There was no way I could head home early from South Africa back to Queensland without taking in a World Cup football match, I mean the atmosphere here has been totally electric!!

Firstly I was down in Cape Town to visit a good friend of mine Jason Cummings whose family I’ve known for years as they own the Beaver Creek Coffee Farm in port Edward where I lived. Jason left for Cape Town years ago and is now the Business Director of a cutting edge digital marketing company called Big Wednesday who operate from a pretty sexy office setup right in the centre of South Africa’s mother city.

As the Best Job in the World campaign was right up there street he asked me ages ago to talk to their staff and clients all about the project, the digital side of it and why on earth I won. I flew down to CT for a few days, explored the city again, soaked up the pre-World Cup atmosphere, made a presentation and had a night out on the town with hundreds of over people on Long Street. It truly was an international festival of fun!

I flew back to Durban ready to take in one last activity before flying back to Queensland – a World Cup game! Having worked whilst on holiday for Emirates and the KZN Government I was able to get a pretty decent ticket for the opening game at the Moses Mabida Stadium in Durban.

After a fantastic welcome party at uShaka complete with Zulu dancers Ina Cronje the Finance Minister who has very kindly been looking after me whilst here in SA, and I headed in convoy through the streets of Durban past waves of gold and green Australia supporters to the stadium. Where were the German fans??

It looked absolutely stunning with lines of people entering from the Fan Parks, lights beaming up into the sky and a buzz I’ve never really felt before from a sports match. We made our way to our seats which happened to be about three rows away from the South African President Jacob Zuma and settled in for a good game…..at least I hoped so!

Germany v Australia could have been a well-fought match I thought, ok on paper Germany should easily beat the Socceroos but I saw the Aussies play a few months ago and they looked pretty effective – although it was against Indonesia.

The sound of the vuvuzela’s was deafening, they’re an African horn which everyone is using here and the sounds goes around the neighbourhoods from 5am until 1am – literally ALL day and here was no different.

As soon as the whistle went the German team looked typically efficient, well organised and methodical – exactly as we’ve come to expect. Within 10 minutes the first goal had tugged at the back of the net – a blasting drive from Podolski, and the Germans never looked back.

By half time the scoreline had been doubled with Klose heading in from close range and the halftime whistle couldn’t have come early enough for the disillusioned Australians – something was missing – virtually any resistance or midfield!

To be fair they did return to the pitch with renewed vigour and drive; finding men, completing passes and generally offering some determination that just hadn’t been seen in the first half….until Tim Cahill was shown a totally unjustified straight red card reducing the team down to 10 men for the remainder of the game.

And the Germans took full advantage – it was backs to the walls for the Socceroos and two more goals were to follow in what turned out to be a complete walkover – GERMANY 4 AUSTRALIA 0

A comprehensive message sent out to the other teams who think they stand a chance in this World Cup. They were good….very good.

COME ON ENGLAND – YOU HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO TO BEAT THIS LOT!!!

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Not a bad place to be hey?

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The 89km race took loads out of me and my legs are only now back to full strength after sitting on my ass for two days relaxing in the winter sunshine of the Drakensberg mountains at Didima Camp near Catherdral Peak.

A few pictures from the race are below and there’s also a few of the camp too, so rather than dribble on as I usually do I’ve prepared two videos to summarise the experience. The first giving a tour of the route and the second a longer version showing how I took on the race. Enjoy.

Tour of the Route

The Race itself

Back on the blog again soon…

Ben

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It’s now a couple of days later and the legs are starting to recover – I can almost lower myself into a chair without using my arms! Downhills and stairs are still pretty challenging mind and it’ll be a couple more days before I can even think about going for another run…maybe I should just chill for a while.

After the race I headed up into the Drakensberg mountains to a place called Didima to get away from the outside world and it’s the perfect place to recover I can tell you. With views to Cathedral Peak and the entire mountain range the only disturbance up here is the occasional baboon trying to get into the room. Beware people!

Having some spare time has given me the chance to put together a couple of short movies about the Comrades which I filmed enroute during the Tour of the Route and the race itself but having a very limited internet connection means I won’t be able to get them up here for viewing until later in the week. They’ll also be some awesome pics of the sunrise over the peaks too.

Off horseriding this morning and the quad-biking too to explore the area as my legs just about get me to the restaurant at the moment!

Back with you soon

Ben

Having fought my way through the minefield of adverts and booking agents I worked out there is in fact only one operator who leaves the Shelley Beach harbour and heads out to Protea Banks – rocky reef around 7.5 kms from the coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

The reef is a series of caves which sit up from the ocean floor offering shelter from the currents for the resident sharks which change throughout the seasons. Hammerhead, Tiger, Great White and Reef Sharks frequent the area but at this time of year we are only likely to see Ragged Tooth – oh well better than nothing I suppose!

The weather on the morning of the dive was just about perfect. With no wind for the two days leading up to my morning meet, the ocean was perfectly flat with just the usual Indian Ocean swell rolling in from the east.

As we pulled into the carpark ‘African Dive Adventures’ inflatable the ‘Black Pearl’ was easy to spot on the trailer with our dive tanks stacked around and a few guys wrapped up warm against the morning chill.

Roland, the Divemaster, was there to welcome me and introduced Kyle our skipper and the other 3 divers for the trip. Is that it? Just six of us! I’d expected a boat-load at least. Oh well less people in the water has to be better…or does that increase the probability of being eaten!?

Once I’d found some kit that a) fitted and b) worked with leaking air (a little worrying!) we loaded it all onto the boat and walked down to the water’s edge. It’d be too much weight for us all to launch from the trailer so we walk into the shore-break and climb onboard there…or that’s what they tell us, personally I think it’s just to make sure we’re all awake!

Kyle times the launch and then powers the Black Pearl through the incoming waves and we head out into open water, the sun’s rays just starting to warm the side of my face as it breaks the cloud on the horizon for the first time today.

Its quite deceiving you know; back on the shore the waves seemed pretty small and there was hardly any surf, but out here the rolling ocean swell is much more noticeable and our little boat seems dwarfed as we pitch up and down.

Once we reach the dive site there are three other boats out here already, fisherman all out with the early worm hunting for that elusive game-fish which are common in these waters too. But were not here for such small fry, oh no this is shark territory!

Roland runs through our safety procedures and announces we’ll be dropping straight down to nearly 40 metres below the surface to maximise our bottom time and our interaction with the beasts below. This could be interesting –I haven’t dived this deep for a few months and hope my ears hold up with the pressure.

Camera at the ready, masked prepared, regulator in? With a quick backwards roll I hit the water and start to descend. Passing 5, 10, 15 and into 20 metres of 24c Indian Ocean which as first glance looks pretty murky. Not ideal.

Dropping this quickly and trying to keep up with the group needs constant equilisation so I’m wiggling my jaw and filling my nose to clear the pressure in my ears almost every other second. We finally start to level out around 35 metres and for the first time I can have a look around at my surroundings.

The water down here is much clearer than up high, it appears we’ve dropped through the algae and plankton that’s above and entered the colder, clearer waters below with visibility up to around 25 metres.

The bottom is mainly rock interspersed with sand and compared to the Great Barrier Reef pretty devoid of life…maybe I’ve just been spoilt over the last few months! There are fish swimming around with a few colourful stripy ones being particularly curious of my camera.

But were not here for the small stuff – we’ve come here to see Ragged Tooth sharks who rest up here on the ocean floor during the daylight hours after a hard night hunting their prey!

As we swim over an opening in the rocks I see for the first time the entrance to the first cave and the familiar outline of sharks below. My heart rate starts to quicken…

Following Roland’s lead we descend into the cave and as my eyes adjust to the darker conditions I start to make out the outline of loads and loads of them – there must be at least 30 Raggies all congregating here!

Once I’m on the bottom I notice my breathing has accelerated in anticipation and I deep breath to bring it back under control – I do not want to run out of air too quickly, this experience is amazing.

As I film the larger of the sharks become more active and start to swim over and around us taking large circling routes above our heads which makes great pictures but also raises the stakes of the game slightly. This is what you’ve come here for Ben so enjoy it.

Ragged Tooth aren’t known for their man-eating abilities but at this stage that doesn’t matter – when these 3 metre creatures come within a few centimetres of you their huge rake-angled teeth look pretty damn mean I can tell you!

We sit on the bottom and watch for a few minutes and the sharks swim around us, checking us out, sizing us up or maybe just trying to get slightly further away from these weird bubble-blowing objects sat in their midst.

With more still to see and a ten minute decompression stop still to do Roland leads out of the cave and across the reef to another entrance, this time a swim-through. We descend into the darkness and follow each other through a small, restrictive tunnel – if your claustrophobic this is definitely not for you!

As we break the other end we enter another cave, this one slightly deeper and on the bottom there are our carnivorous friends again, about 20 of them circling slowly in the weak neap tide current below.

There are very few other fish around, probably a good thing if you’re the prey of a shark I know, but its very noticeable and some say that the area has become too popular with local sport fisherman or maybe its just the lull before the storm of the Sardine Run which starts in a few weeks time.

This incredible spectacle transforms these waters into a massive feeding pot for a few weeks every year as the migrating sardines moving from the cooler water off the Algulhas current enter the warmer waters of the Benguela current and come inshore. In fact so inshore that millions of the tiny fish actually beach all along the Kwa-Zulu Natal coastline much to the delight of local fisherman who net them, the birds that attack from above and the game-fish, dolphins, sharks and whales who reap the rewards from below. It is truly awesome.

Having spent around 25 minutes in the bottom at 35 metres there is a long decompression stop to do on our ascent so we leave the cave and head back up towards the sunlight above. The murky waters above are actually quite interesting when you have to hover and wait in them for ten minutes. The plankton, tiny creatures and jellyfish all swim about on their own little missions and its interesting wondering what they are all about – or maybe I’m feeling narc’d after the dive!

Once we’re back on the boat, de-kitted and warmer Kyle starts the engines and we turn back to the mainland. We didn’t get to see a Tiger or a Great White but we did have around 70 Ragged Tooth’s and I’m happy with that for my first real shark dive.

On the way back we get just one more little bonus as a school of dolphins race along in the waters next to us just in the range of my camera. Perfect.

It was great to finally have the chance to dive in South African waters after coming here for so many years on holiday but without a PADI qualification and the day delivered exactly what it promised. It will be great to get back to Australia and see the multitude of life that is there on the Great Barrier Reef but for now I have whetted the appetite to dive with sharks.

Now, where can I find some bigger and more deadly ones…

Ben

Well I’ve made it to South Africa and took the drive from the airport in Joburg down the N2 to Durban and then turned right and down the south coast, along the N3 to the little town of Port Edward. It took me 8hours to get there but there’s something I love about the drive. After spending all of 2008 on the road in Africa (www.afritrex.com) covering 65,000kms it was good to get back in the saddle again and hit the long roads of the dark continent.

The country is going football crazy, and understandably so. With the FIFA World Cup starting in under a month there are signs, adverts and promotions everywhere.

It’s just what Africa needs – the entire continent is football crazy! I watched the African Cup of Nations final between Egypt and Cameroon which ended    1 -0 and the city went berserk with cars and people filling the streets for hours after the game. Luke and I sat and watched as police cars raced around with their lights and horns blazing all in support of Arab Africa beating Black Africa.

For the 2008 Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea I was in Matadi in the Democratic Republic of Congo sitting in a tiny little shack of a bar with a rowdy group of french-speaking football lovers, 50% supported each side and I was stuck in the middle cheering for Man U. The atmosphere was incredible with shouting, jeering and barracking amongst all of us and I will never forget it. Football was the winner!

I’ll be here for the start of the tournament and can’t wait for South Africa (or Bafana Bafana as they’re known here) to hit the turf in Joburg on June 11th closely followed by England (my team) and then Australia (my adopted team) on the 14th June which I’m desperately trying to get tickets for now…if you know of anyone with a ticket then shout!

Off shark diving in a couple of days time so will be back with another exciting movie very soon…

Over and out for now

Ben

So i’m off to my old hunting ground, South Africa and there’s a few different reasons I’m heading back to the country where I earnt my Southern Hemisphere Wings….

a) a couple of weddings first in Port Edward and one later on in Pietermaritzurg – Katie Vorster who I first met in 1997 when I came out to Port Edward and then my friends Patrick and Sarah who I met whilst travelling down through Africa in 2008 during Afritrex

b) to dive with sharks off the Aliwal Shoal and Protea Bank sites off the east coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal. It should be a good time of year to witness some of the Tiger Sharks and maybe even a Great White or two!

c) to enter and complete the Comrades Ultramarathon. I’ve been training as hard as I can whilst home in Brisbane and I’m hoping that I have enough practice km’s in my legs to carry me through to the finish of the Comrades in Durban. The course this year is 89.28kms long and is the ‘downhill’ and in most people’s eyes that the easy way……oh no it’s not! The constant smashing of the knee and ankle joints resulting from running downhill for up to 12 hours make it THE most difficult of the two I can guarantee that!

Here’s the route map and one of the profile showing the Big Five Hills! :

d) to present to a number of organisations around Durban all about the Best Job, and

e) hopefully take in a World Cup football game, ideally Australia v’s Germany in Durban

And I know I’m on holiday but I have the overwhelming urge to continue to blog about the experience but obviously I won’t be updating the www.islandreefjob.com website as it’s not Queensland related…but I have all of my cameras with me ready to record everything I get involved in.

Bring on the race, the sharks and the football!

Over and out for now

Ben

National Geographic Traveler (spelling Americans come on!) asked for a few photos to back up the article they will be publishing here in China in a few weeks time and it gave me a chance to sort through some of the iconic images which I loved about spending a year on the road experiencing an exciting continent. The memories come flooding back when I think how great the challenge and adventure was.

If you haven’t yet been then visit the website I created which tells you all about the longest drive of my life (62,000kms actually!)

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It’s one of the questions that loads of the journalists I’ve spoken to have wanted to find the answer to.

It’s also a little bit of a different answer to that which most people would imagine and one of adventure and achieving a dream.

After I’d visited Africa for the first time back in 1997 something inside of me had changed. I’d lost the desire to sit in an office working as a Automotive Engineer, the subject which I’d studied at university and I’d been infected by the need to travel. To get out of the UK and learn as much as I could about other people, other ways of life and other countries.

Afritrex became my goal and my next big challenge; combining the dream of driving around the outside of the African continent taking on some serious physical challenges and raising lots of money for charity.

When I sat down with Richard Fidler in the ABC studios in Brisbane, it was this past that he wanted to find out all about. For half an hour I whittled on about goals, dreams and challenges…

To hear the interview please click on the link here. My interview starts halfway through at 30:00 minutes after a very amusing lady by the name of Hannah Gadsby.