I woke up, trying not to think what it was going to be like to have to get back to domestic 'bliss'. It was a confused state of mind - I have loved this trip and don't want it to end but at the same time, I have missed my friends, family and animals and look so forward to catching up with everyone.
We decided to skip breakfast and head off for an early start - 7:30. We are definitely on our way south, each morning gets colder and this morning it was straight into winter clothes.
The novelty of yesterday's veterinary check point stops wore off very quickly. By the third stop at 10:30, we were so over it and the officials were less than pleasant. We are clearly heading south, gone are the friendly and helpful officials from north of Botswana.
At the stop at Sesse, we had no smiling face, just some bolshie guy barking orders for us to get out and dip our feet. Then he wanted our flip flops dipped; trying to explain they were in bags, in the bottom of a tied up trailer that would stay that way till we arrived back in Jhb, would not appease him. Gray could only find one of his flops in the car and told him he had lost the other one – grouchy official was still not happy and demanded slops from me. Having extracted my bag, Gray, for the first time in 4 months, kind of lost his cool and threw my bag on the ground. I found my slops, dipped them and then he demanded that I do my slippers - trying to explain that my comfy sheep woollies were back home (no doubt giving foot & mouth to my dogs and cats) - and that I did not think they would be much use while camping in the Serengeti. After a cursory search of my bag, he seemed satisfied that slippers were not part of my luggage. While Gray was repacking, the official proceeded to give him a hard time for holding up the queue. Yep, we are definitely on our way home.
We stopped off at Palapye; for money (got lucky at the 4th ATM), a quick Nando’s take-away (lost our order and so took forever - no apology), and diesel (no problems) - I was ready to head back up north, where things sometimes get done, but always with a smile.
Our Botswana leg, with all the foot bath stops, took 2 hours longer than expected. The scenery was extremely dry and the bush is pretty barren.
We arrived at our, sort of remote border post, at 1:30. The Botswana side at Parr's Halt, had a customs official missing in action and once located, had no idea what our Carnet was and it took a lot of patient convincing to get him to sign it.
On the S. A. side at Stockpoort, the official told Gray he had been caught speeding in Bots - Gray tried to convince him that it was impossible as he was using speed control but he persisted, saying they had it all on camera - just as I saw steam coming out of Gray's ears, the customs policeman said it was a joke - the rest of us found this hilarious but Gray has kind of lost his sense of humour.
We officially arrived back on S. A. soil at 2:00pm. As on Day 1, we were plagued with road works and had to wait ages at road stops for the oncoming traffic to come through. After the roads we had encountered up north, we were just grateful for the condition of the roads in S.A. and the fact that they are maintained.
And we have touch down - the 800km journey took us 11 hours and we arrived home at 7:30.
We received a warm and slobbery welcome from our 4 dogs and even the two cats, who had put on huge amounts of weight were all over us like a rash. Animals are so forgiving – you leave them for 4 months and they just forgive you and love you when you get home.
Dinner and groceries were on the kitchen table, thanks to Al, the best neighbour ever.
We all had long, hot baths and sunk into our marshmallow mattresses – we dreamed of Africa.
Home - sweet - home
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