Africa Day 1 Adelaide to Cape Town 6 July 2018

A 4:30am pick up, is way too early.  We both have this thing of checking the time every hour or so, so that we don’t sleep through the alarm.

3:48 and Debs alarm went off! I was awake Deb was sleeping, I think we will both be able to get a few zzzzzzx’s on the flight to Johannesburg.

We finished packing and tidying things up and were picked up by Vincent from Hughes Transport 4:30. It had been raining over night so Deb just had to do her civil duty and clear the road drain of leaves to let the water flow. It’s a Deb thing. 🙂

Vincent was charming in a very “British” sort of way, and had us safely at the airport by 4:45. We had checked in, gone through security and were wating outside the Qantas Club by 4:55, it doesnt open until 5am.

We weighed our luggage at the check-in counter, both check-in and carry-on, and were happy when it all weighed in  at 29.6kg, just under our 15kg each limit.

Our flight to Sydney got away at 5:55am, just ahead of schedule. We had a magnificent view of the  sunrise from the plane, the dawn of another holiday.

Landed at 8:05, I swear that flight is getting quicker, got the transfer bus, through immigration,  security and were settled into the Qantas lounge by 8:50. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11am.

A slight delay in the servicing of our plane had us boarding a bit before 11 and we took off at 11:45 (or more importantly, 3:45am Cape Town time). Our speed at liftoff, 🙂  , was about 285km/hr. It’s amazing what information some apps can give you.

Our flight path took us south, flying over Hobart, Tasmania and as far south as 59deg (just above Antarctica) and then back north into South Africa flying over Durbin.

After a few hours sleep on our 14hr flight, we arrived in Johannesburg around 5pm and were through immigration fairly quickly.  No customs to speak of once you get through immigration, there was an agricultural checkpoint but no one there was interested in anything.

We eventually found the BA lounge and had a 30 min relax before heading to our gate. We were 30 mins late boarding due to a lack of buses. Our flight was due to leave at 7pm, but our bus didnt get us to the plane until 7:05. We were shocked how many vehicles were driving around on the tarmac, cars, buses, vans and trucks everywhere and driving fast. We were delayed taking off due to having more bags than passengers checked in and then a queue for the runway.
Our flight got away at 7:50pm, some of the delays were apparently normal for a Friday evening.

Johannesburg appears to be a large, very spread out city set on vast plains, the lights go on for a very long way. I noticed on the way in that there seems to be a lot of gated communities.

Our flight to Cape Town took 1hr 40 mins, we made good time.

We wer picked up at the airport by Valentino, a very tall, charming guy and were in our merc for the 20 minute drive to our hotel in no time.

We are staying at The Cape Grace Hotel and our room overlooks the marina and Cable Mountain.

Today we have been in 6 different airport terminals for 3 flights.

Deb got 4hrs sleep on the flight over and I got 2, we were happy with that. Hopefully get a bit more tonight.