We headed to a different cafe today for coffee, Instore deli, which the barista had recommended yesterday (his cafe being closed on a Saturday), he also mentioned that yesterday the South African National champion barista was making coffee there from 10 - 12 & 2 - 4. The coffee was lovely & as it was also an artesian bakery we purchased a pecan loaf.
On our way home we missed a left hand turn & ended up in the township, which felt a bit scary. Lots of rubbish, it was so different to the usual suburbs that we’ve been to. Lots of people around & especially children & nobody walking along staring at their mobile phones!!
There was dogs, cows (we had stopped on our way to let a cow cross the road) chickens & a couple of horses just wandering around. Their homes were made out of corrugated iron, really close together & most had DSTV satellite dishes. We saw a group of 3 toddlers who seemed to just be wondering along the side of the road (no footpaths here & just lots of dirt, no gardens & the road was quite potholey). We had no problems (car doors locked & I kept my phone which I was trying to use to work out how we “got out”, on my lap but I certainly won’t want to drive that way in the dark.
I guess Jeffery’s Bay has grown a lot which means the township is now an outer surburb so to speak, we usually drive through the township but on a good road with the houses a long way from the road.

The suburb where our apartment is (Martinique Marina) is in a gated community, set on canals, there are a number of other gated communities & if you drive further along Dolphin Road there are some really nice & quite big houses. I’m not sure how welfare & health care works in South Africa but I have noticed a bigger difference between “rich” or “middle class” & the “poor”. I do know that in Australia some of the aboriginal settlements would probably look similar to the townships, although I believe the housing starts in better condition.
Once back on the correct road, just a lot further on, we drove to Paradise Beach across the causeway, which looks like it would only be useable at certain times, tide dependant, we had a drive around & then drove past our gate house & to our nearest beach. We parked & got out the car but the wind was so strong even in the car park we were being “exfoliated” by sand & decided today wasn’t the day to walk on the beach!!
This afternoon I’ve done the ironing, some embroidery & also Skyped Lynne. Richard has watched the EPL live, very novel for him.
During my Skype it started to storm, no rain at that time but fork lightning & then the thunder started, about an hour later the rain started & we still had a storm, we’ve had some water leaking onto the closed in stoep & also a drip to our left which we haven’t been able to locate (very annoying, maybe in the wall?) not sure I’ve experienced a storm that’s lasted so long for approximately 3 hours we had thunderstorms.
Umm I wonder how much water this canal holds & what there flooding plan is .......

Richard has found out that unemployment is at 27% in South Africa, with youth unemployment being 52%, a labourer earns on average $1.90 per hour, in Australia unemployment is 5%, the youth rate being 11% & a labourer earns on average $22.50 per hour.