© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

Cecil John Rhodes dreamt of a railroad from Cape to Cairo, and we were following in his tracks. Other people to have walked the dusty streets were, Lord Randolph Churchill, Olive Schrienwe, and the Sultan of Zanzibar. We were hot and thirsty, thankfully the Lord Milner Hotel welcomed us with some drinks served in souvenir glasses, after that Richard and I headed to the museum. The museum was surprisingly interesting and full of things to look at, including a collection of old childrens toys, dolls, a rocking horse, and rather oddly there was a dentists chair complete with lots of gruesome looking tools. Riding on the top deck of the route master (London bus), was quite a laugh, and we were telling jokes and generally being silly, everyone was laughing, with us not at us, I think! Our jovial mood was due to the fact that we had been drinking constantly since we boarded the Blue Train and not exactly eating that much, well we had to get through it somehow! We boarded the train again, wavedd goodbye to Matjiesfontein, and headed on towards Pretoria. It was on this last part of the journey, whilst relaxing in the Club Car drinking lots more delicious port, that we got chatting to most of the other passengers, who by now were of the same opinion as us, and that is that the Blue Train was not the wonderful special experience we had all hope it would be. One lady that we were chatting to had travelled on the Orient Express years ago, and she said that she had been told that the Blue Train would equal that experience if not better it, so understandably she was very disappointed with the whole trip too. We did buy a souvenir of the trip from the boutique, which was basically a man selling Blue Train logo products from one of the suites. We bought a key ring, as we liked the one that held the key to our suite. However when we looked at our purchase later we noticed that it was not the same nice solid heavy metal key ring as the one for our suite, it was plastic and very poor quality. No problem we swapped it with the one for our suite ... Shhh, don't tell anyone! Looking back now, I am pleased that we travelled on the Blue Train, although not at the time, as we had both always wanted to, but it was such a let down and not something I would recommend or ever repeat doing.

PRETORIA

We were pleased to be in Pretoria, we got off of the Blue Train happy to be on firm ground. We had decided to stay at Hotel 224 on the corner of Leyds and Schoeman Street. As I tend to suffer quite badly from travel sickness, and after being on the train for so much time, we walked from the railway station to the hotel. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was a little further than we had thought it was, and by the time we arrived at the hotel we were hot and sticky and very thirsty. The hotel looked okay, in an inner city 70's tower block sort of way. We were greeted with a very warm welcome by the lady on reception. We checked in and went up to our room for a shower. Our room was small but nice and clean with everything we needed. The hotel has 224 en-suite rooms hence the name, and our room was almost at the top of the building. We had good views of the Union Buildings and of the local area. There was a restaurant at the hotel, and a bar The Olde Town Tavern, which also served food. After showering we went to quench our thirst in the bar, where we chatted to the friendly barman. Our sleep that night was not the best we had ever enjoyed due to some rather excited young people banging doors, screaming and generally causing chaos from about midnight until around 5am the next morning. The next day we walked in to town to have a look round. We headed straight to Church Square which is situated at the centre of Pretoria, it was pedestrianised so the perfect place to start exploring the city. Church Square has been an important place over the years for meetings and protests of various kinds. The square is surrounded by some of the most interesting and impressive buildings in South Africa. The old Raadsaal, parliament on the southwest corner was built in neo Renaissance style in 1891. Next door was the tourist information in the building which used to be the Netherlands Bank. Apparently these buildings were going to be demolished in the 70's, but 10,000 people gathered in the square to protest against it and after five years of deliberation the decision was reversed and the buildings saved. The Stamp Museum (Mon-Fri 7:30am-4pm, free admission), displays over half a million stamps, one of the rarest being a Cape Triangle of 1853. The building of the Palace of Justice commenced in 1897 and half way through was used as a hospital for the British troops during the second Anglo Boer War. Unfortunately the weather on the day we were there was very damp and dull making many of the buildings look rather austere and ugly. There are lots of different districts in Pretoria, Arcadia which is where Hotel 224 is situated, and is home to the famous Union Buildings, and the Zoological Gardens to the north are worth a visit. Most of the districts in Pretoria are worth a stroll round, Hatfield is where the students from the nearby Pretoria University hang, out and it is also home to Pretoria's diplomats who reside in suitably flash houses. Sunnyside was a very pleasant district for a walk along its streets which had a really friendly feel about them. Waterkloof is where most of the expensive accommodation was, and New Mucleneuk which was one of Pretoria's newest suburbs also had a variety of hotels and Bed and Breakfast places. We spent quite a lot of time in Pretoria, not in one stretch but on various comings and going to other places, it made an excellent base for us. The shopping in Pretoria was very good, Brooklyn and Menlo Park are the best known suburbs in Pretoria, and we spent a couple of days there in the large shopping centres. We were staying at a different hotel by now, Best Western Pretoria Hotel, 230 Hamilton Street, corner Church Street, Arcadia. This hotel suited us much better than Hotel 224 which we liked a lot but it was just too noisy, although the bar and bar food was good. The Best Western had 124 en-suite rooms all with TV, M-Net access, and everything else we could possibly need or want, and 24 hour room service. Apparently they have safe undercover parking too. The bar there was also nice and friendly and the restaurant food was good. Right next door was a McDonalds ~ Yuk, but handy in emergencies! We usually ate out whilst staying there as there were so many good quality and good value restaurants in the local area. We really liked Pretoria which is probably why we spent so much time there, it felt like a much larger city. Pretoria was the scientific and technological capital of South Africa, and home to the most highly developed technology and research centre in Africa. There were also four universities and several scientific centres based there. Often called the Jacaranda city due to the beautiful blanket of mauve the Jacaranda trees throw over the ground, Pretoria was culturally diverse and we always felt completely at home there. There was so much to do from shopping, visiting museums, art galleries and enjoying local cuisine in the many restaurants. Apparently Pretoria has over 100 parks including bird sanctuaries and nature reserves so there was always somewhere to relax and watch the world go by. We got our fill of historical architecture, ate out a lot, and shopped until we dropped at probably all of the shops Pretoria had to offer. The main shopping area in the city centre were De Bruyn Park, Sanlan Centre, and the Standard Bank Centre. The larger shopping centres were the Arcadia Centre, Jacaranda Centre, Menlyn Park, Sunny Park, Centurion City and Wonderpark. There was a good selection of shops that you would get in most westernized cities along with African crafts. Toward the end of our time in South Africa we went to the cinema a few times, mainly to waste time, and on one occasion outside the shopping centre several traders had set up market stalls selling traditional African handicrafts such as rugs, woodwork, ceramics etc. We had taken a taxi there and unfortunately left most of our cash back at the hotel, so we couldn't purchase as much as we would have liked. We did manage to buy two beautiful carved wooden masks though so we were happy. In fact one of the masks was not locally made, it was from Nigeria but as we didn't plan on visiting there we thought we would buy it anyway as it was so striking. After staying in Pretoria for a while we wanted to visit Bloemfontein, this meant a journey on a Translux Bus for us.

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