Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

We want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We have just been to a candlelight carol service in nearby Hluhluwe which was very special - however we took a while to adjust to celebrating Christmas having spent the day in 46 degree temperatures!

We keep having to remind ourselves that it's the 24th of December as we are so used to it being cold and dark back home - a stark contrast to what we are experiencing now.

HELP US REBUILD MADWALENI CHURCH

When setting up our blog we were aware that this could be a platform to highlight charities we encounter and share with those at home the needs of the people we meet, however I didn't expect to use this blog to ask for help.

But we now are. We need your help. Now. Please.

Durban - On the water

Having spent three weeks travelling over 1,700km from Cape Town to Durban we arrived to stay with my Uncle John (my Mum's brother), Auntie Carrol and my cousin Byron who live in Pinetown, a town about 20km inland from the main city of Durban. It was so nice to be able to fully unpack our bags and have a place to stay put for a while and of course it was lovely to be back with family again.

The first thing you should know is that my Uncle and Auntie are extremely fit and active so inevitably we were kept active and busy during our time with them. They are both experienced (and very good) canoeists. They are members of a club in Durban on the Umgeni River which flows into the sea a few kilometres north of the city. During our two weeks with them we went paddling three times which was a great way to keep fit, even if it did take a bit of getting used to. The club is home to an actual world champion canoeist, a guy named Hank McGregor, who regularly wins medals for South Africa, so we felt very out of our depth!!