Friday August 22, 2019
It was time to go home, which is always a sad day. We packed our things and checked out of the Crystal Springs Mountain Lodge. Or rather, we tried to. The reception desk, office, etc. were all still closed, and there was no drop box available to leave our key in. We had to get going by 6:30 am, because we had a flight to catch. So we simply left the key lying in front of the door into the reception area.
It was only after we drove down the long driveway to the main road that we realized there was a security officer on staff there, and we probably should have given the key to him. But we let him know where we had left it, and were soon on our way.
We had just one stop to make before heading to the airport, at Harrie’s Pancakes, in Dullstroom. This was roughly halfway to the airport. We got there a few minutes before they opened, and had a wander through a wonderful handicraft shop located right next door (that was, surprisingly, open before 8 am!) We had already packed up our things for our international flight home, and had completed our shopping, or so we thought. Wouldn’t you know it – we found an amazing shop, with reasonable prices. There were many things I would have liked to bring home but I finally settled on one, rather large, Zulu basket. It was large enough that it would not fit into my suitcase, I was resigned to holding it on my lap for the duration of the trip home if I had to.
We were at Harrie’s right when they opened, and knew that we’d only have about 40 minutes to order, eat, and get on our way. Luckily the service was relatively quick at that hour, and we had checked the menu out ahead of time so we knew what we wanted. The pancakes were amazing. They all have some sort of filling to them – I think mine was with milk tart custard, and it was fantastic.
Then it was really time to get a move on, and we finished the drive back to Johannesburg which, thankfully, took just as long as we expected it to, with no major delays for road work or accidents or any of the other sorts of things that worry you when you’re trying to catch a flight. We used GPS to navigate back into the city to the airport, and went right to the Budget/Avis rental car drop-off centre. It was a very smooth process, and took much less time than the pick-up had taken. We have read some bad reviews of Budget/Avis at the Johannesburg airport, but our transaction was good, and we would use them again.
With that, we checked in, got some snacks for the flight, and boarded when called. We settled in for the long trip home. It was about 5.5 hours from Johannesburg to Addis Ababa, where we had a couple of hours’ layover; we had to go through security multiple times during our layover, so we appreciated having the extra time. On this leg of the flight we were in a major terminal that had lots of shops, restaurants, restrooms, etc.
We then boarded our next flight, which was 11 hours to Dublin. This was not an official stop, per se; just a refuelling stop. Addis Ababa is at a very high elevation, and jet planes cannot take off from there carrying a fuel load of fuel. We were on the ground in Dublin for an hour, but unfortunately, were not able to leave the aircraft.
Finally, we had another 7.5 hours back to Toronto from Dublin, bringing our total airtime to 23 hours. We followed that up with a terribly long wait at the carousel for our luggage, and then had a 3 hour drive home. So it was a monstrous travel day, but well worth it for all the fun and adventure we’d had, and I would do it again tomorrow if I could.
And the good news is that there was plenty of overhead bin space on our flights, so the basket did not have to sit on my lap all day, after all!
Cook Family Travels 