|
|
LATEST:Travel picture of the week - Hout Bay in Cape Town |
Have a look at our favourite travel experiences by picking from the list below:
|
|
LATEST:Travel picture of the week - Hout Bay in Cape Town |
Updates and info from on the ground during our 11 week and 5 week Experiences in South Africa
Red Bull recently ran a competition to find the best action and adventure sports images from around the world. We reckon they uncovered some pretty special gems in categories ranging from 'energy' to 'wings' and 'experimental' to 'spirit'!
Have a quick look to see which one was voted the overall winner, and skim through the other 22,000 or so contenders, if you've got a lot of time on your hands!
The art of the barbeque. While to some of us, throwing a few bangers on an open flame and leaving them to burn to a charcoal crisp sounds like a good time on a rare sunny weekend in blighty, the same could not be said of the dedicated man at work image of a South African male and his tongs around a braai.
A scary amount of pride and territorial dominance goes into the process that is the braai but it is a sight to behold and while the below dramatisation of a group of mates' efforts to stereotype this commonly seen scene is amusing, it doesn't alter the fact that on arriving in SA and being immediately invited to share in this tasty ritual is not only a great quality of the guys, it's also an invitation you cannot and absolutely should not pass on.
Have a look here for some entertaining anecdotes about all things braai
Here's the latest music video by production company The African Attachment. It's for Against All Odds, the latest single by top South African band aKING. The African Attachment is an independent creative house based in Cape Town and as well as work on feature films and music videos like this one below they also run our Film and Photography internship programme. This seven week internship includes theory on camera and video camera techniques, training in production and editing coupled with continuous practical hands-on work. This is all then put into practice as each student works on a final project which is created and produced from start to finish with the guidance of the guys at The African Attachment, see here for more detail on the Film and Photography internship.
So that all-too familiar feeling of pain, anger and disappointment was with us again last Sunday – the end of England’s World Cup dreams, for another four years at least, dashed this time by our old foe that is the German Football Team. Not since Italia ‘90 have Germany been the ones to do the damage at a World Cup, they went on to win the tournament that year and who’s to say they won’t do it here in South Africa with their new-look-ish young team?
Four years ago it was Gelsenkirchen and Portugal, this time around, Bloemfontein and Germany. Last time Sven took us to the quarters, Fabio came unstuck at the second round stage. The inquest has already begun, the questions are being asked will continue for some time I’d imagine. Does the Premier League need a winter break? What was wrong with Wayne Rooney? Should Fabio have broken from his rigid 4-4-2 system? And is he the right man to take the team through to 2012? The performances were lacklustre to say the least, and the team just could not reproduce the form seen during the qualifying campaign. After scraping the group stage, we were convincingly outplayed by a better team who stuck effectively to their clear game plan and it is the Germans who will face Argentina in Cape Town this weekend.
Speaking of Cape Town, the tournament is very much still alive and kicking down here. The city continues to embrace its visitors, the locals are packing out the stadium for every game and picking a team and not holding back! I was lucky enough to watch last night’s game in what is a truly awesome stadium, surrounded by crazy Spaniards and mental Portuguese, I kept the faith and wore the England shirt. Spain are clearly a force to be reckoned with as they gave Ronaldo and co absolutely nothing last night, if Del Bosque would only start with Llorente and use Torres for the last twenty, they could go all the way!
Despite England being back home already, there are massive games coming up and it only gets better from here on in. So Chin Up-Son, enjoy the footie and let’s start building for 2014, see you in Brazil!
Doug
I am writing this in a French restaurant in the middle of the South African Karoo. I have a large hangover after England qualified for the second round of the 2010 World Cup yesterday! This happened thanks to our 1-0 victory over Slovenia – no great feat in itself but after seeing France take an early flight home when Bafana smashed them 2-1(!), it was greatly received.
12 hours soaking up the atmosphere in PE for England’s final group game made this a day to remember – Fabio’s Barmy Army (that’s us by the way) warmed up alongside a lot of other fans, at the beachside bar with a game of kick-ups, which, we found out later, featured on repeat on Sky Sports News! Poor old Slovenia were sent home after Landon Donovan’s late strike against the Algerians but we still enjoyed their chants, even though we had no idea what they were saying it sounded a lot like “I’ve just found an easter egg” – bizarre. Our own post-match songs were dominated by German references and the massive football rivalry and history between us and them, as it’s them who we are stuck with in the next round, after we scraped through the group in second place. We celebrated at Barney’s Tavern, a bar packed with most vociferous and similarly relieved and happy England fans, before a ride home with a wacky taxi driver capped off a fantastic few days.
The journey from Cape Town to PE also needs mentioning. Our half-way stop was the beachside town of Plettenberg Bay where we stayed two nights in a wicked apartment overlooking the sea and the mountains as the backdrop – not a bad sight to wake up to at all. Despite the short stay, Plett had many highlights, including seeing Fatboy Slim live in an underground warehouse ( ), but for me, what I will remember forever is two exhilarating experiences; one at the world’s highest bungy jump and one at Plett Skydive. I did the bungy first and then Mark brought a massive cheer from the crowd watching on the viewing platform by unfurling a St George’s Cross flag while suspended upside down in the gorge! The skydive though, beat even the bungy...it was just awesome, words cannot really describe the feeling – you just have to do it. The best I can do is to say it’s the closest feeling you can get to a late Emile Heskey goal against Germany, or seeing penguins (on a beach obviously).
Fingers crossed for Sunday...
Chris