Chandler's Overseas

Last week we had a fleeting visit back to Melbourne for five days for Tim & Sarah's wedding. We crammed in as much as we could into the five days and loved every minute of it. Fatigue and jet lag turned into the new 'normal' and certainly didn't slow us down. We had a great time at the wedding. It was a lovely setting in Tim & Sarah's backyard and Maz did a wonderful job (again) with decorations and flowers. Who would have thought it would be possible to have a golf & touch of pink theme and still make it look classy! It seemed like a novelty to be able to walk the streets of Melbourne at night without hesitation, and we enjoyed visiting all of the shopping strips lining the roads of High Street, Chapel Street and Glenferrie Road. No surprise that Jen thrived on the shopping . Ahh ... to have so much choice and not get colour blinded when entering the stores from the hideous coloured patterns. Oh , and the coffee.... so nice to be able to get a good ...

FYI- Load shedding has not occurred in residential areas over the last couple weeks. It appears the government has resolved the issue by limiting the power supply to mines & industrial customers. Not so good for the economy in South Africa but cost of living is getting cheaper by the day!

We still get asked questions about life in Lonehill (and Johannesburg). Therefore we thought it best to do a blog entry not only showing security measures but the typical sights of Lonehill. Below are the photo's we took this afternoon as we drove through our suburb. The entrance to our cluster (complex), Pineslopes Park Estate. Nearly all clusters have similar entraces with remote controlled enty & exit gates and manned 24/7 by a security guard (they have pepper spray only). One of the security guards at our complex, James. Incredibly friendly & always has a smile. Lonehill Residents Association employs a security agency who randomly patrol the streets. The security guards man and observe major intersections or corners. They also have vans which patrol the suburb. The mock tuscan architecture that is being used for 95% of new residential construction. Always street vendors. This time someone selling the weekend newspaper at a fourways stop. The Lonehill shops- quite up...

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon- what better than a hit of golf. This time we thought we should experience our local driving range instead of the over-the-top World of Golf (refer to earlier blog entry). The local driving range is so low key and relaxed... R30 (~AUD6) for a bucket of balls, friendly pro and pro shop, bar, bistro etc. Everyone collects their bucket of balls along with the mandatory 4 savanna's (beers) before finding a spare grass plot. Funniest thing was seeing how they collect the used golf balls from the fairway/paddock. 4 black men are sent into the fields every half hour wearing a motorbike helmet as only method of protection. Of course play doesn't stop... ouch!! Sadly, it was a very funny sight to see. OH&S clearly not an issue in South Africa. The golf ball collectors. "Phew... survived another day!"

On Friday afternoon we ventured down the N3 to Royal Natal NP in the Drakensberg Ranges. Royal Natal NP is the northern most part of the ranges and borders on Lesotho. The scenery in the area is stunning. The region is abounded with long dry grass, green rolling hills and impressive rock formations. The entire Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park is lined by basalt summits and buttresses. Loren and Lesley joined us for the weekend expedition. We woke to drizzle and low cloud cover on Saturday, but luckily the drizzle subsided to allow us to go hiking. We hiked to Cascade Falls, then continued on to Tiger Falls and finishing at Tendele (base of the Amphitheatre). The hike offered breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains and specifically of the Amphitheatre. The Amphitheatre in Royal Natal NP is an 8km wall of cliff and canyon and has an 850m high (2nd highest in the world) waterfall. The terrain and flora were equally impressive. Wild protea's have overtaken a lot of the mountainside ...