Thursday morning was another early start, this time leaving about 6am…it was a 400-500km trip to Joburg. It took over 6 hours…again cold in the morning and hot during the heat of the day.

After arriving at lunch time, we got some rest before getting in some shopping in the afternoon.

Thursday night was simply some family time, and Friday morning we left to go to Nelspruit.

Nelspruit is in the Mpumalunga province, east of Joburg. Driving in the heat of the day, with major traffic for the festival took about 6 hours! We were staying with Susan, Rheanna’s cousin. Another cousin Lisa and her daughter Elarne also came. Friday we had a relatively quiet night in preparation for Saturday.

Saturday we went to the Nelspruit Innibos (Afrikaans translation “in the bush”), a festival/show. Each town has a festival/show, but this is the biggest in South Africa. It is pretty much an Afrikaans festival.
We got there about 11am, and went through the markets/craft area/stalls, where people were displaying all sorts of things. Of course I was drawn to some cool rugby things! There was a beautiful springbok clock, but unfortunately I wouldn’t use it.

As the day wore on it got very hot…and it was fairly crowded too. After going through the markets, we got some food and sat down getting ready for the evening concerts (2pm). The concerts didn’t start until 5pm, so we had 3 hours to kill. There were over 40000 people, and I was 1 of 5 non-whites there (well of those not working anyway)!
Unfortunately there were some hardcore Boers (right wing Afrikaaners) there. I saw possibly 10 people who had t-shirts/caps with old South African flags, or derogatory statements. Those sort of people should be locked up and are a disgrace to the nation. They do not deserve to be South African. At least they are a large minority, but there are still some bad apples out there.

The concerts had some big (well in South Africa) names. South African idol Jody, Patricia Lewis, Eden, Steve Hofmeyr (a favourite of ours, and the second time we have seen him)…and finally the main act Boney M. By night it was freezing cold, I had two thermals and a woollen jacket and gloves on, and was still cold! It finally ended about 11.30pm!