Fetter's Travels: 2014 Exchange: here we go! First stop Africa!!

Below is some exchange information as well as Suzie and Wayne's Australian contact details:

My exchange partner is Ryan Donnelly, who will be teaching at St. Joseph's High School. His wife is Tammy Donnelly. They have three kids: Keelan is in Grade 4, Sinead in Grade 2, and Bonnie is in Kindergarten! All three kids will be attending St. Pius Elementary School, just a block from their new house!

Although we have been e-mailing and FaceTiming with the Donnelly's for 12 months now, and it feels like we are long-time friends, we will not actually meet face to face. So we'll be relying on our co-workers, friends, and family to take good care of them, as we know you will! Many thanks and best wishes for a super 2014!!

Remember that you can call our home phone number (The Fetter's) any time to reach them. A "Warm" Canadian Welcome will be just what they need!

Our new address is:

4 Schooner Place

Waikiki W.A. 6169

Australia

Our home for the year:

Day 1-3 (Dec. 23-25)

December 23rd we headed over to the Hilton by Detroit Metropolitan Airport. We breezed through customs, thanks to an uncommonly, friendly US customs guard. Hurdle #1 passed. We woke up early on the 24th, because we were very excited to get our trip underway, so we headed to the airport early, and as it turned out, it was a good thing that we did. We got up to the desk, got our seat assignments and checked our baggage (1 large suitcase and 1 carry-on each) which all made the weight limited. Hurdle #2 passed. The security checkpoint was empty, so we passed through there quickly as well. Hurdle #3 passed. We were the only ones sitting in the departure gate when one of the United Airlines workers came over to us, and asked if we were the family going to South Africa. We said "yes", and asked "why?" To which she answered "because your plane is not coming". "What do you mean our flight is not coming?" The airplane that was supposed to take us to Washington to connect to Africa was now not coming into Detroit or at least not in time for us to make our connecting flight. To which she adds "And we can't get you out until Dec. 27th because we are booked solid until then." Just when everything was going so smoothly... BAM! Now what are we going to do? We'll miss 4 days of our vacation in South Africa that is already fully paid, tours and hotels included.

You know the saying that no matter what you are experiencing, there is always someone worse off. Well there was another woman named Delores (lol for all you Seinfeld fans), who had the same flight plan as us, only she was going home to South Africa for her own wedding. All of a sudden our predicament didn't seem so important. This woman needed to get on a plane home. Anyway, the United Airlines employee worked feverishly to find us another flight, which she managed to do. We were supposed to fly from Detroit - Washington on United - Dakar - Johannesburg - Cape Town all on South African Airways. Our new itinerary was Detroit - Amsterdam on Delta (5 hour layover) then directly on to Cape Town on KLM, landing one hour later than our original time. VACATION SAVED!!! So we had to retrieve our baggage from United, take a shuttle over to the Delta terminal, check in all over again, go through security, and get to our new gate for departure, which again went smoothly. The kids loved the flights, because they each had their own tv sets on the chair in front of them, so they could watch whatever they wanted. It was a movie marathon! Vacation was officially started!

Day 4 (Dec. 26)

Needles to say, we crashed hard once we got to our hotel in Cape Town. I had just gotten up to have a shower when the phone rang. It was Harold, a cousin of my business partner Sandy, who was going to store most of our luggage at his place while we toured through South Africa. It was 8:30 am! Fortunately, we organized everything the night before, so we weren't scrambling around trying to figure out what was staying with us, and what was going with him. We are very grateful to Harold though, because we could barely fit all the luggage that we kept with us into the little rental car that we had. The rest of the day we spent lazing around the hotel, taking in the beautiful scenery, swimming in the pool, and enjoying the warm breeze off the ocean. It really felt like vacation now! Below are some photos of Ocean View House, our hotel in Cape Town, and Camp's Bay, the area we stayed in. By the way, this hotel has the best omelettes I have ever tasted!!

Suzie & Noah in front of our hotel with the 12 Apostles in the background.

Ellise and Noah running from the freezing cold surf! It turns out that the Western Cape of South Africa borders a very cold Atlantic Ocean! We've only ventured in knee deep, despite the 40 degrees Celsius weather.

Day 5 (Dec. 27)

Today was our first tour of CapeTown. We started off with a ferry ride over to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. We were fortunate to get on the early ferry, because the high speed ferry was under repairs, and there was a 2-3 hour wait the rest of the day.The ferry ride gave us great views of Cape Town and the surrounding area, and we even saw some seals and penguins playing in the water. The view to the left here is the Cape Town city centre with the famous Table mountain in the background.

The Robben Island tour was a bit of a somber way to start, but it is such a big part of South African history, especially with Nelson Mandela passing away a few weeks before our arrival. We visited his jail cell. It's amazing that he lived in that tiny cell for 27 years and came out of prison being such a positive and kind man! The tour was given by one of the inmates from the prison as well.

Next, we were off to Table Mountain to ride the gondola up to the top. Here is a picture of Cape Town and Robben Island from the top of Table Mountain. The Gondola had a 360 degree rotating floor, which rotated around slowly on the way up so you could see the views from all angles.

By the way, our personal tour guide was a Lithuanian gentleman named Gintarus who has been living in Cape Town and working in tourism for 9 years. He was just recruited to this new touring company, and had only been working with them for 5 days, and the boss let him use his fully loaded Mercedes SUV to take us around. Nice perk! He was very funny, so we had heaps of fun touring around with him.

After Table Mountain, he gave us a driving tour of the city centre before returning us to our hotel for the evening.

Day 6 (Dec. 28)

Today was our Cape Tour. It is a beautiful scenic drive from Cape Town down along the coast to the Cape of Good Hope. Lots of rugged coastline, pristine beaches, and animals. Our first stop was in Hout Bay, where we took a short ferry ride to Seal Island, which is a rocky island where hundreds of seals live. It was amazing to see so many seals, but it was also very smelly and the water was really rough, so we got tossed around pretty good. We also got to see a Southern Right Whale swimming in the bay.

When we reached the Cape National Park, it felt like we started our first safari. At the side of the road, we saw Impala, Springboks (the South African national antelope), ostriches, Dassies (cute furry little critters), and of course the Chacma Baboons seen below.

Family photo at the Cape of Good Hope.

Our tour guide warned us about the baboons which look kind of cute and harmless, unless they think you have food, then they are mean and aggressive. Suzie was going into her purse for her sunglasses, and one of the baboons came over to have a look too. They have been known to take purses or backpacks, rifle through them and then toss them over the cliff if they don't find any food. Fortunately, our fearless tour guide Gintarus saw him coming, and jumped in at the last moment to protect Suzie and scare the baboon away. Lesson learned. But from that moment on, Noah was not very keen on the baboons, and kept his distance.

Wayne and the kids at the Cape.

We had a great lunch overlooking the ocean and the Cape, and then went for a short hike to Cape Point. It should have taken only 45 minutes, but we took a detour down 230 steps to a secluded beach which was stunning! We also saw several Dassies up close. We all fell in love with these cute little fur balls. Noah also got side tracked by all of the different types of lizards that we came across as well, so the hike took twice as long as it should have, but was worth it.

On the way back to Cape Town, we had a short visit at an Ostrich farm (which is very popular in South Africa). Ostrich egg souvenirs are everywhere, and the meat is delicious for those carnivores.

We also stopped at Boulders Beach to visit the penguins. This was a real highlight for Ellise. They were very cute, and funny to watch.

Day 7 (Dec. 29)

After 2 days of touring, we decided to take a day off and laze around by the pool at Ocean View House. It was very relaxing and restful. Tomorrow, we get our rental car and head off on our own.

Day 8 (Dec. 30)

Today we had breakfast with Suzie's friend Lara and her son before we packed up and left Cape Town. We headed south to the a popular summer getaway called Hermanus. Ironically we stayed in an old hotel on the ocean called the Windsor Hotel. On the drive down, we stopped at the World of Birds sanctuary that has birds (and other animals) from all over the world, including a couple Canada geese. They must have gotten lost on their last migration, but they will never have to migrate again. Noah was especially interested in all the African animals and birds, and even kept a diary of all the different ones we saw along the way.

Noah and Ellise playing with squirrel monkeys at World of Birds.

Our trusty steed, the Volkswagon Polo rental car.

It took us everywhere we wanted to go.

Day 9 (Dec. 31)

New Year's Eve was pretty quiet for us. We slept in, had a big breakfast at the hotel and then spent the morning walking along a beautiful trail that followed the coastline. This was one of the few times that we got exercise over the 2 weeks in Africa. I think I forgot to mention that the food in South Africa was fabulous! All the meals were delicious and very affordable. Most meals including steak, seafood, sushi were all around $10 US. Needless to say, being Fetter's, we took full advantage of that and ate like kings (and queens), and we have the bellies to show for it.

The kids enjoying the view of the coast at Hermanus.

The Windsor Hotel in Hermanus (white building with the green roof).

Day 10 (Jan. 1)

We took off early in the morning to make the 5 hour trek inland to Oudtshoorn, and our first official safari experience at the Buffelsdrift Game Lodge. As we drove north the scenery gradually changed from the lush mountains along the coast to the dry rolling hills of the bushveldt. The soil turned from rock to a deep red sand. We arrived just after noon to our first true taste of the African heat. We stepped out of the car and began sweating almost immediately. It must have been well over 40 degrees celsius, and even the breeze was hot. Apparently, in the end of January and early February it gets over 50 degrees celsius there. But besides the heat, it was absolutely gorgeous.

Once we checked in, we went down to have some lunch in the restaurant, which just happened to be a 3 course meal with huge portions. I wish I had taken a picture of the size because you would not have believed it. The salad was a meal in itself. We were a little scared to see what dinner was going to be like. The next day we actually asked for smaller portions, and the waitress actually chuckled and politely said "Sorry, we can't do that". So, I think Suzie and I shared meals for the rest of our stay here.

Here is the tent that we stayed in. The boy scouts could take a lesson from the South Africans. They know how to do a tent up right. Complete with indoor plumbing including a bathtub, toilet and bidet, air conditioning, queen beds with soft fluffy pillows, and most importantly a stocked mini bar.

First up on our itinerary at Buffelsdrift was feeding the elephants. Ellise was a little leary at first, but by the end she was eager to go for a ride on the elephants. It was a fantastic way to start our safari adventure, and got us accustomed to being so close to the animals. The elephants skin is very rough and dry, but their tongues are very soft!

Jan. 1, 2014

This is our tent accomodation at Buffelsdrift.

Roughing it in style. Notice the air conditioner built into the side wall.

The indoor bathroom is fully complete with a large tub (not shown in the picture), double sinks, heated toilet seat (because it is over 40 degrees celsius) and a bidet. Ooh La La!
Noah is checking out the private outdoor shower.