Voyage to The Dark Continent

Well, my darlings, I've packed my trunk and I'm going on an adventure. An adventure to Africa, to be exact, and I leave first thing in the morning.

I'm all packed and stashed among the hiking boots, the sturdy trousers and the odd swanky dress are the following:

One large can "Lion-Off"
Everyone needs supersize pussycat repellant. Unless, of course, one is visiting a let's-pat-the-pretty-cheetahs-park, in which case I'll skip the Lion-Off that day.

One barrel "Carjackergard"
So we can drive and drive and drive and still Avagoodweegend. Carjackers? No-no!

One copy The Heart of Darkness
Sorry, non-Conrad folk. How could I not?

One size-12 thong
For swatting all of the nasty, poisonous insects that abound in A-freee-ka. There are a bugger of a lot of them. I'll take photos of the bastards as I find them. Apparently there is something called a "piss moth" that causes unpleasant skin irritation. People used to think the piss-moth pissed on people, but apparently the little shit just sheds bits of extremely irritating wing fluff. Pfft. Of course.

One bottle of "Malaaaaria? Fuck you!"
(It has the same jingle as "Team America".) I got the 500ml roll-on.

One dassie whistle
Col dang, those little critters are cute! Here, dassie, dassie, dassie...

One uberfishystinky fake seal
For towing behind boats to attract 6m-long, jumping white pointer sharks. If I only see one cool thing in Saffieland, I want it to be that. Please, Ford, let me see a breaching shark!

One camera of the gods
Of course. Would I buy anything else? I have to post pics on my blog.

Himself has already been in South Africa for three weeks. In fact, this is his fifth trip. Finally, it's my turn to go too. I fly into Johannesburg tomorrow and then we drive to Makhado, a town near the Zimbabwe border that used to be known as Louis Trichardt. That's where Bloke has been earning a crust. I get to be useless for a week in a place with both a pool table and a pool, while he continues to test cool electronicky stuff. Then we hit the road.

When we hit the road, we'll cross the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees and we'll strike out for Botswana and the Okavango Delta with its truckloads of birds. En route, there will be a side trip to Kruger National Park and a flying visit into Zimbabwe to float up the Zambezi River to see Victoria Falls.

Last time Bloke visited South Africa, he rang me from a riverboat. "I'm on the Zambezi," he said. "I can see the spray from Victoria Falls and, oh, look! There's a hippopotamus right next to the boat!" Luckily, I was well and truly squiffy at the time and Petstarr and KFlip had come to keep me company, or there would have been a deal of trouble.

After Botswana and Zimbabwe, we fly to Cape Town, home of (allegedly) marvellous wines, jumping sharkses and Robern Island, the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years.

I'll have internet access for at least the first week, but after that, who knows? But on the off-chance that anyone gives a rat's tail, I'll post as often as I can, with photos.

I'm excited, but you wouldn' t believe how guilty I feel.

And why does the hack feel guilty? Has she not finished all of her work before fleeing the country? No, she finished the last story this morning and even put in her invoices.

Is it because she had to put Mr Furpants into Le Hotel du Mog? Ooh yeah, got it in one.

Mr Furpants is a bloody travel agent for guilt trips. I never thought I'd find someone who was better at that shit than my mother-in-law, but there you go. You keep on learnin'.

Usually, when we go away, someone kittysits. Mr F is an Outside Cat. He roams free all day, sleeping in the shrubbery, chasing mouses and then coming inside in the evening.

You have never seen anything like The Looks that cat gave me from his cell. And it was a cell. It looked more like Guantanamo Puss than Le Hotel du Mog. Mr F wouldn't come out of his kitty carrier and I had to turn it upside down. He fell out. And then he shrank into one concrete corner and I felt like the biggest heel in the world.

When I left, he was sitting on one of the sleeping shelves, on some cushions and crocheted rugs, giving me looks that could have stripped paint with their utter misery and fear.

I'm a lousy cat parent. Buggerit.