Cheetah Sanctuary as food, a grim business indeed. After the sanctuary we went to a the Hoogenot restaurant near The Dam and had a nice lunch. On the way back home James and I both fell asleep, the trip was beginning to catch up with us.
By the time we got back home a thunderstorm was brewing, we had drinks and then I went swimming, with the dogs jumping in and out all the time. After realising that a thunder & lightning storm is probably not the best time to go swimming I went in, swimming in the rain was a very refreshing experience though. In the evening we had drinks and food in the lounge and were joined by Anthony, Gail and Christopher as well as Michael, Jurgen and Henry. We went on the Internet to check our email and then went to bed about midnight.
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, Cheetah, Dam, Hartbeestport, Park, South Africa, Travel
We got up and had a good hearty buffet breakfast (‘all you can eat’ is one of my favourite phrases) and checked out of the hotel. We went to Tourist Information to get some basic info and found out that sadly we couldn’t go down into the diamond mines as they are closed at the weekend! After this went back to the hotel to pick up the car and drove over to the Kimberley Mining Museum. I decided to use up some of my small change to pay for the entrance ticket and got into a mini-argument with the ticket guy, he was moaning about me giving coins and how he doesn’t take small change. I won in the end as I pointed out that it is legal tender, unfortunately all he did is give most of it back to James when he bought his ticket!
 We had a wander around the museum, mostly wild-west style shops, houses, bars, etc. and peered into the Big Hole (and make no mistake it is a BIG hole). After a drink in the café we left the museum (via the shop to buy a postcard) and caught the tram to Market Square. The tram was a lovely old rickety manually-operated affair which presumably has been there for many years, unfortunately the town itself (which has also been there for years) was not particularly lovely and had an air of decay and abandonment about it. We had lunch and a wander but didn’t find anything overly interesting besides a number-plate shop which was closed. It is worth noting that we appeared to cover the majority of the town and we never did find the elusive Restaurant & Bar area mentioned by the porter. After trying both the car wash and the number plate shop and finding them both closed (half-day on Saturday round here apparently) we hit the road once more.
The drive to Johannesburg was fairly long and turned out to be fantastically atmospheric as there were storms all around us but somehow we seemed to avoid them all. We arrived at about 20:30 without a single hitch or missed turning, I was quite impressed. As we arrived we met Anne & Bill, their son Anthony and his wife Gail (the daughter of Ann from P.E.) and their son Christopher. We had pizza for dinner, Anne had already been warned that I am a vegetarian had got a veggie pizza. One of the first things we were told about being guests in the house was that the first beer we had fetched for us, after that we had to fetch our own. I felt instantly welcome in the house and stayed up to about 1am drinking and talking to Anne about politics (both SA + UK) and what it is to be British (Anne is a British ex-pat).
written by thirtyfootscrew
\\ tags: Africa, DIamonds, Johannesburg, Kimberley, South Africa, Travel
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