The outskirts of Durban

I'd been looking forward to arriving in Durban for a while, as it was going to be the first big city we'd been in for quite a while (and I was looking forward to swanky restaurants and lively nightlife). We'd also had a kind offer from a friend of a friend that we'd met way back in Johannesburg. This friend (Bernd) had a holiday home just outside Durban, and had kindly offered to let us stay there. I felt awkward accepting such an offer from a complete stranger at first, but we met Berndt twice, and both times I ended up paying for his dinner. Apparently the guy was quite wealthy too, so I assumed we wouldn't be putting him out of his way at all by accepting.

I was also looking forward to being able to spend a few days just chilling out, thinking we'd have a lovely place all to ourselves in a lovely location for next to nothing.

Anyway, when we arrived at Umhlanga Rocks (actually a really posh district north of Durban city) we had to phone Bernd to arrange to get the keys - at which point he tells Sarah that we can certainly stay at his place, but that there would be a service charge associated. Naturally we thought this was completely fair, as it was a serviced apartment and so the management company would charge for anyone staying there. The shock came when we heard the amount - 450Rand a night. Up until this point we had been paying 200-250Rand a night for really nice places - the most we have paid in over two months in South Africa is 400Rand a night and that was for the exclusive use of a genuinely fabulous, huge house.

At first I just thought that the place must be an out-of-this-world amazing apartment, so we agreed to spend three nights, although I still thought it was a bit strange. After getting the key from the agent and moving into the apartment we realised that there must have been some kind of miscommunication somewhere along the line - the apartment was very small and actually quite run-down (paint peeling, damp patches, rusty ceiling fan). It did have a great location though, the balcony looked straight out over the crashing ocean, although it didn't have any access to the beach (a major storm in March had caused extensive damage along the shoreline and renovation work was continuing).

Realising that Bernd's kind offer wasn't quite as kind as we'd thought we phoned the agent and reduced our stay to just two nights. The agent informed us that the usual price for renting the apartment was 550Rand a night, so I suppose Bernd was doing us some kind of a favour, but the impression everyone got when he made the initial offer was that we could stay for nothing.

Anyway, Umhlanga wasn't even that great a place. It was all fancy and everything, but had a bit too much of an American-shopping-mall feeling to it. It's saving grace for us though was meeting up with a couple of Irish lads the first night. I think these were the first Irish we'd met on the whole trip and they were a mad laugh. They were both from Kerry and were working at the Durban docks building new cargo cranes (apparently world trade is booming and Durban has a serious lack of capacity), so they knew Umhlanga well. It ended up a very late and slightly bruised night, with Sarah a tad more under the weather than me I have to say. The entire next day was spent with both of us recovering in bed, so we never got much value from our stay (and never got to go to the fanciest restaurant in town, at the Beverly Hills Hotel - actually a really nice place, despite the really off-putting name).

The next morning we checked out of the apartment and went to visit the Natal Sharks Board. These guys are responsible for maintaining the shark nets that protect the swimming beaches of South Africa and they give an educational shark dissection demonstration every day. They inevitably catch sharks in the nets every time they check them - if they are still alive they release them, if dead they use them to try and help educate the public through these dissection talks. The talk was very interesting I have to say, and you get to touch and feel all the cut up bits of the poor 'auld shark at the end.

Next stop was a backpacker place in the heart of Durban city proper (the only reason we moved really was the fact that the backpacker place was sure to be nicer and much cheaper!).