Unlike my Wombat, I have no desire to incur the wrath of La Cassandra by referring to it as "Hoburg". I went up on Friday afternoon to visit my sister. She picked me up and we drove to her house in Morningside (at least, I think it was in Morningside - it's in a complex called Morningside Hills and it's near Sandton ... it could, however, be Benmore?). Shortly thereafter, Lia and Matt arrived. We set out for a 4 hour drive to Sudwala. In the middle of Mpumalanga - near Nelspruit.
The accomodation was a lot better that what we were expecting. The next morning we got up bright and early to go caving. The cave area that you see on the ordinary tour is cool. From there we went about 3 km underground. It was muddy, wet and slippery, but loads of fun! Lots of crawling, climbing and sliding :-D. I loved every minute of it. Sort of. The bits where we stopped for a while weren't so cool - or, rather, they were too cool. The cave has a constant temperature of about 17 - so, you can die of hypothermia if you stay in there for a couple of days. We saw the Sudwala Star - a huge crystal, but not their biggest. In one of the other chambers that we're not qualified to go to, there is a crystal column weighing about 2 tonnes (tons? I'm not sure which one the guide meant, or what the difference is, if there is in fact a difference other than the spelling!) that you can walk around...
On the way back, we were up at the front and I did most of it in darkness, which was really cool!
After coming out, we were sent off to shower. We waited until the end and then Phil and Matt showered and then Lia and I. Just what I always wanted to do - get naked under freezing water with one of my sister's friends! I decided to throw my pants away, as they had already had holes in them and they were now so caked with mud, that I thought that was the best idea.
Of course, this was a bit of a problem as I had used them for pyjamas the night before because I forgot to pack mine . But they were too dirty to be used after that anyway, so...
Then we took a leisurely drive back along the scenic route, so it was probably closer to 5 hours. We had a fantastic lunch at a Wimpy. By this I mean that it was so much better than I was expecting it to be. Especially since we'd been forced to eat at BJ's the night before as there was no other option!
We spent that night at home (thankfully, I was exhausted after all that sitting in a car. Oh and the caving...
The next day we went to Sterkfontein and went through that cave. Sterkfontein is, as far as I'm aware, close to Joburg, but actually in North-West. And even if it wasn't, Goblin's Cove, where we went for lunch afterwards was. Both were fantastic! But Sterkfontein was a little disappointing because they're only opening the new visitor's centres on the 17th of March! So I missed that. And the museum that they have at the moment is pathetic!
Goblin's Cove was incredible! Anyone with a love of fairies and goblins, etc. should go there. Like Cas. I think she'd love it... I have pictures. It's really pretty!
I missed the thunderstorms though, much to my disappointment! However, I was not sick on the plane, which is an achievement! And, in the end, I did not spend an awful lot of time actually in Joburg. But we drove through an awful lot of it - Benmore, Sandton, Morningside, Benoni, Bryanston ... umm, lots of others that I don't remember the names of, but I'm sure that if you Joburgers were to mention them I would remember...