Lions diary, day twelve

An apology for the late installment of day twelve: but only a huge dinner can alleviate the stress of having to navigate Bloemfontein.

Another humble apology for the late installment of the tour diary: but when all is said and done, only a huge dinner and several drinks can alleviate the stress of having to navigate Bloemfontein.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad place. The locals are friendly, the climate is good – if a bit nippy at nights – the steaks are out of this world, there's lots of space for everyone to live in and it seems safe and quiet at nights compared to Johannesburg.

For my dinner date, I was told to head to The Waterfront. I did ask for directions, and was told it was on the right-hand side of the stadium, that it would be a big mall that would be easy to find.

Well, possibly for the locals. For myself it was a case of making three complete circuits of the stadium trying to find a road which simply did not seem to exist and which eventually was found by driving through the entrance to an office block, behind which the mall was tucked away in all its glory. I had indeed driven past it a couple of times as well, but being as the word 'Waterfront' was the one word utterly absent from its exterior, I think I can forgive myself for not finding it…

Finding the restaurant in this mall was tough, but manageable once I had located the mall information screen which I had also passed a good three or four times on account of the fact that it was designed precisely to look like one of those big advertising screens your mind has long since been trained to filter out of your vision.

But all of that paled into insignificance when compared to being asked to find your car in the parking bays again.

We walked to the floor we thought it was on and found that instead of level M2, we were on M3. Fair enough, honest mistake, mildly embarrassing. We dropped down a level to… M1. We then walked from one end of the mall to the other, opining that M2 must be on the same level as M3 but at the other end… nothing doing. We walked back. We found a lift. We looked at the sign explaining the floors.

At the top of the sign was the basement, below that, the ground floor, below that, the second floor… you get the picture. So above M3 on the sign was indeed M1, which took some getting used to mentally in itself, but that was but a minor jolt compared to the sudden burst of mental acrobatics caused by the discovery that M2 was below M3 on the sign, meaning above it in real terms, meaning level M2 was not, as you'd assume, sandwiched numerically between levels M1 and 3, but that the levels rose into the air M1, M3, M2…

If that paragraph confuses you, you have half the feeling I had on Friday night.

Back to the climate: it's not often you get to go on a winter sports tour where you can spend an afternoon sunbathing in 20-degree plus sunshine by the pool, but here is that place, as the team found out yesterday.

That kind of relaxation also lends itself to tomfoolery, taken to a new level by one of the fitness coaches.

This chap – he shall remain anonymous – is something of a gymnast, and opted to show this off by hanging horizontally off one of the lamp-posts around the pool. He did indeed manage to keep himself horizontal, but the lamp-post found the struggle to hold itself vertical under the extra weight too much and snapped, ending the stunt in a few shards of broken glass and a hail of hysterical laughter.

Finally, a word to the hosts, who have had everything imagineable laid on to a tee. Buses to and from the stadia, substantial meals and drinks at the venues to keep us through the long lonely hours after the games and answers to every question. They have been wonderful.

There is a bus laid on to and from the stadium in Bloemfontein too, which is lovely. But it seems a mite unnecessary when you can actually see the stadium from the reception of the hotel? I, and many others, will enjoy the 1km walk on Saturday..

Journal kept by Richard Anderson