Day 1 Leaving London by Simi

The day had finally come. This trip, an epic trip to celebrate our 50ths, Arushi’s 18th and the fact we are now finally outnumbered by adults to children, we we booked a trip of a lifetime to South Africa thanks to brilliant Ali. Safari, Capetown, and the Garden route; here we come South Africa!! 🇿🇦

Our budget however didn’t quite stretch to a direct flight but that just added to the excitement .. however we did get another massive perk… time in one of the lounges! So we left home extra early and extra hungry and hung out in the secret world of the privileged airport lounge .

We all stuffed our bellies with an array of salads, pasta, Thai curry, bean chilli, Pepsis, gin and tonics, rose wine, beer and most importantly yummy chocolate brownies !

We had just enough time to take in a bit of airport shopping - Matty as often happens at airports liked to peruse the sunglasses which was fun. Then before we knew it our flight was called for Frankfurt and we were off on our first leg!

Unfortunately the smoothness of the travel stopped abruptly .. settling into our seats for our short haul flight waiting for take off, the pilot announced there was a storm in Frankfurt and we would not be able to fly for around 2 hours! Other passengers were aghast and questioning the cabin staff as to why we were sitting on the plane for 2 hours rather than in the airport. They replied that it was due to being able to get away quickly in case the weather cleared up. With a 2 hour transfer in Frankfurt for our 10 hour flight to Johannesburg, we thought this was a sensible idea… the idea of missing our connecting flight was totally spirit crushing!

Luckily it did clear up and we left about an hour late so all was good!Read more