It’s cold, it’s white and it’s bloody brilliant

Skiing in Africa? Well no. But we did snowboard. In an explosive weekend of pub story provoking activity, we have come away to Rhodes, which nestles nicely amongst huge mountains and is a 45 minute drive to Tifendell Ski Resort. It was always going to be a good idea to go there, regardless of how crap it was. As we waited to get our lift passes I drolly drew a short straight line on my hand with my pen and said, “check it out, I have drawn a piste map”. Everyone agreed that I was not funny.

But I was pleasantly surprised when we got up there. The only run that was open was short, but long enough to get up some speed. The snow was that nice soft sugary snow, before it goes too sugary and turns into waves that you can’t carve through. The tow lift was a button, but not one of those jerky ones that tears at your undercarriage. No, it was gentle. It wasn’t anywhere near as busy as it would have been in Scotland in those conditions. In fact it was nice and quiet. I only banged into one child and he was asking for it anyway. I did not draw blood and it will teach him to look around him in future.

There weren’t really any black people there. Having said that, there haven’t really been any black people when I have skied in Austria. The difference there is that most people in Austria are not black. So it was a bit of a weird bubble up there in the snow and it was extremely odd and cool to see two black men walking down the hill in massive blankets and balaclavas with walking sticks. They might have been from Lesotho. Not sure. It made us all feel a bit soft for being dragged up the hill by a tow lift.

Roger and Karen are here. They are to be married very soon. And Richard, the medical student came too. It is a good group of folk, unless Karen is given too much sugar. It is nice to fill the car when you go away and even nicer when the folk are good craic and chilled out.

We camped on the Saturday because, annoyingly, our self-catering accommodation was only available Friday and Sunday. So a bit of upheaval, but it has been fun. The camping was pretty Baltic and I am not sure my nose has thawed out yet but we had scrounged lots of cold weather gear from Karl and Sally (next door neighbours) so we were fine. Richard and I steeled ourselves for the night with several beers, a chat with a man called Grandad, a game of rugby and last, but not least, a shot of Underberg. Underberg is horrible. It comes in little bottles that fit into an ammo belt. The last time I drank anything like that was in Thailand and that was a laxative for cleansing my system. Fortunately this didn’t have that effect, but it wasn’t delicious.

Grandad and Tony, the two pissed old lads at the bar told us in a roundabout way about how the country is going to bollocks now the blacks are in charge. There were several Zimbabwean monetary notes stapled to the wall as a warning and some jokey ones with Jacob Zuma plus shower attachment and a figure of 600,000,000 rand. They were generally very anti-immigration, but we decided to go the way of talking about farts, rather than engaging in a discussion about how London relies on immigrants to be successful. “Shit, was that you?”. “Yes, sorry Grandad.”, was all I could offer. Tony thought it was only fair after the car journey that he had recently endured with Grandad and Grandad’s arse. Grandad also explained that we were in the southern Drakensberg. Many people say that Underberg (the place, not the spirit) is in the Southern Drakenberg. They are wrong people and they must be stopped. We got to the stage where we were thinking of invading.

We got mad props from the two of them for living in the Transkei. Tourists nowadays are a bunch of softies, but we seemed to be okay because our electricity goes off sometimes.

Now we are back after our awesome boarding and feeling justifiably sleepy and almost ready for a beer to round things off. I have skied in Africa and that is great. Almost better and dramatically cheaper was yesterday, when we found a patch of snow up another hill and used a big orange bivvy bag to sledge about on. Needless to say silly photos were taken and everyone got a wet bum.

This accommodation is wonderful. A big old barn of a farmhouse with lots of furniture one would see at a grandparents house. Makes me think of my Gran, whose house has just been sold as she is in a home now. It is a homely place with heavy pots and character. The maid has come in and cleaned and made the most incredible fire for us. It is made so that all you have to do is throw a match in and it goes. The level of service is pretty remarkable considering that we are paying R120 per person per night. I wonder what she gets paid.