Day 124 Hout Bay

Off to see the first day of the England vs South Africa second test. 

Bit of a will it or won’t it turn up with the taxi – but after seeing a bright car with taxi written all over it do a loop round the block we decided it must be ours and caught up with it at the petrol station asking for directions to our flat.

We had a fantastic view of Table Mountain from our seats – total fluke!  The stadium seats 20,000 people and having seen less “Brits” than you can count on fingers and toes over the last four months it comes as a bit of a shock to find some 10,000 England supporters filling the ground – it definitely is the “barmy army”.  Greg decides to join the mass of England fans purchasing a barmy army T-shirt.

Cool morning, England progressing well and beers definitely cold and refreshing and pre-prepared picnic lunch goes down well. Afternoon, starts off in cricket terms much as the morning but the shade we have from the stand on the east side of the ground is increasingly diminishing – it’s like some James Bond villain’s instrument of torture – as the sun heads over to the west we slowly get hotter and hotter from the feet upwards till in the full glare of the unforgiving African sun action required more sun tan lotion for Gregory, Jane melts and I go for more beer!!

End of play at 6pm and successful day for England  317 for 5 with Stokes and Bairstow looking set for big scores tomorrow as they were hitting the ball around the ground for the last half hour (for a full report see the Beeb!!).  If Greg had written today's blog we would have had a nine page in depth analysis of the cricket - luckily we got there first!!

As with any sporting event chaos reigns getting out of the ground and finding transport home, but after a shortish walk we manage to pick up a taxi off a rank in Claremont.  Safest driving we’ve seen in a taxi since we’ve seen in Africa but slightly let down by the car sounding like it’s about to fall apart.

Back at home, off to the shops to buy food followed by bbq pork steaks with more beer and wine whilst watching the cricket highlights to finish off a great day!!