Sunday 21/12/25 4.40am
During a long haul flight you can get so tired that your eyes remain open whilst all rational thoughts in your brain have ceased to exist.
Being in that state in airport lounges can be hazardous as I was reminded over the past twenty seven hours of that zombie-like state travelling from Melbourne to Johannesburg.
As my mind started the inevitable ‘drift off’ during our first delay in Melbourne, I realised after ten minutes I had been staring inadvertently at a young couple sitting directly opposite us.
To them I would have looked like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I apologised with a smile and moved my glare elsewhere to the next unsuspecting victim.
The near two hour delay in Melbourne threw out the connecting flight in Singapore but thankfully they waited for about twenty of us to get to the Jo-burg flight.
The biggest problem for me on long haul flights is that I can’t sleep. If I’m travelling to a new destination, I’m too excited and can’t read, instead turning to the magic of ten consecutive trashy films.
Years of telling the kids to cut down on screen time and suddenly I’m the pin up boy for how not to manage it. I arrive at my destination looking like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.
The trip to Africa is something Lynda and I have had planned for the past six months. We went through an agent in Ballarat for the first time given we just weren’t sure about a few things.
It was a wise choice because travelling here isn’t as easy as booking flights and AirBnb’s on line as we would for Northern Hemisphere trips. It’s the most expensive trip we’ve done but there are nicer hotels, meals and transfers included which are little luxuries for us.
The first thing you notice upon arrival in Jo-burg is the absence of white people. Everyone employed at O R Tambo Airport to the city and this beautiful hotel in the city, is black.
Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump would self-immolate if they visited Africa. Like New York’s African Americans, the locals here are spectacular looking and cruise at a different pace.
The hair styles are wild and colourful while the kids are as cute as buttons. I’m clearly in need of some grandchildren Corrie and Mia if you’re reading this!
Jo-burg, like Ballarat was built on the discovery of gold. The city has a population of 5.5m people but it’s the enormous urban outskirts that you see flying in that contains nearly 16m.
It’s a city that has had plenty of challenges over its history. Soweto was a township formed after WW2 to house black workers and was initially planned for fifty thousand and is now home to over five million black people.
This of course all happened when apartheid was introduced to South Africa. Soweto was also the home of Nelson Mandela and the ANC and by the early sixties he would be arrested and jailed for twenty seven years.
With approximately sixty murders a day in and around Jo-Burg we won’t be taking too many risks and will be taking advice from the locals.
We have a bus tour of significant sites in Soweto tomorrow but for now we are waiting for breakfast to open. Lynda has just gone to sleep again after following the last few overs of the Adelaide Test on her phone. RIP Bazball.
Trust all is well and Merry Xmas. We will be in Kruger National Park Xmas Day, hopefully not being feasted on by some of the local wildlife. Cheers. 🙂
