1000 days of Summer

Couchsurfer Thomas stayed with us 2 nights on his 1000 days of summer world tour... hitchhiking around the world skipping winter and only having fun in the sun... while being sponsored by MasterCard. What a life!

 

Cycling across Africa

Our Couchsurfing guest Rene from Switzerland arrived in Durban after crossing Syberia from Moscow to China on a bicycle and then making his way to Bali where he joined a yacht for a 3-month cruise to Reunion, Mauritius and Durban.

 

Rene's life is contained in 5 bags straddling his bicycle and he has been on the road for 427 days since leaving his home town. He leaves Durban today and is cycling to Lesotho and then Cape Town where he meets up with his sister for Christmas. After that he is aiming north to travel through Africa back to Europe. Sjoe!!!

 

Couchsurfers make it to Tanzania

Our Couchsurfing buddies Jebb and Daniele (left) and (centre) have made it to Tanzania. Setting off on motorbikes - Suzuki DRs - they travelled around Lesotho to Uppington, then through Namibia to Windhoek, and east through Botswana to Maun. Then on to Zambia and have arrived in Tanzania. They are seen in the photo with another Couchsurfer Alton (right) who also crashed with us.

Follow the trip of the bikers on their blog here - ZA to TZ

Couchsurfing again

Alton from North Carolina was in Durban during his summer/our winter vacation and met up with my kids for a night on the town. Most of our Couchsurfers take their lives in their hands using the mini-bus (cheaper) transport around South Africa.

Couchurfers visit

Always interesting to host travellers from around the world and last night Jedd from New Mexico arrived with his buddy Daniele from San Francisco intending to ride motorbikes from Durban to Tanzania. Quite a project but something Jedd has done before in South America.

My son Mark is back in Durban and we all met up at the guesthouse for a welcome braai.

Couchsurfers Jedd (left) and Daniele (back) join mad Dain, Llewellyn and I at the guesthouse for a traditional braai

My son Mark (left) and his mate Dain

Welcome to Durban Skies for Danish friends

Christoffer and Simon from Copenhagen fly our Sling ZDL

Great to be back in Durban and able to fly our plane again. January was hectic re-opening the office, then our January big bash party and last week of January driving to Cape Town then flying to Bulgaria for skiing. So good to be back and up in the skies again (in Red Rocket).

Today I started my first lesson converting my NPL licence to PPL at Virginia and then took our Danish Couchsurfing guests up in the air for a short flip. The weather was not lloking great and rain was predicted for the whole weekend, but it's been holding off, so I managed to get some air-time and took both Christoffer (who said he was afraid of heights) and Simon up for the first flip in a small plane. Exhilarating and they both did well, despite them having a considerable hang-over from the night before.

Welcome Couchsurfers

 It's great to be able to host Couchsurfers from across the world. Usually we take turns cooking the different national dishes - last night was Shay's turn (from Israel) and tonight Christoffer and Simon from Denmark will show us their stuff. Everyone pitched in to help though including my daughter Kate-Lynn. We had meatballs (Shay's mom's recipe) with lentil rice, a vegetable stew and hummus, with Fatoosh salad. Very yummy and we all ate too much. Welcome to Durban guys!!

Christoffer, Mayan, Llewellyn, Dave, Simon and Shay

First Couchsurfing guests

Meet Patrick and Clothilda from Germany - our first Couchsurfing guests since we joined the voluntary network of people who are prepared to share their homes. Patrick is working on a contract in Johannesburg and Clothilda flew out from Germany to tour South Africa with Patrick and take a break from the ships she sails in as Engineer.