Friday 3 September: Homeward Bound!

This will be the last blog in the series. I’ve arrived safely at O. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg for my homeward flights, first to Dubai and then on to Birmingham, where I’m due to arrive at lunchtime tomorrow.

What a full and remarkable two weeks it’s been. Only two weeks ago, I was boarding my outward bound flight. The ‘International Congress on Calvin Research’ already seems a long time ago. Even Matlosane seems to be weeks rather than days in the past, because I’ve done so much and covered so many miles in the last three days. There are lots of photos on my phone, and even more memories in my head. The whole fortnight has been an experience to treasure and I’m grateful to all those who made it possible – family, colleagues at Lichfield Cathedral, funders and hosts. It would have been still lovelier to share the experience with Cathy and the boys. But if I'm going to be apart from them for a couple of weeks, these are the circumstances in which I'd choose to do it.

The B&B in Middelburg was a good call. The owners were thoroughly helpful and the accommodation exceptionally comfortable. I never eat breakfast at home. In the ordinary course of things my appetite doesn’t wake up until midday. But when cooked-breakfast smells are wafting in the air, I get hungry much earlier than usual – especially when it’s combined with the knowledge that breakfast is already paid for! So I tucked into a slap-up feast, before hitting the road at 8am.

It should have been a two-and-a-quarter hour drive to Maporeng, the Museum of the Cradle of Humanity. My host at the B&B persuaded me that Pretoria is hardly worth a half-day visit, and that it would be a shame to be so close to Jo’burg and not visit the place where the earliest humanids are believed to have lived. But – despite the investment of some time on Google maps – I got hopelessly lost in the motorway network near Pretoria. Out of town motorway driving in South Africa has been a pleasure. But the stretch around Jo’burg/Pretoria is like Spaghetti Junction outside Birmingham, or like the bits of the M25 around London which connect with the M40, M4 and M3 near Heathrow – with the added difficulty (for me) that I don’t have the basic geography to know whether a signposted place is in the right direction or utterly the wrong one. On top of that, its clear that South Africa embarked on a massive national infrastructure upgrade for the World Cup, and failed to finish it all. So these major highways are also major roadworks. Anyway, I turned north at one point at a motorway intersection, instead of south. And because I believed that was the right thing to do, I persisted in that direction much too long, and got deeper and deeper into the suburbs of Pretoria and further and further from where I was supposed to me.

No matter. Eventually I arrived at Maporeng. The museum is located close to the place where ‘Mrs Ples’ (the skull of one of the earliest and certainly the best example of one of the early humanids: the 'australopithecus africanus', if you must know) was found. The museum sets out to tell the story of the evolution of the planet, as well as of the human race, with a strong conservation message and an emphasis on the damage this generation of humans is doing to the Earth. I chuckled on arrival however: the first stretch of the museum takes the form of a lazy-river. There’s no alternative. It’s not an option for kiddies only. All visitors are expected to clamber into circular floats, which are then swept along a water course for 20 minutes or so, as you are taken back in time to the origins of the human race. I had a float all to myself, and sat there in a bewildered sort of humour, thinking that I really needed a couple of 5 year olds with me to get the most out of the ride.

Mostly, the museum is well conceived and delivers a powerful message. But I did also laugh at some of the overblown rhetoric. My favourite phrase was this one: ‘Africa is the birthplace of humankind. This is where our collective umbilical chord lies buried’. Birthplace yes. Collective umbilical chord? I don’t think so!
Happily the journey from the museum to the airport proved easy enough and I was able to return the hire car in good time. It served me well. I’ve covered over 1000 miles in the last four days, much of it on dirt tracks rather than tar roads. I’ve bumped over pot-holes and sped too fast on occasion. I’ve negotiated alarming motorway junctions and gunned the engine anxiously at ‘four way stops’ in isolated areas. I’ve passed road-signs which have said, ‘High Risk of Hijack’, and those which have said, ‘Stay in your vehicle. Wild Animals’. But I’ve stayed safe (despite the national strike, which has still not been resolved) and have felt the risks to be reasonable. Still, it was a relief to arrive at the rental returns srea without a breakdown or a prang.

Now I’m hoping for flights which are not seriously delayed. I won’t mind the hours in the air, or the three-hour stop-over in Dubai. I’m back to work on Sunday, and there’s a sermon to write for the Sung Eucharist in Lichfield Cathedral in the meantime. I don’t think I’ll be short of material.

PS: two of these pictures have been uploaded at Dubai International Airport, where I've now arrived safely, and from where I posted the first blog in this series two weeks ago.