Gap Year Experiences

Lions Tour Diary - Cape Town to Durban Group (Days 1-4)

Friday 19 June 2009

Day 1:

After months of admin and irrelevant office procrastinated emails the dream finally became a reality when flight BA 613604 touched down into a damp Cape Town at circa 7:00am. Sixteen rather dishevelled young men traipsed into South Africa with the ‘Living with the Lions’ (video documenting that famous 1997 tour) ringing in their ears and for Messrs Wright, Coles, Groome, Cook, and Kilpatrick a creased pair of salmon chinos to boot.

Our hosts for 16 days Johnny, Vince, Doug, and Pippa picked us up onto the rather snazzy branded ‘Pepper Buses’ – our second home – and immediately took us straight up to the rather appropriately hill dubbed ‘Lions Hill’ for an early morning welcome speech/chilli shot all part of the acclimatisation process for this bunch of finely tuned gladiators. After checking into the African Travel Centre, which overlooked a dismally foggy Table Mountain, it was time to pick up our ‘Tour’ Hoodies from Brad at the rather hip urban ‘street’ store ‘Finger’. After assuring Ben Coles that ‘Man-Crushes’ were acceptable but that Brad was hopelessly out of his league it was onto bruncheon and lagers ahead of the 3pm KO at Newlands, where the Lions were fronting up against Western Province.

Reaching the ground a couple of us managed to shelter the showers and head in for some pre-game halfs and a sneaky photo opportunity with Lions legend of yesteryear Jason Robinson! The game was a fairly turgid affair with the conditions not exactly conducive for free flowing rugby but a healthy dose of singing cleared our pipes and more importnaly the Lions got the necessary ‘W’ to remain unbeaten in 09. A couple of rounds of Jaeger Bombs – a drink hugely advocated by Macca – were duely dispatched in the Springbok Bar and it was onto Barristers for a quality feed at for supper . Steak/beer/wine/Jaeger/singsong again appeared to be the order of the day and a gruelling pace was set for the rest of the evening. With collars and school shoes at the ready club ‘91’ was hit, a new establishment to the Mother City oozing chic cool with its white leather interior, curvy blondes, and the vodka, champagne overflowing it was the perfect day to a incredible first day on tour. As were to learn the beauty of a Lions tour is that players and former pros are likely to be out partying themselves immersing themselves amongst the jubilant red army. Ed Groome went walkabout from the group but ended up bantering with a Celtic contingent that included Hook, D’Arcy, Phillips, Jones, whilst some of the other gang bumped into a highly lubricated Will Greenwood in another club Tiger Tiger - a cracking student cheesefest…

Day 2

No rest for the wicked as Princey (Mule) and Vince (Chinchilla) woke us early and drove us down to Kalk Bay for some brunch and some Bloody Marys to revitalise an already floundering party. Nigel ‘Stumpy’ Cartwright had the misfortune to announce that it was his birthday with him receiving various mini-cakes/shots of some quite frankly rancid chilli flavoured vodka throughout the day. Chris ‘Browneye’ Brown turned a few heads in the Brass Bell restuarant as the first victim of Dick of the Day – his prize a audible buffalo/donkey thong! Our next spot was Cape Point the most south-westerly point in Africa, which frankly took the boy’s breath away with some outrageous views – so much so that we saw one chap get down on one knee to propose. Next on the ‘to do’ list was a vineyard at Grot Constantia to peruse the local Semillong and Shiraz before heading down the beach at Llandudno to stretch our legs with some Touch Rugby. Anyone who has been to a ‘Sunday Sesh’ at Caprice in Camp’s Bay will tell you what a purler it is as a venue as this chilled cocktail beach bar hangout transforms itself into another one of the Mother City’s best loved fiestas. It also provided the perfect platform for the always immaculately brylcreamed Ben Puddle to provide an intensive example of how to shark innocent ladies in a bar with absolute no shame and seemingly no remorse, a marker had been sent out to SA’s female species. The piece de résistance for me was looking round at my old and new found mates on Tour, with a glass of bubbly in one hand with platters of steak and prawns in the other- another memorable Pepper evening!

Day 3

Bit of a reality check on Day 3 as the party hats had to be put away with a long drive ahead to Plettenberg Bay to eat into. The sensational scenery and banging Ipods certainly numbed the pain of being cooped up in a bus as we passed the rolling mountains along the Garden Route passing the likes of Knysna, a fishing town with a stunning lagoon. After checking in to Albergo we hit the beach to catch the last of the days sun before tucking into some fish at the Lookout Deck. The battled hardened amongst the group were keen to make it a hat-trick of nights out, citing the valid point that often the most memorable times on tour stem from random little towns like Plet. Needless to say ‘Flashbacks’ were rammed with other Lions fans keen for a singsong. For the others some needed shut eye was had, with a monster day ahead of us!

Day 4

The day a lot of the boys had been dreading. It was time to face up to our fears an tackle the biggest bungy jump in the world. The Bloukrans Bridge played host a 216 drop that has to be seen to be believed. Draw dropping stuff. So in perhaps true British style we decided to use humour as a mechanism to tackle this pant-wetter, as the majority of the group performed the jump dressed in drag, much to the amusement of the Face Adrenalin staff. With each member of the party jumping off a bridge with the rest of the group bellowing ‘LIONS, LIONS,LIONS’ this was stirring stuff indeed. Onto Port Elizabeth we went with a 15:00 kick off time to meet for the Lions v Southern Kings game. On arrival to Hippo Hostel there was time for the costume changes of all costume changes. With the likes of Batman, Bannanman, Flash Gordon, A Parrot, Buzz Lightyear, Friar Tuck,Park Ranger and a Golden Gimp Suit in our ranks it would be fair to say the 35,000 strong crowd at the brand new Nelson Mandela stadium weren’t prepared!

Until next time,

Robin Heymann