Day 66 - Table Mountain

Well we did it! After 65 days of waiting I finally did the one thing I wanted to do ever since I knew I was coming over here. It was well worth it.

Azille was the one who wanted to take us up, and told us she'd give us a call at 7, to see if the mountain was clear enough to go up. Thankfully it was, so she was coming to pick us up at 8:30.

At 8:15 she phone again. Her husband was called into work so couldn't join us, and she'd be here at 9.

At 9 she came to reception, and we set off! It was already really sunny, and it was starting to get hotter, but we powered on. The actually climb isn't that hard, as its pretty much just steps. But there's so many of them, some a lot bigger than others, which made it tiring. With the sun beaming down on our backs too it made it even more exhausting. After about an hour and a half of constant climbing, we reached the top of the mountain. Finally. It was amazing. The views were incredible. You could see the whole of Cape Town from up there it was beautiful.

I had had barely any water on the way up so was really dehydrated, so we headed for the shops to get some water and some food. The shops were odd. It seemed like the only thing that was overpriced was the water. Pretty much everything else was decent price. I got water, pizza, a brownie and a Magnum ice lolly. Without the water it came to about a fiver. Not bad.

After we'd rested a bit, and got our energy back, we headed to Maclear's Beacon, which is the highest point of Table Mountain. It was about an hours walk to get there. But it was so well worth it. The views were even more amazing from over there. It was just brilliant. We checked out a few of the rocks on the edge, took loads of photos, and just sat down on one of the rocks. I could've sat there for the rest of the day it was just so amazing. Pictures don't do it justice at all, which is a shame.

Soon enough, we had to go. We headed back to the point at which we go down, which was roughly another hours walk. I nipped to the shops to grab another bottle of water, and we headed down. Going down felt longer than going up, but seemed easier.

2 hours later, and 6 legs aching, we finally made it to the bottom. We were exhausted. Martin and I had planned to go to Yindees, the Thai restaurant, but as soon as Azille dropped us off I pretty much fell straight asleep. Oops. I was exhausted. Martin managed a nap later on too, so at least it wasn't just me. We have nothing planned for tomorrow, so I'm going to use that day as a rest day, and upload all of the photos from today up!

Harry

Day 65 - Computer Workshop & Joe's Friend

Today we had our full day computer workshop, where we had to cram in 4 days worth of computer teaching into one. It was a challenge but we were ready.

We got the the Learning Centre at just before 9, said our hellos and got ourselves set up, ready to start.

We had around 5 people who came to the workshop. 4 girls and one guy. Thankfully, we didn't have a situation like our other class, where we had a couple of people who were really advanced, and a few that were really struggling. This group were all roughly the same level, which made it so much easier.

We took a break after each day we completed, which was roughly every hour. We managed to fly through it and completed it by 2:15. Decent. The class we had were really nice too, which made it better.

After we finished the workshop, Selwyn came and met us at the Learning Centre, and we all waited for Joe to return from his meeting before we set off. We were going to do a coaching session for one of his friends, who had transformed some dirty, unused tennis courts into 2 decent action soccer pitches, and we were there to run a session for the kids that went along.

When Joe arrived, we went to pick up Densel, and headed off to a place called Parrow Valley, which is where the session was.

Safe to say the session was a bit hectic. We started off with 20 boys, ended up with 40. We split the boys between me and Martin, so I took half and he took half, but they kept changing which group they were in, it was mad!

We did a short shooting exercise, before going into quickfire, winner stays on, matches.

After that was done, we had loads of photos taken, said our goodbyes and headed home.

Joe had invited us over for a little braai for the evening, so after we got home, got changed, and everything else, we set off.

It wasn't as busy as the last time, with only a handful of people there, but it was really nice and chilled. I played a few games of WWE on the PS2 with him, then felt bad when I beat him and he got stroppy, we somehow got to playing this boys v girls throwing and catching game, which was fun, but so tiring in jeans and jumper. Then Joe whacked out the karaoke machine and had that going on, which was a nice and chilled way to end the evening. All in all it was really good.

Getting an early night as tomorrow, TABLE MOUNTAIN. Finally getting to go up this beaut. Should be good.

Harry

Day 64 - Computer Workshop & Trafalgar High School

Today we had 3rd day of our 4 day computer workshop, followed by an afternoon trip to Trafalgar High School.

Fo the computer workshop today, our focus was the Internet. After looking at the PowerPoint, and knowing the people we run the workshop with, we decided to scrap most of it, and do it ourselves, as most of what was on the PowerPoint was pretty much useless. We have a couple of people who are really advanced, and don't really need to be there. and a few who struggle quite a lot. So telling them what "http" stood for was just pointless.

We got them working the Internet, searching for different websites, using YouTube, Google Chrome, and generally playing round with the Internet. It was really a long class, and we finished it all by 10:30, but they seem to be getting better and better, which is positive. We only have one more day with them, which is only a few days before we leave, where we get them all emailing eachother, which should be good.

After the workshop was over, we had a sit down and a chat with Joe and Lourens, and helped them enter a couple of Twitter competitions, before heading out to get some lunch. Today's food, burgers. Lush. I scoffed mine down, before starting on my beloved Koeksisters, which I told you about before. It's my little treat for myself after the computer classes.

We then headed to Trafalgar High School, which we were looking forward to, after a really good session last week. We got there, 10 kids were waiting for us. They seemed to have the same situation as Harold Cressy yesterday, with exams all concluding tomorrow. So many of the kids were studying for them, which we can't really argue with, as studying is more important than a kick around.

With the kids we did have, we played a match. 6v6. Another chance for me to get a point back.

Long story short, I managed it! 5-4! One more victory and we're level! Finally. Martins team couldn't hit a barn door from 3 foot away though, They just refused to shoot! It was crazy, they'd get close to goal, then try and take on the last defender again. Meanwhile, I had a Rachel Yankey-esque girl on my team, who scored a quality brace to give us the victory! Happy days! Girls Football isn't that big over here, but the girls we played with today were quality! Much better than the boys. Shows what you can do when you don't try and beat everyone on the pitch and just do the basic stuff, but well.

After the match ended, we said our goodbyes to the group and headed home. Day over. This heat always leaves me exhausted at the end of the day so I'm going to have an even earlier night, as I'm shattered. Tomorrow, Azilles booked us in for an all day computer workshop, followed by a small session for one of Joes mates, with a visit to the Africa household, for 'Spot Night', where they're having a braai, and want us to come along. Should be good.

Harry

Day 63 - Silvertree Crèche & Harold Cressy High School

Today we returned to our favourite crèche, Silvertree! Last week we had loads of fun with the kids, and it was a really nice crèche to go to.

We had an early start this morning, as we had to pick Joe up from the Learning Centre at 8, before heading to Silvertree.

We got there, and the kids remembered exactly who we were! It's amazing! They were polite, friendly, well behaved, and remembered our names. It was a dream!

We did our classic warm up of the movement game with both groups, followed by relay races, which they seemed to really enjoy. It seems that as long as the kids are running and moving about, they have a great time, which makes it easier for us!

However, between both classes, both Martin and I managed to get biting ants all over us! After a bit of searching, we found a flying ant nest right next to where we were sitting! Nightmare! We sat as far away from it for the second class, and thankfully only had to suffer the bites we got from the ants in the first session.

We wrapped our session up by playing some games that the class liked best. We had no idea what they wanted to do, they just wanted to show us their games! So we joined in, and it was really fun. We started with a duck-duck-goose game, followed by a musical statue-esque game. We then did our goodbye high fives, and left with Joe.

After having lunch at the Learning Centre, we then went on to Harold Cressy High School. They told us to expect around 40 kids. Got there, there was 8. They explained to us that they have big exams on Friday, so most of the kids were studying. Bit strange how they didn't figure this out when we called them a few hours before, though. Oh well. Match time.

It was a chance for me to make up some ground in mine and Martins battle, which I am currently losing 5-2. 

25 minutes into the match, my team we 4-1 down. Oops. Wasn't looking good. Thankfully, Martins team fell apart, and I scored a couple of beautiful long range goals, and we ended up winning 12-9! To be fair to Martin, his keeper hurt his wrist so sat out, so they were a couple of men down. We also had the better team, despite Martin having the best player. I don't care. We won. 5-3. I have 3 weeks to get 2 more wins to draw, or 3 to be victorious! It's going to be close though!

After that, we were done. Had the evening to ourselves. Going to be a chilled out one, as the heat today has made me so tired!

Harry

Day 62 - Greenland Crèche & Mondale High School 2.0

Day 62. Crazy. In exactly 3 weeks time we will be on the plane, flying home. How time has flown by.

We started off the day at the Learning Centre, where we had a package from the mother! She has been amazing over the last few weeks. After hearing about the kids we coach, and how most of them don't have enough equipment and boots to play properly in, she took it upon herself to collect as many boots, kit and gear as she could, to send it over to us so we could hand it out.

She did an absolutely amazing job. We had 4 big boxes, full of boots, equipment and kit, which we can hand out to the kids we coach. It's amazing. She also raised £200, which were going to go towards shipping costs, but DHL were very generous, and offered to ship the goods for free! So mum is even going to send the money over to us, so we can get EVEN MORE stuff for the kids out here. It's amazing, and I'm so proud of her for doing it. Everyone here is going nuts and can't wait to see the kids faces when we hand out the gear to them. I'm so excited.

She's still collecting money before sending it over, so if any of you lovely readers are feeling generous, please contact Elli Sherman on Facebook, or just simply send money, via PayPal, to sendbootsabroad@gmail.com, it would be really appreciated.

We then had our 2nd of 3 sessions at Greenland crèche, with next week being our last.

We got there, set up, and straight away the first group came out. They were a bit louder than last week, thankfully. Still a couple of disruptive kids but we made it work. We started off with our movement game, to get them up and about, before going into relay games, which they seemed to enjoy. By the end of it, they were screaming Arsenal and all seemed really happy, which was nice.

The second group were a bit better, in my opinion. They did really well, listened well, and did well on the relays. By the end of it they were up and about, shouting Arsenal, and being really happy. So same as the second group. For this group, however, when we were doing our normal high-five-goodbye thing. They all of a sudden gave us these massive hugs, aswell as high fives. It was so adorable. The first kid did it, and then everyone else seemed to follow, and just give us hugs, before high fiving us, then going inside. They were my favourite group of the day, by far.

The third group, however, seemed to just be distracted all the time. It was crazy. They were messing around, not listening and just generally being pains. I think we dealt with them quite well though, which is good. The one positive we got from the, was the fact that when we chanted something, they'd chant it back. So we managed to get them doing a few of the Arsenal chants, which made us laugh. Martin's put one of them on Facebook. So if you have him as a friend, go take a look. It's brilliant.

Joe stayed in the car while we coached. He was busy listening to the cricket. When we finished, though, we couldn't find him anywhere. Turns out he'd had a search of the crèche, and managed to find an old TV. So he wired it up, and had the cricket on. Brilliant. We spent our break after finishing just watching the cricket.

On the way back to the Learning Centre, we had it on the radio in the car, and unfortunately, South Africa lost. It was very close, but they just lost. Safe to say, Joe wasn't happy about it. One of the fielders dropped a ball, which could've changed the game. Oh well, I was never into cricket.

After chilling out at the Learning Centre, we headed over to Mondale High School, to do our final coaching session with them. We tried to do what we did at All Stars FC last Thursday. It worked quite well, but unfortunately we had no bibs for the final part, so it got a bit confusing. The kids were really good, though, and made it a privilege to coach them. After we wrapped everything up we had loads of photos taken, and chats with the kids. It was really nice.

That was it. Home for the evening. Going to get an early night, though, as we have to be at Ruyterwacht for 8 tomorrow, to pick Joe up. We have Silvertree though, which is my favourite crèche to visit. So it should be worth it.

Harry

Photos From Day 61 - Robben Island

Day 61 - Robben Island

Today was the day we finally go to Robben Island! One of the main attractions of Cape Town, and one of the big things we wanted to do while out here, finally we got round to doing it.

We were quite relaxed about timings, as there wasn't a specific time we had to be up, but we both naturally seemed to wake up around 10:30ish, we got ready and got the bus to the Waterfront for around 12. We made our way to the Robben Island museum building, where you wait for the ferry, and can get tickets/find out more info and stuff, so we paid for our tickets and queued up for the ferry.

There was so many people, it was crazy. They had to get 2 ferry's to take us. We were on the second ferry, which was a little less crowded which was nice.

After yesterday's antics, Martin was giving me a bit of stick about going back on a boat. To be fair, though, I would've given him a lot more had it had been him puking, not me. But I was a bit nervous myself. I was starting to question how well I could handle boats. Rest assured, after yesterday, I vowed against ever going on a boat again. That was before I remembered it was an hour boat trip to get to Robben Island, and another hour, back. I was fine though, so happy days.

We got there, and made our way to the bus that would be taking us round, and hopped on. It was stupidly crowded. I was lucky enough to be sitting on the inside seat, while Martin sat next to the window, which meant that my shoulders were, unfortunately, exposed to a rather large woman, who pretty much sat on my shoulder as she went past. Lovely.

The bus took us round to various points on the island, where our tourguide for the bus trip gave us all these facts about the island, such as it was originally for people who had lepracy, who were pretty much left there to rot, before other criminals joined them on the island.

After a couple of stops at points we made our way to the main prison, where Mandela was kept. There, we met up with a different tourguide, who was a funny guy, but had a really strong African accent, so at times it was hard to understand him. But he took us through the prison, telling us bits about it along the way, like how the criminals were split into category's, and depending on their category, depended on what privileges they'd get. Some would be able to write 1 letter a month, some 1 every 6 months and loads of other things. It was really interesting.

What made it more interesting was the fact that this guy was a prisoner here, too. He was arrested in 1977, and released 5 years later, in 1982. The reason he got arrested? Because he refused to learn Afrikaans, which was forced upon people back in the day. Crazy.

He showed us his cell, which he shared with up to 60 people. It was a cell which would've struggled to fit 20 people, let alone 60.

He also showed us Mandelas cell, which he occupied alone. It was this tiny room, with a bit of cloth on the floor which made his bed. It was nasty. He spent 27 years in it. I can only imagine how horrible it must've been. 

After seeing everything, and having questions answered and all that, the tour was over. So we headed back to the boat to go home. I was exhausted so I fell asleep on the boat trip.

When we got back, Martin picked up a data package for his phone, incase the wifi goes down at Berghof again, and we grabbed milkshakes from a restaurant called La Playa. These milkshakes were huge. Pricy, but huge. I went for Nutella, while Martin opted for Oreo. After that we headed for the buses, and came home.

Quality day to end a fairly disappointing (in my opinion) weekend. Now onto our second to last week of coaching!

Harry

Day 60 - Shark Cage Diving

Another day of disappointment for me, which I'm truly gutted about because I spent R1700 (about £100) to do this, and was really looking forward to it.

Before I start I just want to say a massive happy birthday to the girlfriends mum, Lucy, who I know is one of my loyal readers of this blog. Hope you had a great day.

On to my day. I was told that I would be picked up from Berghof at 8, so I was up and about fairly early in order to make sure I was ready.

He arrived at 8:45. After 45 minutes waiting at reception chatting to Rosie, our receptionist, I was picked up. I was a bit annoyed but understood that there was probably a reason he was late. I got on the bus and chilled out for the 2 hour drive to Gansbaai.

When we got there, we sat down on a few tables and had breakfast while signing the documents we needed to sign, while our 'Shark Master', who was this big, rugged South African dude who looked as though he would happily fight sharks with his bare hands, told us about what was going to happen today.

At around 12, we set off. We travelled for about 15 minutes into the ocean, before setting the anchor and attaching the cage. We then all went upstairs for our briefing about the dos and donts of the day. While he was chatting they were testing out the bait, and a massive shark came up and snatched it. Naturally, we all then ignored our Shark Master and watched the Sharks, we had 3 circling the boat at this point. So far so good.

After he finished the briefing, we all headed downstairs to get our gear on. The winds started to pick up and the boat started rocking very heavily. Oh no. I used to get seasick as a kid, but on my last few boat trips it seemed as though my seasickness had gone down a bit. Oh no it hadn't. After getting my wetsuit, I went to the side of the boat to take a few breaths, and calm my dizzy head down before putting the wetsuit on. The wind picked up, the boat rocked harder and I felt worse and worse. Slowly people started to join me on the sides, feeling queasy too.

I didn't manage to get off the side. As the day progressed the boat rocked harder and harder, it got colder and colder, and I felt worse and worse. By the end of it, there was 3 of us puking over the sides. There was a middle aged woman on my right who was puking, so I had her hair in my right hand so she didn't mess it up, while I was puking, and the guy on my left had his right hand on my back, helping me out, while he was puking too. We looked like a right rough trio, all puking, all helping eachother out.

I was distraught. I missed everything because of my sickness. I had hoped to go down in the cage, but every time I got up to go towards it I felt rough again. I missed the best day to go down, too. They told us after that if they get 3-5 sharks, it's a very good day. We had 8 sharks around the boat. Everyone went in 3/4 times, except for yours truly. The sharks we huge, and getting so close to the boat. I was absolutely gutted. My luck is against me this weekend.

Hoping for an early night tonight, aiming to visit Robben Island tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be alright for that. We'll see.

Wifi's down again so this post may appear tomorrow morning, so I apologise in advance if it's late.

Harry