Yes, we’re still alive!
We know we have been a little quiet for the last few days and the blog has fallen behind again. We have both been very busy, and Dan has also still been getting pretty tired while recovering. Add two small children into the mix and, unfortunately, sitting down at the end of the day to write the blog has had to take a bit of a backseat. We are still keeping notes though, and we promise we will catch up!
Our last night in Marloth Park wasn’t exactly the best night’s sleep. We had a number of power cuts during the night, which wouldn’t normally have been too much of a problem except that our air conditioning unit had a very helpful feature where it played a long and very loud tune every time the came back on. After hearing that a number of times through the night, we were all fairly pleased when morning eventually arrived.
Despite that, we managed to get ourselves packed up and out of our accommodation at a reasonably sensible time, largely thanks to Quartermaster Chris rather than Quartermaster Dan this time! We loaded everything back into the car and started the roughly two-and-a-half-hour trip towards Nelspruit.
Not long after leaving Marloth Park we came across the aftermath of a very serious truck crash on the main road. One of the trucks had clearly caught fire and there were large wrecks across part of the road. What struck us was how differently the accident scene was being handled compared with what we would normally see at home. The road hadn’t been completely closed and traffic was still slowly making its way around the wreckage. It was clearly a very serious accident and quite confronting to drive past.
Once we reached Nelspruit we made a quick stop at the mall because Isaac still needed something suitable to wear to the wedding. We managed to find him a shirt, ticked that job off the list and then headed about 20 minutes south to the wedding venue.
Once we arrived, Dan went pretty much straight into bridesmaid and wedding-setup mode. There was the chapel to organise, the reception area, the canapé area and lots of other little things around the venue that needed to be sorted before the big day. It was one of those days that was very exciting if you were actively involved in all of the setup, although perhaps a little less exciting if you were mostly waiting for things to happen!
While all of that was going on, Chris and Karl went back to town for a haircut. Chris then dropped Karl back for his rehearsal and headed off to swap our rental car for the car we were actually supposed to have had for the previous week. Because of all the changes to our trip, we had missed the original collection, so there was another round of rental-car admin and moving luggage around before we finally had the car we needed for the next part of the trip. Fortunately Dans parents were at the venue and able to keep Isaac out of mischief so Dan could focus on her bridesmaid duties.
We ended up spending a large part of the day at the wedding venue before eventually moving on to Oluchi Lodge, where everyone was gathering for a large outdoor barbecue. Some of the meat ended up being cooked more like a braai anyway, so perhaps it was a bit of both!
Oluchi Lodge itself was really lovely. We had a very comfortable room with our own little private swimming pool, and after several nights of fairly firm beds it was also very nice to discover a properly soft and comfortable bed. The deck wasn’t particularly Isaac-friendly because the railings weren’t suitable for a small child, but with a little bit of rearranging we were able to make the room itself reasonably safe for him, which made life much easier.
The barbecue area was beautiful, but unfortunately it was even less suitable for Isaac. There were lots of stairs, uneven ground and several places where the barriers were high enough that a determined one-year-old could simply crawl underneath them and potentially fall a very long way onto rocks below. Naturally, Isaac thought all of these things looked extremely interesting and wanted to investigate every single one.
After another very big day he was also well and truly over everything, and because we couldn’t safely put him down to crawl around, he was having none of it. Chris eventually took him back down to our room, which happened to be underneath the party, and managed to get him settled and off to sleep.
Around the same time we discovered another problem. Isaac had just finished his last bottle and we suddenly realised that the baby formula was missing. We weren’t sure whether it had been left behind at the wedding venue while we were moving bags around during the rental-car swap, so Vicki once again came to our rescue.
Vicki drove Dan back to the wedding venue to have a look, but unfortunately there was no formula there. She then took Dan into town in the evening to find a supermarket and buy some more, which was very much appreciated. Baby formula is one of those things that you don’t really want to discover is missing just as your baby finishes the last bottle!
Eventually everyone had what they needed, Isaac was asleep, and the day started to wind down. Chris and the boys stayed at Oluchi Lodge for the night, while Dan headed back to the wedding venue to spend the final night with Whitney and the bridesmaids.
After weeks of travelling, hospitals, Kruger, Marloth Park and everything else in between, we were finally here.
Tomorrow is wedding day!
Chris, Dan, Karl and Isaac