Friday 12th August 2016: drove to Perth ready to fly out on Saturday evening at 11.30pm, which gave us time to catch up with sister Val and our girls, Christine, Dianne, Carolyn and their families. Carolyn is having some very impressive landscaping done in the backyard, which will be completed by the time we get home - looking forward to seeing that. Dianne showed us through the rental that they are moving into while their current house is refurbished - the plans of which look really great. 
 
After dinner on Saturday with the family, we are chauffeured to the airport, as we are now platinum members of Scenic - 11 ½ hours flying time to Johannesburg, nearly 1 ½ hrs to get through immigration lines, met by Scenic and driven on a four lane highway to The Sheraton in Pretoria with 2 others, arriving at 7am.  








 Today, Sunday is free for us before leaving at 6.45 in the morning to catch the Blue Train to Cape Town. On the drive we are amazed at the dryness and the driver tells us that it doesn't rain here in winter, is cold with frosts and quite a few fires. Summer is when it rains - everything is bone dry even in Pretoria, they obviously do very little watering as there is no green grass anywhere, lots of rubbish in the areas that we see. We do go for a walk, but a lovely white South African couple stop their car and tell us they are afraid for our safety as we stand out as tourists and not to walk around in this area, so we take their advice and head back for quiet time in the hotel.
 
Pretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa. Known as "Jacaranda City" for its thousands of jacaranda trees, the city is also known for its universities and government buildings. The semicircular Union Buildings encompass the president's offices and hosted Nelson Mandela's inauguration. A huge statue of him stands in front of the building and overlooks the city and this is the view we get from our window.