We arrived in very humid conditions at 10 am at Durban airport and collected our bags for the half hour coach journey to the Oyster Box Hotel. When we arrived we straight away had a swim for an hour and then settled down for lunch. It took an hour and a half for all the boys to get their food but it was worth the wait. We were all then sent to our rooms and stayed in there for a couple of hours writing our dairies and watching the Pakistan v South Africa match. We then had another swim and met the Ushers who were old Northcote parents. We had dinner with them and the service was much better. After dinner they left and the fifteen boys went to bed. The next day we had breakfast and departed for the Ushers' beach house. The journey took about an hour. We arrived at the house and it wasn't long before a ball was thrown through a window, breaking it. At midday we went down to the beach where several people cut their feet on the rocks but despite that everyone had a relaxing swim. We then had lunch and another swim; and it was soon the end of the day. Most of us slept on the verandah outside which was great fun.

We left the beach house after breakfast to play against Clifton and to stay the night there. We arrived, had lunch and then went straight into the match. We bowled well and got Clifton all out for 104 but could not adjust to the pitch and temperature for our batting and were bowled out for a miserable total of 35. After the match the teachers went to a bed and breakfast and the boys stayed at Clifton. We had a quick swim and then dried off and had a giant football match, South Africa v England, and unfortunately South Africa won. We then watched a movie and went to sleep.

We left Clifton School after an early breakfast and headed for Cowan House where our next match would take place. We played well but we were unlucky to lose. Soon we were leaving for our depressingly long coach journey to the Sani Pass which is situated on the border of Lesotho and South Africa. We arrived and everybody was tired and we departed for our rooms and a swim afterwards. The next day we went up the Sani Pass but we got stuck on the border for an hour where our driver had to argue with customs. Lesotho was very cold and the houses the people lived in were small and basic. We ate bread which was good and beer which was not the tastiest. The next day we departed for Pietermaritzburg where we had our day/night match at the Oval against the Lancashire Colts. We played well and won.

The next morning we woke up at Cordwalles boarding house. We then played them in a match and got 166 runs and beat them by about 30 runs. After that we went to stay with our host families. In the morning we went to the game reserve where we stayed for two days. We saw lots of dangerous animals like elephants, lions, hyenas, zebras, giraffes, hippos and rhinos.

It was a very successful trip and we all had great fun.

9^th Feb 1^st XI v. Clifton, Nottingham Road
Clifton 104
Northcote 35
Clifton won by 69 runs

10^th Feb 1^st XI v. Cowan House
Northcote 87
Cowan House 88 for 2
Cowan House won by 8 wickets

12^th Feb 1^st XI v. Lancashire Colts, Pietermaritzburg
Northcote 159 for 6 (James O'Neill 55no, Hugo Darby 37)
Lancashire Colts 57
Northcote won by 102 runs

13^th Feb 1^st XI v. Cordwalles, Pietermaritzburg
Northcote 166 for 4 (Tom Cowper-Coles 79, Fabio Turner 38 ret)
Cordwalles 134 for 3
Northcote won by 32 runs

by Charlie Gorst, Ben Geffen and Freddie Reed