Well I am now back home in Australia after a simply incredible month. It's great to be home after so long away, but soon the reality of work will kick in! And as always, I'd go back tomorrow, and I'm already thinking about 'the next time'....
Unfortunately our final Qantas flight home from Sydney to Adelaide was delayed 1.5 hours with another electrical fault. That makes 100% delays for all four Qantas flights on this trip
but happily none from the three SAA flights. Anyhow, here's a quick recap of the last few days of our holiday!!
DAYS 21-25, SUN CITY, South Africa
We deliberately planned this as the finale to our holiday so that we could spend the last few days relaxing after having quite a busy schedule earlier in the trip. Hence, the plan here was to take things pretty easy! We stayed at the Sun Vacation Club, as it was the only one of the four hotels on the resort that had two-bedroom family apartments, which meant it was more affordable than any of the others. Our room was very nice and well appointed, having been renovated in the past two years. Our bed, however nearly crippled me on the first night and the next day I asked to have it changed, it was actually found to be a broken base. (Someone had much more fun there than I haha
) The replacement came swiftly and was great.
The girls did a little swimming in the Valley of Waves and did the rope course etc there. The girls all had their nails done and the wife a massage, while I played a round of golf at the fantastic but very challenging Garry Player-designed Lost City course. Complete with crocodiles in the water hazards! A truly beautiful course and I enjoyed the company of two South African fellas, thanks again to Gerald and Garry. On the last day we went for a family quad-bike safari, this was a lot of fun and a real hit with the kids. We capped that off by doing the Zip-2000 zip-line, the longest and fastest zip-line in the world at 2km long, 285m high, and reaching 120kph.... I thought I'd be fine till I got to the top and looked down. But I couldn't chicken out as my kids went first! Holy shit, this was an amazing experience and if you go to Sun City, you've gotta give it a crack!!
Sun City is a fantastic place, zero expense has been spared in creating a family holiday paradise. Four luxury hotels, casino, numerous pools, restaurants, movie theaters, shopping, heaps of activities, all on the one site with a shuttle bus to get you around as you please. There's every chance we'll be back one day. It's expensive to stay at (for us anyhow) but well worth it for a few days of fun and relaxation! By all reports though, it's extremely hectic in the summer holiday months December-January, as they also allow day visitors onsite. But during hunting season it's great!
Unfortunately our month had to come to an end, and a couple of long days of travel later we are home. It's going to take at least two years to save up for the next trip, wherever that may be. But there's one thing for sure - Africa, we'll be back! Thanks to everyone for the kind comments and for reading or following this long thread. I hope anyone contemplating a similar trip might get some benefit from it. My family loved Africa, and I hope they'll remember and talk about it for decades to come. Thanks again to KMG Safaris for kicking it off in perfect style!
Regards
Tim Blackwell
