This final blog update has been a long time coming. Somehow,
this year slipped past us and we’ve just caught up with it. We will be
uploading final stats, West Coast waypoints, and other finishing details in the
next few weeks.
Mary: We headed back to Johannesburg with an unexpectedly
strong sense of sadness that the trip
was over – I had expected to be tired of it all and ready for civilisation but
after we had caught up on sleep and hot showers, it felt like we were missing
some part of ourselves not being on the road. We didn’t have too much time to
dwell on it though as we headed down to Cape Town for Simon & Jen’s
wedding, followed by a hop skip and jump over to Iceland for Karen &
Patrick’s wedding two weeks later, and did a loop around the island to explore.
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| Blue Lagoon |
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| Jokulsarlon |
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| Borin' old geyser :) |
Wedding season buoyed us up, it was a busy and happy time. Following
Karen’s wedding, we headed back to the UK to try to replenish the coffers a
little. We were both lucky enough to get our old jobs back on a contract basis
for a short stint. It was great to get back to a real routine, seeing lots of
friends in between peaceful days at the office. I had definitely missed the
stimulation of the office and loved my 3 month contract back with the old team.
Despite worries that we would find it hard to fit back into the regular
routines and schedules of working, we both found it really easy. We stayed with
Lindsay in Clapham for those 3 months to be closer in to London, and it was
absolutely brilliant – the flat was pretty much constantly filled with high
volume laughter & skinnering.
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| That old familiar Canary Wharf... |
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London friends
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| Christmas carols at Westminister Abbey |
In December we went through that old familiar routine of
packing up all our posessions (how did we accumulate that much stuff in just a
few months??), organising shipping, and left London for Jo’burg in time for
Christmas. We spent an amazing Christmas day with my folks, cuzzies, aunt &
uncle in Parkview, delighted to be back to warm Christmases celebrated with
braais.
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| Christmas with family |
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| Add caption |
Shortly after Christmas, we began loading up some of our
stuff into the beast for the great trek south to Cape Town. We had decided to
take the scenic route down the coast, via the Drakensberg, where we met up with
Mike & Emma for a few days of reminiscing, hiking and having fun. Our trip
took ten days, down the Garden Route, and we finally got to Cape Town on Sunday
6 January.
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| Just like old times |
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| Bonnievale |
Brett: On our first day in Cape Town, we checked in at Hotel
Martin and headed out on foot to a concert in De Waal Park, where we met loads
of new people. The first month was dominated by the search for a flat, which
had started online while we were in Joburg and continued with some difficulty
online while driving down to Cape Town. Flats in the city bowl go quickly at
this time of year – literally within a matter of hours, and it was not long
before we got to a point where we said to ourselves that we would just take the
next flat that came up in our desired area, if it was reasonably affordable.
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Summer Concerts in De Waal park
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That decision brought us to a beautiful tiny flat on the
side of Signal Hill overlooking city bowl and with a panoramic view of the
whole of Table Mountain. On the last weekend of January, I started my MBA at
the UCT Graduate School of Business with a day of team building activities,
followed by a braai for all the partners & families. The next few months
were a blur of studying, presentations, projects and exams.
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Mary: I had been looking for a job from the start of the
year, but decided to capitalise on the very slow Cape Town job market and write
The Book of our trip – my memoir of the previous 14 months of travel. I also
took up ceramics and painting, and am still, frustratingly, looking for a job.
At the moment there are a few promising options on the horizon, but we have yet
to see if they will actually materialise. I am 100,000 words into the first
draft of the book and starting to realise what a huge undertaking this is.
Brett will continue studying until the end of the year, when he will have the
option of doing a three month exchange somewhere in the world.
It has been strange and wonderful and difficult and
eye-opening to be back in South Africa. Next year’s plans are far from certain.
The thread we have been following for the last few years has started to unravel
and there are a number of strands leading out from us in different directions,
like those narrow tracks diverging in the jungle in Guinea. As before, we’re
sitting on the side of the road under the trees, watching the dust motes
falling through the shards of sunlight and trying to work out which way is
best. It’s impossible to tell. There is a different adventure down each one.
