Tales from the tip of Africa

After leaving Mozambique, the whale sharks, the crazy Portuguese locals and the stunning beaches, we crossed over into South Africa. The first thing we thought was: How is this country going to deal with the World Cup? The border was in shambles!

After standing in queue for two hours — the border officials seemed more interested in playing solitaire — we were granted access into the Rainbow Nation.

Smooth manoeuvres

The roads were a joy — everything was signposted; even the stretches of tar that were damaged had huge signs stating "Potholes" before you reached them. Amazing.

We pulled into a picturesque little town called Hazy View near the Sabi River and started out to South Africa at 5am in a "Balloons over Africa" hot-air balloon over the river valley. It was our first balloon excursion and we were amazed at how quiet it was.

After a slap-up brekkie, we jumped back into Roxy and drove to the entertainment capital, "Sun City". There, we met Dan, the hotel manager for the cascades who had worked for Mandela for several years. He regaled us for hours with stories about the incredible former president.

Sun City is a brilliant place for a family getaway — you can ride and feed elephants, explore the safari park, abseil, paraglide, jet ski, laze by the pool, eat or do nothing at all. We did pretty much all of the above!

Then we went onwards to Jo'burg, where we met Bernard, an Afrikaner photographer from Free State who had a run-in with the law and as punishment for his crimes, was ordered three months of community service.

Bernard chose to work with street kids. He gave them disposable cameras and sent them around their neighbourhoods to take pictures of anything that grabbed their attention. The result — a huge photography exhibition called I Was Shot in Joburg, with 20 enthusiastic photographers. Bernard, one year later, is still working with them and planning to tour the world with his students.

We got some great footage for our documentary of the kids talking about their pictures.

Birds of a feather

Then we went on to one of the most random places we've ever explored: Oudtshoorn — a tiny town dedicated to farming only ostriches. Apparently more than 90 per cent of this bird can be used — eggs, leather, feathers and very low cholesterol red meat.

We started our day with scrambled ostrich eggs (one egg can feed 12 people) then went to explore an ostrich farm.

Once there, I was asked how much I weighed and then dragged into a pen with 20 of the dinosaur-like birds.

A tiny man put a cloth bag over a bird's head and hauled the creature into a paddock and motioned that I should jump on. So I did! I am a proud ostrich-ride survivor! They just take the cloth of the poor things head, slap it's behind and it starts running around while you cling on for dear life!

Unglamorous end

After about three minutes, the man drags you off the bird backwards. Very unglamorous but Martin told me it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

So feeling like we had learnt everything there was to know about ostriches and confident we could fend one off should we encounter one in the wild, we headed towards Cape Town!

There are more stories of cheetah cubs, shark-cage diving and table mountains but, sadly, we have to be on the road again, so it'll have to wait till next time.

See you on the road!