travel-tips – 2 J's World of Adventure

South Africa Safari 2025 Day 29/30 preparing for home.

Published on October 14, 2025November 22, 2025 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We woke up after a very comfortable nights sleep in the Protea Marriott Midrand hotel….our deluxe room was mega comfy…even managed to get the temperature right… I forgot to mention that on our way yesterday we saw the fairly magnificent waterfall mosque…

We had a really nice breakfast of bacon, sausage, egg, toast followed by yogurt and fruit and a nice cup of coffee. Returning to our room we packed up and loaded the car before heading to our friend Gill’s for the night.

It was an easy trip, having got a bit lost yesterday my dearest Cora had given me strict instructions last night .. … “Mum! Do not go any other way ….get on to the N1 Johannesburg, where it splits stay N1 Bloemfontein take the first off ramp to Rivonia, head towards Morningside clinic ( my son had been born there) and take the turning to Gills just after the massive billboard….then you’ll know where you are”…… “yes darling” I meekly replied…….i followed her instructions to the letter and 11 minutes later we were at Gills.

We unpacked the car, gave Gill all the bits we hadn’t used…which was quite a bit as due to quite a bit of cold damp weather we hadn’t cooked as much as we had anticipated doing… we stashed the pillows back upstairs in the spare room cupboard and prepared the cool box with all the cooking stuff in it to be stored in Gills garage. At this point John came in from the garden as it started to rain heavily.

Gills garden is a hive of bird activity. There is a Southern masked weaver making a nest right outside her patio.

After the rain stopped we went to Chillies Mall. There’s a great car wash in the underground car park …150 rand (£6) for an SUV inside and out …. pensioners rate…so we dropped the car off and went upstairs for lunch at ocean basket.

Great seafood platter for 3 …yum, yum…needless to say we ate it all….

After lunch we collected the car and went back to Gills for a restful afternoon, chatting late into the night.

Morning came all too soon. The packing was completed two cases, two hand luggage’s and a Woolies back with our fleeces in. ……a little story about the cases….. last year after we came back from Sri Lanka we treated ourselves to 2 new suitcases …our old faithfuls which we’d brought at Tesco 10 years ago had finally expired with a hole in one and the wheel broken off on the other….so we purchased at reasonable expense two new bright yellow ones from John Lewis….we took them to the Caribbean last Autumn and the wheel collapsed on one and the zip burst open on the other….they had a 5 years ago guarantee so I went to Milton Keynes (45 minutes away) …. I showed them the pictures of the damage ..we had hearty discussion about whether it was poor quality goods or rough airline handling eventually they agreed to change them…I selected two others, silver ones, but they said I should have brought both the old ones back …I had only taken one as parking was a distance away and I couldn’t see how I would manage two….so I asked them to put the silver ones aside and I’d go back the next day with the other one…when I returned with the second one the following day they had sold the silver ones…I was not amused…. They agreed to waiver the delivery charge so I paid the extra £120 …they were each £60 more than the original one but I was told they were far better quality….sure enough they arrived the following day…We used them in Portugal and Spain and then this trip….oh dear…. One of them came off the plane dented and the plastic was cracked open. Since then the zip on the other has opened at the end you can’t see and it won’t zip closed….so once again we will have to have them wrapped at the airport to get them home and once again I shall be taking them back to John Lewis…these cases are not fit for purpose…surely a suitcase should be able to withstand a trip on a plane and why give them a 5 year guarantee if they are so badly made…..they weren’t super cheap at £140 each …….grrrrrrrr

Anyway back to reality….we had a very nice breakfast with Gill…thank you very much…then we sat chatting in the garden while John took loads of pictures of Urban wildlife and nature …

All too soon it was time to say goodbye to Gill…it’s always sad. We headed back to the Protea Marriott Midrand and booked into the same room.

Cora had said she would call and have tea with us. It was a wonderful surprise when she breezed through the door and joined us in the bar…..that lady brings an aura of positivity wherever she goes….her smile forces everyone around her to smile …she is beautiful inside and outside… we were so privileged, she had lunch with us and we spent all afternoon chatting until 6.00 pm ….How she managed to clear her diary and make so much time for us is beyond me….it was a very special time…then it was time for another goodbye…

After a rest we had a light supper and retired to bed.

The morning brought sunshine. We had a lovely breakfast again and then chilled in our room until checkout time. John took some pictures around the hotel.

We booked out and sat in the lounge area…writing this blog…in an hours time we head for the airport, drop the car off and fly home…Stuart has already WhatsApped me to say he will meet us at the airport….our holiday will then be over…..what a fabulous time we’ve had….i’ll blog how the flight went tomorrow….then we will blog our sightings data, our final costings and our accommodation reviews over the forthcoming week.

Thank you to everyone who has followed us…if you have any questions or need help with bookings feel free to contact us at 2jsworldofadventure@gmail.com

For flight and accommodation contact Maisie Morton or Sean at DialAflight

+44 1618418179

If you mention us Jenny Jackson and 2jsworldofadventure they will give you a really good rate.

Finally once we have sorted the photos we will be asking you to rank them so we can select your 13 favourites for this years calendar ….this year if you are in the UK you will be able to order one of these……more about that in future blogs💕

South Africa Safari 2025…Day21- The day of the giraffe.

Published on October 5, 2025November 22, 2025 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We packed up our baggage and loaded it into the car…we were away about 8.30 having showered and had yogurt for breakfast. The housekeeper showed her face, the first time we’d seen her in our 4 night stay…but there had been evidence of her…she had made the beds and done the washing up….so her loitering gained her the expected tip.

It was a really cold grey day. In fact most of the day the temperature was only 16 degrees Celsius…the highest it went to was 19 degrees Celsius…and what’s more it rained for most of the day…not a downpour but that annoying drizzle which is too much for intermittent windscreen wipers but not enough for them to be on all the time. We kept our long trousers and fleeces on all day.

John selected zebra and I went with wildebeest as our first spot of the day…..it was in-fact a lovely line of wildebeest…..John has surrendered …I am just to in-tune with the wild….he has admitted defeat…and wants to start a new game tomorrow….so as from tomorrow it’s guess which animal we see 10 of first…ummmm Today it would have been giraffes.

We saw a lovely family group not long after setting off down the H1.

Giraffes are the tallest of all land animals; males (bulls) may exceed 5.5 metres (18 feet) in height, and the tallest females (cows) are about 4.5 metres. A newborn giraffe is about 6 feet (1.9 meters) tall at birth and weighs about 150 pounds.

They are quite easy to tell apart…the males horns are thick and bald ( no wise cracks about them representing most of the male species🤣) Where as the females horns are much thinner, with fluffy hair on top they also often curve inwards.

Some giraffes are darker than others due to a combination of factors including genetics, which determine an individual’s base pattern, and age, with males often darkening significantly as they mature to signal their status to other giraffes. Environmental factors like diet and climate may also play a role in coat color variation.

When there are a group of giraffes together browsing they are known as a “Tower of giraffes”, when they are walking from place to place they are known as a “journey of giraffes”. They are fascinating creatures, I could spend all day watching them….but we had to continue our journey south.

We saw some big herds of buffalo, both breeding herds and smaller groups of dagger boys. Lots of elephants were browsing the trees and bushes all around.

We had been travelling for very nearly an hour before we saw our first impala and then we saw a massive group…and a lot more throughout our trip. Some rather cute wart hogs were munching on the sweet grass at the side of the road.

While a pair of steenbok were hunkered down in the bushes trying to escape the inclement weather.

We felt privileged to follow a line of zebra up the road…so long as I didn’t get too close they were content to just walk along the road in front of us. If I got too close they broke into a trot until I dropped back…. We must have followed them for about a kilometre ….just us and them…we felt like a sheepdog shepherding them along. Then out of the blue they all looked to the right, startled they cantered off to the left…we looked to see if it was a predator but saw nothing….it was a lovely moment in time…no other cars just them and us…

We decided not to stop at Tshokwane as it was so busy. We continued on towards Skakuza…..the main tar road was appalling. In most places totally covered in sand which had been there so long it was corrugated. This is the H1 the main spinal road which runs from one end of the park to the other….how the parks board can have allowed it to get into this shocking state is beyond me…there were some road works taking place…typically 2 men were doing the work, while 20 stood watching them…one side of the road was being worked on but both oncoming and our direction traffic both had the go sign showing with no one working it …so inevitably be both met in the middle..ummmm …one of the workers moved a traffic cone so we could pass…..” piss-up”and “brewery” spring to mind…. Shortly after this we saw the unusual sight of a ground horn bill up a tree.

We also saw a variety of different eagles…tawny and bateleur …in trees.

We drove past quite a few herds of elephants before arriving at Skakuza. A quick loo break and a swift reccy of the shop and we were off again.

Onward towards Prestoriakop. We stopped at Transport Dam for our lunch. The usual hippos were wallowing and 3 big crocodiles were on the opposite banks.

We also saw a sight we’d never witnessed before…. A dead buck on the shoreline with a massive crocodile swallowing it…..presumably it had caught it, killed it and was now demolishing it…quite a sight.

On we travelled and between the Napier loop was a den of hyenas…..a very cute very young black one and two elder pups…

We got to Shitlhaven dam ….or as my son used to call it for years when he was a little boy “have-a-shit dam”. It always makes me laugh…there were just hippos in the water….

We continued on…I have to say I was not impressed with Viva Safari vehicles…they drove fast, overtaking then stopped, blocking the road when they saw zebra or giraffe etc…they showed no regard for other vehicles whatsoever…in-fact yesterday one had put me in a precarious position by blocking the road when a young male elephant was showing me attitude….this company will begetting Safari vehicles a bad name…its not just about their customers it’s about showing everyone respect. Grrrrr…whinge over

We got to camp and booked in….had a rest for an hour before driving towards numbi gate for the last hour…we saw another group of dagger boys and another den of hyenas….a lovely end to a very good spotting day.

Our supper was at the restaurant…if you can call a Wimpy a restaurant…John had a breakfast and I had sausages with hard microwaved mash and gravy which was so thick it wouldn’t come out of the bowl…then it was a game of cards and bed.

Portugal & Spain 2025. – Day 1- On the way….

Published on May 11, 2025September 6, 2025 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We left home at 9.00 am Saturday 10th May 2025. I drove John, the two cases and 2 hand luggage’s to the station. Then I returned home parked the car and walked to the station….not because we’re lazy but because we were trying to preserve our energy for the long airport walks.
We took the 9.36 train to Luton…trust us to chose a day when the line was closed from Luton. Disembarking the train a kind member of the platform staff carried my suitcase up the steps because the train had stopped in the only platform without a lift!!. A quick taxi ride for £15 took us up to Luton Airport.
We soon self checked ourselves and our cases in. Then found seats in the departure lounge for the 2.45 hour wait…..We had lunch early and were astounded that 2 burgers with chips was £21… it’s probably 10+ years since we’ve had a Burger King and it will certainly be more than that, if ever, before we have another. No problem boarding the plane and we fortunately had 3 seats to ourselves…

The flight was uneventful and we seemed to be the only plane arriving at Faro airport. We made our way to Avis car hire. Although we had used Holiday Autos to book the car, it was exactly half the price of booking direct with Avis, even though it was a Avis car. Unfortunatly the Ford Kuga we had booked was no longer stocked and we had to take a brand new Nissan Qashqai with only 2900km on the clock……I had to ask the helpful staff how to get into reverse !!!!! Then we were off and on our way…The A22 is a good road and we tanked it along to Lagos and followed the. Signs to Luz….Only then did our instructions fail us and as we drove around the narrow cobbled streets, we had no idea where we were heading for. Eventually we saw an aging couple taking an early evening walk and we stopped and asked them the way. They had very little English and we have no Portuguese……after a lot of hand gestures they stopped talking and I expectantly got into the back of car….where upon we had a delightful 15 minutes of hand gestures from the back seat…what a gem this couple were. We weren’t actually that far from the apartment complex Baka Da Luz. But the streets are mostly one way due to their narrowness. The couple showed us the reception and got out of the car. I gestured I would drive them back but they gave us the thumbs up and set of back up the hill walking…..We thanked them profusely.
On entering the reception we were greeted by the receptionist… who promptly showed us on a map where our apartment was. It was on the 2 nd floor and the furthest away from all the amenities, down a very steep hill. I asked if there was one closer to which I was told “ you booked and economy, this is the economy apartment” ….Well!! Firstly I booked a one bedroom apartment on booking.com and it was £650 it didn’t say anything about “ economy”….. and secondly I’d really have liked to give the receptionist a lesson in “ welcoming behaviour” !!!
Anyway, we drove to our apartment, knowing that we were going to be driving backwards and forwards as there was no way we were walking backwards and forwards up the hill several times a day. The apartment had a lift, so all good there. It is huge, a nice big lounge, dinning room, master bedroom with en-suite including a bath tub and a separate shower bathroom. The kitchen has everything we need. There is also a spiral stairway with two extra bedrooms up there…..ummmm a one bedroomed apartment with seating, dining table and bedrooms for 6 …..hey Ho it suits us fine.

By now it was 7.30 pm and with growling tummies we drove down to the beach front. What a pleasure to find a carpark and a row of restaurants. We selected “A Concha”, as I had read it was good on trip advisor. We ate inside as it was a tad chilly outside. We both choose fish, John had sea bass and I had rare tuna. We had a Coke Zero each and a rather naughty but extremely nice dessert…all for the princely sum of €56 .

Thankfully our earlier guides had given us a good understanding of the village centre and we managed to navigate the one-way system back to our front door with ease. An early night was required as we both felt the tiredness that airports tend to cause…. A great day to the start of our 18 day adventure.

Travels in 2025 are just commencing

Published on April 23, 2025 by 2jsworldofadventure2 Comments

We have had a shaky start to the year with many trips being postponed, cancelled or just not booked….Why?? John has had to have 2 eye operations which had to be spaced a month apart and then another month awaiting his all clear and new glasses…… But Thank goodness we are about to hit the road again.

So whats booked ???…….

PORTUGAL – We are off to Portugal and Spain in May. We have only booked a skeleton trip, because we want the versatility and flexibility to do what we want when we want…. SO… we have booked flights with EasyJet from Luton to Faro – £398.22 for us both with hold luggage and seats. In Faro we pick up a Ford Kuga from Avis booked through Holiday Autos for 18 days £680.47 including Premium Cover. We drive to Baia Da Luz Resort where we have rented a one bedroom apartment for a week for £642…… after that who knows?…… We may extend for a week or we may go straight along to Donana National Park in Spain…this park is home to the Iberian Linx. We are, however, not delusional, as we are aware that a sighting of this critically endangered species is about as rare as seeing a tiger in India or a Pangolin in Africa….. But we can live in hope and the park is also well known for its storks and flamingo.. Near the park is a quirky town which looks like something out of the wild west…but more about this if and when we get there. Moving on from here we could spend a few days exploring Seville and Cordoba…..but we will see… if you’re interested follow our blog starting mid May.

SOUTH AFRICA – We are off to South Africa mid September for a month. As usual I have started this planning by booking our time in Kruger National Park. I book directly with the Park at http://www.sanparks.org … its very easy to navigate and you can put the accommodation in your basket and work your days around what is available. There is no point booking your flights first, because if you can’t get the accommodation there’s very little alternative. I’ve booked ensuite Chalets/rondavels for 21 nights at a cost of £1649.08. We are, as usual, starting at Malalane Gate in Berg-en-Dal rest camp, then Lower Sabie, Satara, Letaba, Shingwedzi, Olifants, Satara, Pretoriuskop and finally Berg-en-Dal. I have not paid the conservation Fees because if you’re in the Park longer that 10 days its much cheaper to buy a Wild Card, which gives you a years free access to all National Parks in SA. Having secured our accommodation I then booked the flights. As usual I got quotes from 4 different companies….. and again as usual DialAFlight gave me by far the best deal…. a big shout out to Rosie Price and her team (tel. no. +44 1618418179), in particular to Maisie Morton…what a girl…gave me the sort of price which keeps me going back…lots of our family and friends as well as our Blog followers have booked with them and everyone has been given an excellent price. We have booked direct flights from London Heathrow to Johannesburg for a total of £1375 that’s £685 per person including hold baggage……wow… The trick to getting deals like this with Rosie’s team is to give them some flexibility with flight dates so they can select the cheapest days for you to fly…..We are once again truly grateful for the service they give us. I also know that the dozens of our readers who did a Sri Lankan trip similar to ours with them were all delighted. Well!! that’s as far as I’ve got with the booking. I haven’t booked a car in RSA yet because I want to see how Holiday Autos works out for us in Portugal, they are offering a great deal in RSA…

I will post both these two trips individually as blogs and with planning sheets when I have done a bit more planing… For now its cheerio and thanks for continuing to follow us. Your support is very appreciated.

Day 4 – Thursday 30th May 2024- Corfu- Greek Island Cruise and other places.

Published on May 30, 2024November 22, 2024 by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

Before starting the new day I think it’s important to give you a quick glimpse of our theatre experience yesterday evening. We seated ourselves in the theatre about 50 minutes prior to the start of the show. We had a choice of seats but as the time got closer to its start the theatre got really full. The show was called Storm… well!!! Wow! Wow! Wow! Cirque de Soleil you better watch out…. This was one of the best Cruise Ship Theatre shows we have ever seen

So…. Moving on to Day 4 ……

The day started with our ship pulling into Corfu dock next to The Queen Victoria, a Cunard Ship.

Similar to yesterday we went to the buffet for breakfast….. I think tomorrow we will try the restaurant because the buffet really is a case of”fight the good fight with all thy might”!!! Getting a table is hard enough but getting some food without being pushed, shoved, trodden on is nearing impossible….. so with that early morning ordeal over with we headed for the excursion desk. We had received our tickets for todays excursion under our door last night… they had been duplicated so we needed to check that we hadn’t been charged twice… The lady at the desk said we wouldn’t have been, but when I pointed out there were 4 different ticket numbers she looked into it and realised yes we had been charged twice so she said we would get a refund for two of them…. I’ll be chasing that up…

Then on to the theatre to wait for the start of our excursion….. As we have visited the sights of Corfu before we had selected a scenic coastal cruise so we could see the island from the water and there were chances of seeing dolphins and turtles. 9.35am our tour was called and with what seems to be the normal amount of pushing and shoving by some very loud Italians we headed out to the coach……. we have never cruised with so many Italians and I am certain they are not all rude, loud and very pushy but those that have been around us on this cruise have certainly shown themselves in very poor light when it comes to good manners and common decency towards other people. ….. Rant over !!!!!

The coach took us along the quayside, around the dock to the other side, from where we walked to a smallish boat, which seated about 35 on the lower deck and 15 on the top deck. We headed for the top deck…… I was quite proud of the way I shinned up the stepladder…. Not bad for a little round ball on legs!!!!!! We found virtually the last 2 seats…ummmm no 2 laddies arrived and squeezed in…..and then a very pushy young man arrived with sour faced girlfriend in tow and decided where they were going to sit, regardless of the fact that someone else was already say there!!!! Another example of total disregard for other people….. but as a firm believer of Karma remember this couple for later on….. This time the top deck really was totally full and we set sail. Our tour was supposed to be in English and the lady commentating started well in English… We sailed past the old and new fort and the monastery on the top of the hill.

Our Captain then retraced our steps and we sailed up the coast in the opposite direction… we were just beginning to relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the peace and tranquility when soundenly our eardrums got a bashing and modern music blasted out of the speakers… surely not !!!! But yes the peacefulness was definitely broken… what’s more the music only stopped when the guide wanted to speak and she was suddenly saying very little in English and a lot in Italian…….. not funny when you’ve booked and paid for a English narrated tour…. Grrrr!!!

She did point out an area where King Charles likes to visit and an area where British holiday makers visit…. Before rattling on for a long time in Italian with lots of ‘Angles’ being said and hoots of laughter from the Italians…. Now! we could tell our nationality was being laughed at but not what was being said.. we were defiantly feeling very uncomfortable and humiliated…. Not nice….. we tried hard to concentrate on the scenery.

On we cruised, the couple opposite us, who had been pushed out of their preferred seats by the couple who I now refer to as the 2 Italian Ignoramuses, leant forward and said the narrator had just said in Italian to turn your mobile phone on to flight mode because we were close to Albania and we could pick up roaming charges as it is outside the EU. I thanked the couple very much as without their help we wouldn’t have known what was said. It turns out that they are from Germany and had expected the commentator to speak in English, their English was perfect and we were very grateful to find out that we were not the only non Italians on the top deck.
We continued along the coast for a little longer before the narrator announced we were coming to an area where people could swim. Well! At least that stopped the surly faced Italian Ignoramose from vaping for a few minutes because in front of everyone she had to put her “Ipsy bitsy” bikini on… … unfortunately she managed it too quickly and the vaping started again… thankfully the boat pulled up on to a pebble strip of beach and everyone from the top deck excluding ourselves and The German couple went down for a swim. Peace at last … no more “jabber, jabber hoot hoot”…..

A member of the crew came and moved the seat opposite us and behind it was a drum barrel bar-b-cue, on which he proceeded to cook spiced sausages and kababs … amazing…

We got chatting to the kind couple from Germany. Lillian and Jonas had got on the cruise in Bari. They were both Drs and had done some of their training in a part of Germany we liked, we had visited it on a cruise -Warnemunde. A very interesting couple… who like us had expected a quiet scenic cruise with wonderful scenery and wildlife views in a peaceful surround…. They had also expected the commentary to be in English not Italian and they were not amused by the Italian Ignoramus couple who had literally pushed them off their chosen seat… The guide came up to see if we were ok and I tried hard to explain that we were not happy with her obvious comments about the English which had sent the Italians on board the boat roaring and hooting with laughter. But she either pretended not to understand or her English really wasn’t up to being a guide for this type of trip…. She did manage perfectly easily to explain a lot of the recent history to Jonas. We were actually beginning to enjoy this totally missold cruise… so we thank Lillian and Jonas for coming to our rescue and having nice conversation with us .. they made our excursion enjoyable…

The swimming hour passed too quickly and everyone soon arrived back on board. Lillian and Jonas choose to sit next to us and a few of the original people didn’t reappear and a couple of new people took their seats. The ship was pulling away from its mooring when suddenly on the beach the Italian Ignoramus duo appear running out of the bushes shouting and waving for the boat to stop….. Lillian and I looked at each other and said “Karma”. The 4 of us had a good laugh … the couple were really waving and shouting… the boat took a few minutes to stop and manoeuvre back into the shore…. They were a bit sheepish when they came back up to collect their shoes.
Both John and Jonas went and collected two plates of food each. Jonas kindly helped John by taking the food to let John climb the ladder.
It was quiet and peaceful while everyone ate …then the loud music began again and everyone apart from the 4 of us started dancing… this excursion should have been sold as a party coastal cruise because that is what it was… We were fairly pleased to return to our ship to escape the loud noisy crowd we had unwittingly been on an excursion with. We do however sincerely thank Lilian and Jonas for their company and we hope to catch up with them on another occassion.

Back on The Opera we headed for the bar and had a couple of Magic Island Mock- tails and a game of canasta before returning to our cabin for a siesta.

Once again we arrived at the restaurant in good time and were seated in Salem’s serving area in a wake view window. The meal was very nice, tonight had a Mediterranean theme and we both enjoyed the seafood. Moogessen, who waiters in Saleem’s area presented me with a tissue white rose .. a. Nice touch..