Thread: My Trip To South Africa...

G'day

I have attached a 5 page report for any one that wants to read it. I will also chuck up 20 or so photo's for anyone interested (if you would like to see more and have a myspace account, PM me and I will add you and you can see them there.)


There was two boys teams - blue (1's) and yellow (2's) and a girls team. there was also about 40 supporters, coaches and management. the group was about 90 people.


Anyway, we left Sydney on July 4 and arrived in Johannesburg later that day (Aus is 8 hours ahead of SA). For the next couple of days we did the whole tourist thing in Pretoria and the Pilanesburg national park area.
We went on two big game drives, went to a lion park where we got to pat the lion cubs, went to Sun City which is a massive casino and a pretty cool water park, took a tour of Pretoria, experienced some local cultures, had a night with some Zulu's.

We then had 3 days at the High Performance Centre (similar to the AIS). they focussed on our running techniques. I actually learnt a fair bit there. After all that stuff, we took off on a plane to Cape Town.

CT is one hell of a cool place IMO, I definitely want to go back. on the first arvo there, we went up to Table Mountain which is right on the coast and in 1060m above sea level. Awesome views from up there!!! We trained in the morning for the next few days. We went to V&A waterfront (awesome shopping complex) and Century City-Canal Walk (a better shopping complex) quite a few times over the nine day we were there.

We went to a informal and formal settlement which was a real eye opener about how some people live in SA. As a group we donated 2600 rand (approx 350 AUD). We also did Robben island, seal island, hout bay, cape point, cape of good hope and all that other stuff.

We played about 10 or 11 games including practice games. We ended up runners up after loosing the final in extra time against Pretoria Boys High. the standard of hockey was great and the games were always hard and fast till the last minute (even when a team was down by 5!!!)...

We left CT for Joburg then Joburg for Sydney. We left CT on 21st and got to sydney on the 22nd at around 4pm or so.

It was an awesome trip that i will definately try to do again. i can go back next year and i am eligble for 2010 but it wont be on cos of the soccer world cup. anyway, i need to save up around 6K before next may (minus any sponsorship/donations i can get a hold of) if i am to go back (i hope so).

cheers