Thursday June 30th couldn't arrive fast enough. Finally the day arrived and we were off, our flight was delayed about 30 minutes- no big deal. We arrived and checked in and then, "sorry but do you have your marriage certificate as well? (This was the lady at the British Airways desk asking, as she had to see all our travel docs, we had the girls birth certificates with us but because my maiden name is on them we had to have a marriage certificate to prove that I had changed my name!) "no I'd didn't bring that as nowhere on any website did it say I needed that". "Well we are sorry but you cannot leave today if you don't have that!" We had 2 hours before departure to figure it out- THANK GOD for Anne and Shaun, Anne picked it up and Shaun drove it out to us- crisis avoided but oh not a great start.
Finally we were boarded- a nice new British airways plane, we settled in for the 9 hour flight and it was pretty smooth. We had a "lovely" chicken dinner, caught up on a few movies and even all managed a few hours of sleep.
We landed at Heathrow terminal 3 and had to go through customs as I had rented a wireless device that had to be picked up after baggage claim. Thank goodness we were in no rush as we stood in that customs line for 2 hours! Finally we got to the front and were asked "how long you in the UK?" Us- "about 5 minutes to pick up a wifi transmitter" - "oh okay then". So we picked up our TEP and headed straight back to go through customs again- thank goodness only a 5 minute line.
We felt it was dinner time by now- although technically it was breakfast time for us. We found a good place to eat and had the all day breakfast- bellies full we only had about an hour to kill before we would be boarding again. We hung at the gate- watched Wales beat Portugal at some soccer and before we knew it we were boarding again- this time for an 11 hour flight. The flight was delayed on the Tarmac- which was pretty scary as we only had 1 hour and 40 minutes in Johannesburg to get our connection to Durban.
I had a window seat in front of Frank and the girls and had a lovely South African couple sit next to me- the Van Der Merwes! He is a doctor who works 2 months a year in Moosejaw Sask, they live in Stellenbosch and it turns out his parents own the B&B right next door to the one we are staying at in St Lucia. It was lovely chatting to them- got lots of tips.
Finally we were off and once again a lovely "chicken" dinner, some movies and sleep. The girls were really tired and slept for about 6 hours each- I slept about 5 and then watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2". Soon the light came up and breakfast was being served. Amazingly quickly for what was an 11 hour flight - Johannesburg was below and we landed on time.
We rocketed off the flight, can down to passport control- only to have to wait in a 30 minute line- and won't you know it the guy could care less about our marriage certificate- never mind the girls birth certificates, or the fact that we had a double blank page free in our passports, as was a very important point on the "travel to SA" website. Anyway we then dashed over to pick up our bags as we had to recheck them- with 50 minute to get our flight. We dashed up to the check in only to find it was the wrong one- we had to go to the BA desk. A porter was nice enough to grab our cart and lead us up 2 escalated (with the luggage cart mind you- there are no poles at the bottom of these escalators ). And then we were in another LONG line up- no we were going to miss our flight- wait looking up we saw that it was delayed- from 10:45 to 1:40pm. Whew- but not really as that puts us in Durban late and driving in the dark! We hung around the airport, eventually boarding at about 1:45 and finally taking off and landing in Durban at 3pm.
We had our luggage and car rental by 3:30 and we were on the N2 north, with heavy rain clouds overhead. The highways easy to drive, lots of tolls and crazy drivers, that was until it got dark. By then it was pouring with rain, the road has no reflectors or lights and there are people walking all along the side of the highway- oh and cars/tractors with no lights. Just when we though it couldn't get any worse our turn off of the main highway came up and hit Mtubatuba in the dark, rain and dying for a bathroom break. We saw a gas station and started to pull in only to be greeted by hoards and hoards of people, there were people everywhere and we were the only white people to be seen- we pulled around and found the road to St Lucia and drove onwards. This road was even worse- so dark, wet and so many people, goats, tractors on the road. Eventually we arrived in St Lucia- found Kwalucia and our host Alex was there to great us. We could not see a thing around us as it was pouring. But Alex oriented us and we settled into our rooms and to bed- it was a long 2 days of travel.
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