This morning we woke up early in an attempt to go on another run but soon discovered that our aching legs were not up to the task. We decided that rather than admit defeat we would at least go on a brisk walk around the grounds and sprint the last leg back to the cabin. It's a good thing we decided on this method of exercise because despite rigorous stretching my legs felt like they we going to fall off. Once we finished our morning walk we set to work packing the bags on the morning of our departure once again. Jenny packed while I showered and I packed while she showered, and in no time the car was loaded and ready to go. When we had finished our final check of the cabin we locked up and took the keys up to the main lodge to have breakfast.
We had a very large breakfast of scrambled, boiled and poached eggs with bacon, toast and mushrooms. Clive joined us at the table briefly to say his farewell and set off to finish building the foundation of the next lodge. I settled our weekly account with June and she was nice enough to leave the Internet on for a while longer so we could phone Lesley and buy a Groupon deal for one wonderful four star night accommodation in Simons Town, that was more than half the price off! Once we finished with all of our Internet related inquiries we said a final farewell to our hosts and hit the road for Selebi Phikwe.
The drive turned out to be shorter than we anticipated and it only took us about 2 and a half hours before we were in the centre of town. Jenny was constantly pointing out buildings and landmarks she remembered from her childhood here. Hunger had started to set in by the time we arrived so we pulled off the main street into a long shopping mall where we walked the length looking for a place to eat. Once we had done a once up and once down of the shopping centre we decided to eat at a pizza place called Giovannis where Jenny had her 7th birthday party. The pizza was amazing and we could tell we were in desperate need of food. After having lunch we picked up some drinks and we drove to Jenny's old school and had a look from the street before driving off to find Nigel Bellamy's house.
We were armed with no phone number and no street address, it was also early in the day and we were unlikely to find Nigel at home. Jenny had me driving all around Phikwe claiming that she would recognise the house when we saw it. Eventually I convinced her to phone Lesley and find out where we were going. It turned out that we had passed the Bellamy's house a few minutes earlier but they had redone their driveway and Jenny didn't recognise it. We pulled up out front and spoke to one of the maids who told us that Nigel was at work and his wife was in the UK. So we headed off to kill some time until he returned.
Jenny took me on a tour of the town, stopping by the house that she remembered living in. We climbed to the top of a coppie (large rock outcrop) next to the house and had a birds eye view of Phikwe through the dense smog from the sulphur mine. We spent a few minutes trying to find some rock paintings before departing for the riding club. We had a short drive around the grounds of the riding club before running out of things to do. At this point I searched the sat nav for nearby casinos to waste a little bit of time and found one only 500 metres down the road. We decided to head there and put 100 Pula on a card to play slots. It took us nearly 2 hours to lose the money playing a slot machine we didn't really understand for 1t a pull. Once we had our fill of the casino we headed next door to a spur where we had some frankly awful malted milkshakes (all I could think of was malt extract from brewing) and then drive back to the Bellamy house to wait for Nigel.
When we arrived back at the house there was still no sign of Nigel so we parked the car and had a beer each while we waited. At about the time we were discussing where we would be sleeping tonight Nigel pulled into the driveway and Jenny ran after to greet him. Nigel didn't see her coming and got a bit of a fright! His day at work had been riddled with problems and he desperately wanted some drinks, we agreed. So we sat down at the Bellamy's bar and had some more beer while we chatted about our travels. Alex Lester phoned from just down the road a few minutes after we arrived and Nigel invited her over to join us for drinks. Once Alex had joined us we soon decided to move the drinking session to a local pub; interestingly the pub attached to the casino we had visited.
Alex offered to drive and as such wasn't drinking. Unfortunately it took several rounds of tequilas before we seemed to remember this and I kept having to do the extra shot. Jenny even got involved in the drinking which she doesn't do very often. Drinks began to blur together and we found ourselves leaving the pub, quite pissed, at 22:53!! (every pub in Botswana closes at 22:00 on a weekday and 23:00 on a weekend) neither Jenny or I remember much of the ride home or what we did when we got there, all we know is we fell asleep.
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