South Africa bound

If flights are on time, at the moment of this posting my flight to Johannesburg should be taking off from Sydney Airport. This will be my first visit to the African continent.

At Johannesburg I transfer to a flight to Cape Town. Brief visits to Botswana, Zambia and Namibia will follow over the next fifteen days.

Photos will be posted during this short holiday subject to internet connections.

To my surprise they all said no!

To my surprise they all said 'no'.

The current marriage equality survey has huge swathes of the country thinking about 'yes' or 'no'. I'm firmly in the 'yes' camp for fairly obvious reasons and to my relief most people I know appear to be of like mind. That is to be expected, I suppose.

So who surprised me by saying 'no'? Well, it was nothing to with marriage equality. I'm about to depart for a holiday in South Africa and neighbouring countries. In preparation for the trip I visited my usual foreign exchange outlet to purchase some South African Rand. I wasn't expecting any problem. After all, the Eastern suburbs of Sydney has a very large South African expat community.

To my surprise the outlet said it doesn't sell the Rand. I tried a nearby outlet and they were the same. 'No' we don't sell Rand. A third and fourth outlet were the same. It took the fifth outlet to find one who could sell me some Rand. Even they do not usually sell Rand, the cashier told me, but a customer had ordered some Rand from them but then cancelled the order. Basically they were keen to offload their holding on me. 'Would I take it all?' the cashier enquired. She offered various inducements but I simply did not need that amount.

So, it is a bit like marriage equality. In the currency world, love is love but there is nothing so unloved as the unloved.

That sinking feeling

Two weeks tomorrow I will be in Cape Town, South Africa and on the eve of visiting Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades.

I woke this morning to the news that 68 people have been rescued overnight from a sinking ferry whilst en route to the Island.

(National Sea Rescue Institute photo)

Could be an interesting trip!