Following multiple requests from my wide readership, I have decided to flash forward 6 months and take you through my adventure real-time. Having just wrapped up an amazing piece of work for the client, my colleague and friend Josh and I decided to take a week’s holiday and do a coastal roadtrip to check out some of South Africa’s finest.

After weeks of convincing each other that “today is the day we plan our trip”, we finally realised on Friday night (the night before our trip), on our way to a night of planned debauchery, that we should probably book something for our trip the following Saturday morning. Clearly “Africa time” as the locals call it, had rubbed off on us.

We spontaneously booked a flight to Port Elizabeth which appeared to us to be the furthest possible airport from Cape Town that qualified as a starting point for a week’s long road trip. With flights booked we relaxed and headed off to one of Joberg’s many craft beer joints (where we would ironically drink copious amounts of gin & tonics which appear to be South Africa’s new favourite drink). Hotels and car rental can wait till we get there. Remember Africa time? 🙂

The following morning we were off, bags packed and waiving Pretoria good bloody riddance. We were excited by the thought of sand, sea and sun, and beer….and wine…and gin & tonic 🙂

After haggling ferociously at the car rental place and me nearly getting imprisoned by a big momma who was very annoyed that I left my suitcase unattended as I ran between car rental companies lying about how cheap the competition’s offer was (and yes mama I told her you would definitely take her side in this argument), we got ourselves a car. Time for another break (yeah, I’m telling you try spending 6 months in Africa and you’ll be the same :))

Pick up the car and then off to the beach for a beer and some meat. We jealously walked past the rows and rows of 4x4s on offer and saw our beautiful little car in the distance. Relieved that such a cheap little thing could be in such good shape Josh proudly went to unlock the car at which point we heard the clicking sound of a car unlocking coming from the opposite direction. Turns out ours was the shitty little white thing in the row behind.

Not disheartened we headed to the sea and managed to have some burger and local beer on the shore before we found ourselves some lodging and settled in for the night.

We had been warned that Port Elizabeth (or PE if you’re South African and apply a nickname to every city here) was the most boring place on the cost but relying on the theory of relativity (remember, we were staying in Pretoria) we assumed things could only get better.

We did begin to panic though when the lady at reception told us the best place to go out was the family restaurant, the highlight of which were the “crazy shakes” (upon further enquiry they are alcohol/drug free and don’t live up to their name). This was taken with a pinch of salt as that same lady asked Josh why he let the woman park the car and went on the inform us that women can’t reverse. You gotta get used to those kind of comments here.

Luckily there were a few local breweries where we tasted PEs finest Gin and Whisky (we do sometimes drink local beer but this night needed something stronger) and people watched the locals who looked like a South African version of “the only way is Essex” but with more summary clothes and gringo style backwards cap. It was an interesting evening.

The following evening we decided to check out the infamous “Boardwalk” expecting a Mediterranean style line of cafes and restaurants by the beach but it turns out that this was just a complex with a casino that had been built right next to the beach but was more like a mall and didn’t even have a sea view. That was the last straw, and that, coupled with the worryingly high ratio of OAPs meant we’d had enough of this African version of a slightly inferior Bournemouth (because it’s so windy in the evenings even the temperate feels a bit like a UK summer), and were ready to move on South.