Our 569km Road Trip From Hillcrest To Johannesburg. (Featuring @goldencookie as Author)

It's surprising how much people are willing to do for the ones they love. Missing my family I decided to take the 569km trip to Johannesburg to go see them. Today I'm taking you with me on this road trip.

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While planning my trip down I mentioned to my boyfriend Daniel that I wanted to write an article about our drive. Being the amazing person he is he decided to code a program that will take photos while we drive that he would later turn into a GIF. I also wanted to write a play by play but decided against it.... it's a 6 hour drive and most of it will be boring... or so I thought.

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The day started with me waking up at around 3am because I was way too excited about seeing my niece and nephew. Who wouldn't be just look at those faces.

So at around 6:17am I was ready to start. Daniel on the other hand was not sharing my sentiment (being fast asleep) and knowing that waking him up right away would make him Mr Grumpy, I decided to let him sleep for a while. Or at least just until I made him some coffee. Looking outside it was dark and cloudy, typical Murphy's Law. "Great", I thought. Pictures were not going to be an option. Fortunately Murphy took mercy on me and by 7am the sky was open and fiercely sunny.

7:45 The car is packed and we are ready to go. We got on the road and started driving... in the wrong direction. Daniel informed me that we needed to make a few detours because he needed to get something to keep his phone in the same spot while we drove so it could take pictures. We also needed to pick up a package for his grandmother. So around 8:30 we were finally back on the road, this time heading in the direction of our destination.

At one point we were driving on a winding mountain pass. I made the comment that this road is probably called dead man's pass. He smiled and said that it was indeed a high accident zone and told me about a guy who was actually a hero. You see on this road there are a lot of trucks, going downhill their brakes sometimes fail and that is disastrous. This man who was now seen as a hero was such a truck driver. Once his brakes failed he tried to safely navigate the traffic but eventually found himself without any gaps. Rather than harm any other motorists he drove directly off the cliff. He survived the fall but sadly his truck caught fire and, unable to escape, he burnt alive.

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As you can imagine a story like that can dampen anyone's mood so on came the tunes. We sang along to Blink 182 and to Dear Future Husband (Megan Trainor) along with many others, when finally we reached our second detour. Fortunately we quickly collected the package and were on our way. It was now 9:45 and we had only traveled about 100 km. This was going to be a long drive.

We soon reached our first toll gate. "Daylight robbery!", Daniel exclaimed but we paid and went on our way knowing that this was the first of many (and this was actually the cheapest one). Deciding that I should lighten the mood I suggested that our first stop for the day should be at the Berg View 1stop in Harrismith. To my disappointment it was still almost 200km away and I was getting hungry as we skipped breakfast.

In order to get there in time for the Spur famous breakfast we may have been speeding a little (okay we did speed), we got caught and were pulled over by the cops. Needless to say Daniel was driving the speed limit after the ticket we got... we also missed breakfast.

Finally at 11:45 we reached our destination. Breathtaking mountain scenery, a cool breeze combined with scorching sunlight on our skin. Leaving the car and stretching our legs gave us some much needed relaxation. Deciding that we would rather have lunch at Wimpy we sat down, had some cool drinks and enjoyed the meal. Alas we still had around 300 km to go and decided to not stay long.

Along the way we were treated to some breathtaking scenery

(Just to show you a few)

We decided to brave the rest of the way without any stops and finally at 15:30 arrived at my mom's house.

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With the permission of their parents I took the kids out of school and spent some time with them. I was surprised at how big they had grown since last I saw them but that was not the only surprise to be had that day. Initial sleeping arrangements were changed and Daniel and I were put into separate rooms, Whitney (the mother of my niece and nephew, wife of my brother Jan) had a baby bump (I was unaware of the pregnancy) not only does she have a baby bump but I also found out that she was 6 months pregnant and that the rest of my family had known for months. Obviously we have terrific communication skills in my family (utter sarcasm)

We spent the rest of the weekend with family and friends and on Sunday we made the long trek back home.

A shout out to Steemit for making it possible for me to see my family again.

Till next time

xoxo
@thegoldencookie

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