Saturday 10 July - Home to Port Elizabeth

We thought the last leg of our journey from Pietermaritzburg to Port Elizabeth would be a breeze even though it's a ten hour trip. We know the road well and after some of the roads we've traveled in the last month we were sure it would be easy.... but it did seem to take forever. I guess the anticipation of getting home makes the time drag.

 I wanted to take a photo of this little church near Kokstad on our way north last month but there was too much traffic. Today I had my opportunity. I just love the bright colours and the contrasts.

The trip was uneventful and we arrived as it was getting dark. Our dogs were amazed to see us. I guess when you're over ninety in doggy years the memory isn't a strong point. They thought we were never coming home again and they want to know what we've done with the house sitter. After a few minutes they did show some excitement and we were sniffed over to get the news from all over Africa. My trainers must be particularly interesting because I've worn them every day.

We found our house in excellent order, clean, neat and welcoming. Thank you Edwin for doing such a great job of taking care of things this end. It's wonderful to have one's own bathroom, bed, kitchen..... Life's good and we are feeling so blessed all over again.

We were in time to watch the third place play off between Germany and Uruguay which was actually taking place here in PE - of course we watched on TV. After all the lovely warm weather we have had up north we're going to have to acclimatize to the PE winter again. In fact there's lots we're going to have to get used to again - such as work...... But we have a new appreciation of South Africa for her climate, infrastructure, the wonderful people. It's going to take us a few weeks to get back into the swing of things but we are so grateful for the wonderful adventure we have had and that the Lord has brought us safely through eight countries and 13 000km. Wow!!! I will write a reflection on our experience as a final blog entry.