Benoni - The final leg of SA

Back to Benoni for our final 5 days in SA. Leigh & Werner very kindly offered as a place to stay again - we must have got them drunk enough last time for them to have us back ;)

We spent a bit of time here just chilling, doing some internet stuff, and planning for Oz!!

Friday night we went out for some farewell drinks with Leigh, Werner, Kelly, Rajmund, Kingsley and Yvonne. It was great fun, and Ev got to revisit some of her old haunts one final time. We had some good food at McGinty's - and some Jack D shots, then played a few games of pool at Shooters...

Next day, Leigh joined us as we visited the Cradle of Humankind. This was pretty interesting as we looked round some caves and saw one of the most significant sites for extracting fossils. This is where 'Mrs Ples' was found - she (but now they thing she may actually be a he) is the first Australopithecus Africanus remains to be found, dated 2.8 millions years old, which they say is the link between humans and monkeys!

Sunday was also pretty eventful as we went to Pretoria for the day. The Voortrekker Monument and Museum was interesting, as its the first time we've seen SA history from the white persons perspective. It was insightful to see why the boers left Cape Town and why wars with the Zulus broke out. This is a really beautiful monument as well, and it would be a travesty if the new government knock this down (as rumoured).

We had a little drive around the city, where the streets are lined with the purple jacaranda trees. We stopped briefly outside the parliamentary buildings, which are impressive with some nice gardens, before carrying on to Hatfield square. This is the party area part of town with loads of bars and restaurants situated round the corner from the university. We wandered around the craft markets that they have here on Sundays full of African memorabilia.

Monday was pretty good as we went go-karting with David, Leigh & Werner. It was great fun racing each other until Leigh's kart wouldn't stop and went straight through the pit lane and smashed into the barrier (her break became the accelerator!!) and she hurt her back in the process - so sorry Leigh :(

We had 3x 20mins spells on the track - and we managed about 60 laps 1st time, 70 laps 2nd, and then 90 on the 3rd, so we got better. The fastest lap was by David being about 14.15 secs and he probably would have won all three circuits if he didn't spin out ;)

We had some good battles, though Evelyn avoided too much conflict by gracefully moving over when she was caught by one of the boys. In the final session, she did over take both boys and made a race of it. Marc over took David once during the last session, which was as good as a victory ;) All in all it was a fun evening.

Our final night in Benoni we took Leigh & Werner out for dinner which was great - A big thanks to you both for letting us crash at yours we had a great time