PHAB SOUTH AFRICA - 25th SEPTEMBER - 5th OCTOBER 1996

I awoke from a surprisingly deep sleep at about 5 am on September 26th. I was on board a Jumbo 747 heading towards Johannesburg airport. About 2 hours before that I had crossed the equator for the first time in my life and I was totally oblivious to this fact. I was quite disappointed that I was not awake to witness this momentous occasion but at least in about 2 hour's time we would land at our destination and I would be relatively fresh for my first experience on the Southern hemisphere.

The remainder of this day (and there was quite a bit of it) was spent on the coach travelling from Johannesburg (which I shall now call Jo’burg because that makes it seem as though I am intimately acquainted with the city!) to our resort in Swadini called Aventura. This was a long drive (especially directly after a ten hour flight) but was broken by a lunch stop. To save time Steve came round the coach with a copy of the menu he had picked up on a recce to South Africa some months ago. Everyone placed their order and Steve recorded them on a large sheet of paper. We were about to encounter our first (and thankfully biggest) problem. The restaurant was closed. The travel agent had apparently booked a different `Pancake Den’ that was 2 hours drive away. To quote the rise and fall of Reginald Perrin: `Cockup on the catering front’.

So instead we contacted a local burger bar who, for the short notice given, coped extremely well with the party of 37 (including 14 wheelchair users). We all had burger and chips washed down with tea, coffee or coke. Our first South African meal was a success after all.

We arrived at Swadini at about 5 p.m. We found our chalets, freshened up and made our way to the restaurant for dinner. South Africa is slightly less densely populated than England and so it’s resorts use up a touch more room than would be the case here. The walk from our chalet (no 52.) to the restaurant must have been half a mile. It didn’t bother me much being a wheelchair user with pusher but I did sympathise with the pushers and `walking wounded’ (as they became known) who must have been rather exhausted after each trek.

FRIDAY 27th SEPTEMBER

Peter Gooch read out the itinerary for the first `real’ day of our trip at breakfast. Breakfast was provided by the manageress of the resort (Yvonne) and some of her staff outside and at the back of one of the chalets (No 50). `This is what is on the agenda today. Friday.’ he said. `Friday!’ exclaimed Graham Gorrell. `What happened to Thursday?’ he continued. He was quite right; Due to all the travel on Thursday the whole day just seemed like an extension of Wednesday. However, Friday it was and the first sightseeing day of our holiday was about to begin.

The coach left for Kruger National Park at 11 O’clock. The coaches were not accessible for wheelchairs and so the wheelchair users were either carried onto the bus or chose to clamber up the steps grabbing whatever rails were available. I have to say a big `Thankyou’ here to Julian, Phil and Paul not only on behalf of all the wheelchair users but on behalf of the more `chronologically challenged’ members of the party who I’m sure would have had a few more aching limbs had they not been around. You were brilliant on the whole holiday lads and your efforts were very much appreciated not least by myself.

Our first sighting was of some impala which were gathered in a group of around 20 about ten metres to the left of the coach. I was constantly amazed that all the animals seemed to totally ignore the fact that cars and coaches were intruding on their otherwise totally natural environment. Our Tour Guide (Eddie) explained that over the many years that vehicles had been passing through the park, the animals had become completely accustomed to them and experience has told them that no vehicle represents a threat of any kind so they are accepted as part of everyday life. I also expected the roads to be dirt tracks but again Eddie explained that the tarmac cuts down on maintenance costs, noise and dust which is why they are used.

We had a pleasant lunch in one of the many rest camps in Kruger Park and many of us visited the souvenir shop where they had a good selection of Safari memorabilia including hats, pictures, postcards and wooden carved animals. The coach left Kruger Park at 5.30 and dinner was served back at Swadini at 8.00.

SATURDAY 28th SEPTEMBER.

This was to be the most pleasant and relaxing day of the holiday. Breakfast was again served at the back of Chalet 50 and shortly afterwards our coach left for a two hour tour in the Drakensberg mountains. This tour was only optional and the majority of the party chose to stay and sample the delights of the Aventura resort. Aventura Swadini stretches along the banks of the Blyde River and is picturesquely set amongst the towering cliffs of Krugerkop. The whole area is nature reserve and as well as the 78 luxury chalets there is also a shop, bottle store, cafeteria, a la carte restaurant, heated and cold swimming pools, tennis courts and a mini golf course. I spent the whole morning just lounging around the pools taking in the warmth of the sun, sipping drinks and writing postcards.

The party was slightly more adventurous in the afternoon however. We split into two equal groups and each group in turn set off for a boat cruise on Blyde River Canyon Dam. I was in the first group which left, after a very hastily eaten fish & chips meal (my own fault for getting too close to the pool wasn’t it Sarah?), at one o’clock. The coach took us to the end of a dirt track and then a pickup truck escorted us down to the Dam. The iron bridge which served as the only means of getting from the land into the boat was too narrow for wheelchairs and so it was quite a challenge to get everyone from the pickup to the boat and again thanks must go to all those who helped with the lifting.

The cruise itself was very pleasant. The engines started us off and as we hit the middle of the Dam they stopped. Absolute silence ensued and there were puzzled looks on all our faces. The helmsman quickly broke the silence and said `The lifejackets are at the front’ After a few seconds we all realised what had happened. The engines had been switched off so that we could hear the commentary. The water was perfectly still and the magnificent mountainous surroundings provided a beautiful setting. We saw hippo’s in the water and baboons in the trees and the whole afternoon was very enjoyable.

The evening meal was a Bar-B-Que by the chalets. The itinerary stated 8 O’clock but the second group didn’t return to Swadini until about 7.00 so it was always going to be a bit late. In the end we began eating at around 9.30. It was very dark round the chalet and it was difficult to see what one was eating. It is perhaps a bit unfair to say that it all tasted the same anyway; let’s just say the dessert which was some kind of bread and butter pudding with custard was lovely.

SUNDAY 29th SEPTEMBER

I set my alarm for 4.30 on this morning. The coach was to leave Swadini for Kruger Park at 6.00 which meant being at the coach at 5.30 to give time to load. The idea of leaving early was to get to the park early so that we could get a good look at the animals before the heat of the day arrived. We were rewarded early on with a very good sighting of two hyenas. They were both standing about two metres from the side of the road and so were only about 4 meters away from the coach. I was amazed how big they were; the size of lions as opposed to the size of dogs like I thought. During the early morning we also saw three hippos by a pond. Eddie told us it was very rare to see them out of the water.

I thought Eddie was a very good Tour Guide indeed. He was very knowledgeable, very informative and he was also very understanding and patient in dealing with a large party of disabled people for the first time. One of his habits was to `pinpoint’ his animal sightings by referring them to a location as on a clock face. For example `Some elephants at 3 O’clock’ meant that if we looked out of the right hand side of the coach we would see some elephants. Martin soon caught on to this and all subsequent animal sightings were greeted with times immediately following the animal type. Zebras - 9 O’clock, Giraffes - 5 O’clock, Gnus - 8 O’clock. Martin occasionally made the announcement before Eddie and try though I might I failed to see any animal before anyone else in the entire 2 days that we spent in the park.

We stopped twice on this day at different rest camps, once for breakfast at about 9 O’clock (and that doesn’t mean look out the left hand window of the coach) and again for lunch at about 2.00. Our lunch break was taken at the best Rest Camp in Kruger Park (according to Eddie) and we had a lovely meal (with waitresses), looked round another souvenir shop and even found a perfectly accessible, clean, specially adapted disabled toilet. I remember thinking that this was the first time I had been to toilet and been able to shut the door behind me since we had left Jo’burg airport.

We got back to Swadini in good time to prepare for our farewell dinner at the resort. Again the food was lovely and this evening it was washed down with a small glass of a green liquor prepared by the resort management. This I downed in one and it served as my first alcoholic drink for some while. I wish I could say I enjoyed it!

MONDAY 30th SEPTEMBER

Up early again for a day of travel, firstly by coach back to Jo’burg airport and then an internal flight to Cape Town where we would be spending the second half of our holiday. The coach journey was a pleasant and scenic one, the internal flight was not so. The coach stopped on route at a small village called Pilgrims Rest. We dined at Royal Hotel which was in the middle of the village. There were clothes shops, souvenir shops and jewellery shops along the main high street and there were market stalls selling painted masks, necklaces and animals of all shapes and sizes.

The flight was due to leave Jo’burg airport at 6.50 but the airline had given no consideration to the special needs of our party and so at 7.30 we were all still sat on the plane listening to the Captain apologising for the delay.

I would estimate that our flight in a south-westerly direction to Cape Town was one of the quickest there has ever been. The pilot announced before take off that he would try and make up for lost time. He achieved that to a certain degree but we still landed about half an hour late. This experience aboard an SAA flight was not one to be remembered and I found it rather amusing when eating my meal to find the words `We’re getting better all the time’ plastered all over the salt & pepper sachets.

It was only about an hours trip in the coach (in a westerly direction) from Cape Town airport (called DF Malan) to the Centurian hotel which is located amid Sea Point’s vibrant bustle and only a stone’s throw away from the city itself. The hotel was 7 floors high and had a stunning view of the Atlantic Ocean out of all the north and west facing bedroom windows. Each room was beautifully appointed with its own lounge, kitchen, bathroom (a touch small for wheelchair users), telephone and colour television set. In Swadini we had been in rooms of four but this time we had a room between two of us. The room lists were circulated well before the trip and to my knowledge everything worked out fine. I shared with Peter, Graham and Grant in Swadini and Grant in the Centurian.

After a full day of travel I for one needed my bed. We were all given our room numbers and told that breakfast was any time between 7.30 & 10.30. The following morning was `at leisure’ so after our cases were bought up to the room by the hotel staff I had the best nights sleep of the holiday knowing there was no pressure to get up early.

TUESDAY 1ST OCTOBER.

At both Swadini and the Centurian hotel the bathrooms were not friendly for wheelchair users. At Swadini the shower was small and had a step up to it. Rather than risking possible injury to myself I decided to have strip washes instead of showers hoping that the facilities would be more friendly in the second half of our holiday.

Unfortunately at the Centurian hotel there were no showers at all in our bathroom and so being an independent (stubborn some people may think) disabled person I had a decision to make. In my own home I have things situated in such a way that I can do everything myself. When on holiday however things are not ideally positioned and so for the first time in my life I had to admit to myself that I would need help to maintain my personal hygiene. I was thus helped into the deep bath and soaked myself for quarter of an hour.

After lunch at the hotel it was off on the coach to Table Mountain. I think the day was described as a City Tour but Table Mountain took up all the time we had. It was worth every minute. A minibus/van took us up to the lower station which is 366 meters above sea level. The cable cars are perfectly accessible for wheelchairs and are designed to carry 25 `able bodied’ people. We managed to get 5 wheelchairs on and so the party split into three equal groups. The distance separating the upper and lower stations is covered in one span of cable measuring 1244 meters. The upper station is 1067 meters above sea level and it took our cable car (the last of the three) about 5 minutes to travel between the two stations at an approximate 4.5 m/sec.

Once at the top you are rewarded with the most breathtaking panoramas imaginable. If you look closely on a clear day you can even see the East coast of America. (Only Joking!) Seriously you can see the whole of cape town and Robben Island (where Nelson Mandella (allegedly) spent 21 of his 27 years in prison. There are viewing stations pointing in all directions, a restaurant, souvenir shop and even toilets including one for the disabled.

The Cableway was officially opened on the 4th of October 1929 and it is to the immense credit of the Table Mountain Cableway Company Limited that since it opened it has carried nearly 10 million passengers without serious mishap or failure. For me, Table Mountain was the highlight of the holiday and was an experience I will remember forever.

We returned to the hotel at about 6.00 in time for a quick freshen up before having Dinner at a Sea Food restaurant called Delmitches. Delmitches was only a short walk from the hotel across quite a busy high street. There was also a good picture shop on the High Street called Graffiti’s. Later that week Grant and I went along there and bought a painting of Table Mountain. (Painted from a road called Bloubergstrand - according to the hotel receptionist Dawn)

We had a 5 course meal at Delmitches. I tried some shark for the first time and was not overly keen. The majority of our party seemed to enjoy the meal but Sea Food is not my favourite culinary treat.

In one of the information packs we received before we departed was a leaflet about malaria. It was entitled `Got the travel bug?’ and underneath there was a picture of a mosquito. Then the words `Make sure you avoid this one’. Thankfully I did not hear of anyone in our party that was bitten by a mosquito. Malaria is a tropical disease caused by parasites which are carried by mosquitoes. When the mosquito bites a human, the malaria parasite, which lives in the mosquito’s saliva, is able to enter the bloodstream.

When developed Malaria produces very severe flu-like symptoms, fever, sweating, shivering and causes aching & dizziness.. It was very important that all our party protected themselves by taking the right steps. My doctor advised taking two different sorts of tablets; Paludrine (2 tablets a day) and Chloroquin (2 tablets on the same day each week). These had to be taken one week before departure, during the duration of our stay and for four weeks on return.

The reason I am mentioning this here is that for some reason I had chosen Tuesday as my Chloroquin day and chose to take them immediately after my meal at Delmitches. I would not take them at the same time if I could chose again. Unknown to me the Chloroquin tablets can make you feel suddenly very ill and so maybe I could not blame the shark after all.

WEDNESDAY 2ND OCTOBER.

Set aside for this day was a full days tour down to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. From the Centurion Hotel in Sea Point we travelled south on the coach to Cape Point. The drive was very scenic; coastline nearly all the way. We passed Clifton Bay, Hout Bay and entered into the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. Cape Point is at the southern tip of this nature reserve and is commonly known as where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Unfortunately time did not allow us all to get off the coach but our tour guide (Grant) informed us what was available in the way of souvenirs and he did a brilliant job in collecting the money from us and buying them from the shops and stalls.

We stopped on the way back at Black Merlin Restaurant. As we went in the restaurant I could see massive lobsters being carried on plates. It was primarily a fish restaurant but I was quite pleased when I saw steak on the menu. Although it took quite some time for the meal to arrive, when it did, it was quite pleasant and in my (not so valued) opinion on food it was one of the better meals of our stay. On the approach to the restaurant there were stalls and some of our party made the most of the opportunity to add to their collection of souvenirs.

A visit was planned on this day to see a group of Penguins. It seemed strange to me to be talking about Penguins in Africa but we were assured there would be some and if we had time (which we didn’t) then we would see them. The whole group were very disapointed to miss out on the penguin visit and it was agreed that we would try to fit this in on the next day.

We arrived back at the hotel in the early evening. The staff at the hotel had laid on a Bar-B-Que as our evening meal but unfortunately a gale had blown up outside and so instead of eating around the swimming pool as planned we had to eat in the restaurant. We had a choice of steak, chicken and sausages with a huge selection of salad. The evening was very relaxed and informal and a small group of us finished the evening off by watching a film of Bruce Lee which was on TV.

THURSDAY 3rd OCTOBER.

The coach left at around 9.30 on this morning on a tour of the Winelands. However before we diverted inland from the Peninsular we went to see the penguins. This proved to be a popular stop with the group. The penguins (I forget the actual breed) had originally come from the south pole. Many years ago a huge block of ice had broken away and floated all the way to the southern tip of Africa. A group of penguins had come across on it and as the ice progressed northwards and melted, the penguins obviously swam north instead of back south and found themselves in Africa. They have since acclimatised, bred and set up home here and I for one am glad they had no directional sense as it provided us with a spectacular view of birds that would otherwise only be seen in a zoo.

As we made our way down the rather hazardous stone steps to the beach I could distinctly hear Martin say “penguins - 9 O’clock” and sure enough poking its head through the bushes was a black, white and orange penguin. We had arrived just when many penguins were walking from the top of the bushy bank to the beach. As we all sat on the beach the penguins all crossed by us as though we weren’t there. They were not hesitant in any way and they quite confidently waddled between us all dodging wheelchairs, crutches and bemused onlookers. When they reached the sea they just dived in and swam off but keeping relatively near to the land. (No doubt being aware of their `Mark Thatcher-like’ directional qualities). I was so pleased we managed to fit this trip in.

After about an hour on the beach and with the time approaching midday we left for our tour. The Winelands is so named as it incorporates many of the wine growing areas of the Cape. The coach progressed along one of the wine routes and we stopped for lunch at a wine estate called Saxonbury. We sat at four large tables and were given a little background and historical information about the estate by one of the estate staff. We all tasted five different wines. We were provided with a `bucket’ in which to spit the wine after tasting it but most of the group chose to taste and immediately swallow. Not being a connoisseur of wines, all three whites and both red wines tasted the same to me but at least I was convinced that had I have been blind folded I could have still distinguished between the red and the white. I found the red more tasty myself but this was not an opinion shared by the majority of the group.

After the meal we set off back to our hotel at Sea Point to spend the rest of the afternoon (not that there was much) round the pool. At about 6.30 it was back in the coach again with a crate of Champagne for farewell drinks on Signal Hill. This was supposed to be at dusk so that we could see the sun set over Cape Town but we were about half an hour late. Even so it was an impressive sight and many photos were taken (That all would have come out like mine - totally black).

From there we headed for the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront where we had dinner at the Green Dolphin jazz restaurant which actually overlooked the water. Personally, I regarded this dinner as the best of the entire holiday. Our waiter recommended the ostrich cooked either rare or medium-rare. I took his advice and ordered it medium-rare. It was the first time I had had ostrich and it was gorgeous.

FRIDAY 4th OCTOBER.

A much needed late start for this, our last day in South Africa. Around 11 O’clock we said our goodbye’s to the hotel staff. I think some of us had got rather attached to Dawn and we presented her with a small present to express our gratitude for providing us with a cheerful, smiling (OK, I’ll say it - attractive) face throughout our four day stay.

Our destination before heading to the airport for our return flight was the Victoria and Albert Waterfront Shopping Centre. Located about half an hours drive east of Cape Town and on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean the shopping centre is situated in Victoria and Alfred basins, Table Bay Harbour. This is still a working harbour but has been developed into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the peninsula. It was originally built in 1860. Original buildings have been kept and renovated and new ones developed all in beautiful Victorian style. In the Harbour there are museums, boat and helicopter trips, walking tours, restaurants, pubs, a brewery, two shopping centres, hotels, theatres, cinemas, craft markets, live music and indoor golf as well as a soon-to-be-opened aquarium. With good security (we were told by out tour guide that we were in a `theft free area’) and ample parking this is a very popular venue for visitors.

We arrived there at around midday and got off the coach just as the heavens opened. This gave us our first sight of South African rain which, surprisingly enough is much the same as in England (sort of cold and wet). We gathered in the entrance to the shopping centre and had a group photo taken (or should I say photos as our guide must have taken a photo with at least 10 different cameras). We then split into groups of about half a dozen, were given money to buy ourselves food, and proceeded to spend all the left over Rands in one almighty shopping binge. I bought a Springboks rugby shirt (a must really as they are the current world champions), a couple of CD’s and a lot of other things that are too boring to mention.

While we were shopping Steve had gone with the coach to the airport with all our suitcases. In fact, from leaving our hotel to arriving in England the following morning I had not seen my suitcase once. I had every confidence in the organisation of the luggage carriage but even so, I was relieved when I saw it on the conveyor belt at Heathrow airport.

Having exhausted our supply of Rands we boarded the coach for the last time in the late afternoon and headed east and in-land to the airport. We had about an hour to kill before we started boarding the plane so most of us looked round the duty free shop. The plane stood on the tar mac outside waiting for us. It was a multi-coloured Jumbo 747 with safari animals painted all over it. Maybe this was South African Airways way of apologising for the delay on our internal flight. It seemed like a lot of effort to go to on Phabs behalf! Peter Gooch must have worked miracles when he went to discuss arrangements for this flight with the airline yesterday! Seriously - it was the same plane that had been used to take the South African Olympic team to Atlanta.

The organisation for this flight was extremely good. Our group were first on board and I was in my place and ready half an hour before I saw a passenger who was not with our group. A ten hour flight had us landing at a cold Heathrow airport at about 6.30 on the morning of Saturday 5th October. The whole holiday was a fantastic experience and is one that will never be forgotten by anyone on it I’m sure.

Matthew Law 10/11/96.