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Fri May 23 2003 (Durban)

Very hungover and tired, we were up at 10am, packed, checked-out and headed over to the cafe again for a big breakfast. The staff were friendly as ever, which is more than could be said for our sorry-looking, heavy-headed, squinting selves. Rob let me know he wouldn't be able to make it out of Jo'burg until tomorrow, so I pushed back the exit from Durban by a day. The girls were moving into the City Lodge for a night of low budget luxury, and agreed to let me crash on the floor.

The room was a world away from the places I'd stayed so far, air-con, a proper en-suite bathroom, TV and a safe. I phoned and booked the car for tomorrow, it would be 400 Rand/day if I keep it until Tuesday, 190 Rand/day if I drop it back the day before. So Monday drop-off it is, in Jo'burg. The girls were keen to get onto the beach and I was still messing about so they headed out and I told them to stay within 100 yards of Joe Cool's, so I could find them.

About 25 minutes later I followed, but after looking up and down the beach several times I started to get a bit worried and asked around if anyone had seen them (most on the beach were English), no luck. I headed back the couple of blocks to the room, collected my mobile phone from the safe and left a note. Back down at the beach I still couldn't find them so phoned Gary Kitching who said Gavin Morton-Holmes("GMH", WHam) and Brian (WBA) would lend a hand. Pretty soon we found them, about 200 yards from Joe Cool's, well away from the crowd, exactly where I thought it wouldn't make sense for two obviously foreign girls to be from a safety perspective. I was relieved to see them as it was several hours since they'd left the room and I was starting to contemplate a trip to the police station. In future though, I'll make a point of not feeling responsible for them! Too much aggro, sheesh.

We went for beers with GMH and Brian, which I meant to buy to apologise for dragging them out of the bar in the first place, but they ended up paying for. So I still owe you a couple of pints, lads. A couple of Oxford United ladies joined us and we had a chat about the financial woes of club football. Then back to the hotel for an air-conditioned snooze and out to the Holiday Inn for some Tepanyaki. The service was crap and slow, but the food fantastic. Our fried rice and various fish and meat dishes were cooked near to us by a very good chef. We somehow managed to force down a dessert before heading out to Joe Cool's. We had a quick drink and I got to see my favourite bat (big thing) flying around the car park again scooping up insects. Back at the room I packed what I could and finally crawled into my floor-mounted sleeping bag around 1am.

Photos from today