Day 79 - Paternoster

Hello and Happy New Year. Under normal circumstances, the 2nd of January might be a time to start implementing those New Year's Resolutions: a quick trip to the gym, a shot of Aloe Vera juice with your low-GI cereal, sign up for a life-drawing course, put your Tesla coil on eBay. Over here it's just another excuse to booze booze booze! It was a Wednesday after all...

So we troupe to to Paternoster, a little fishing village just a little further up the wild West coast. Apparently the Afrikaans spoken here has the equivalant of a West Country burr, and the local fisherman are famed for their crayfish and drunkenness.

Of course there is another gorgeous bit of coastline to gawp at.

We stop for lunch, about 15 of us, at the Paternoster hotel, and eat various indigenous fish biltong, bokkum (an extreme sardine salt-lick), rollmops, squid steak, prawns and so on. Then, with glass in hand, crank up the 4x4's for a crazy spin through a dune road to the next watering hole at Stompneusbaai.


- Crazy angles on the dune road behind Paternoster beach


- Lucy discovers all the glass holders in the back of Grant's Land Rover

At the next jolly place, the St Helena Hotel, Anton, father of Lucy's new best friend, the imp-like Jakobus, makes a mysterious pact with yours truly: "if you shave off your mustache, I'll shave off mine". This man has had his face-fur for twenty-two years! Marlene's brother Neil does the honours with his Philishave. That's what Captain Morgan will do to you...


- No 'tache, must dash...


- They all think it most amusing


- The little terror, Jakobus, who Lucy has eating from her hands


- Pulling up to the bottle store (the Drankwinkel), West coast style

Enough drinking, I hear you cry. But no! There is still the wonder that is Vlakvartgat. Try saying that with a mouthful of crisps, you'll make lots of new friends. Apparently it means shallow pig hole. Promising.

Inside, there's a warthog's ass (is that the hole?) on the wall. A pint-sized pony wanders, whinnys and craps at the bar. Insert "horse walks into pub" joke here, please.

Good, clean South African fun. And now it really is time to take a break from the drinking!


- Grant and the totem go head to head


- Horse walks into a pub...


- All that Jaeger: it's the hog's bollocks.

Coincidentally, the worst thing one can say in Zulu is "ma senten bongo"- the balls of the donkey. Over and out.