Durban Constitutional change Protest

Bad timing for a protest against the possible changes to the Constitution to remove gay marriage rights with the East Coast Radio big walk on at the same time as well as a taxi strike, but well done to the guys and girls who turned up to show that Durban lesbian and gay community are against any changes to the Constitution which entrenches gay rights.

More photos on the Facebook group here.

Durban Gay Film Fest 17 - 29 May

The Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Fest kicks off this Thursday - check out the programme.

The full film programme is on their website and tickets are R35 each and may be paid for at the door or pre-booked. The festival is being hosted at the KZN Society of Arts at 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, not too far from the guesthouse... so come and enjoy a feast of gayity!!

There's also a link to the google map on their facebook group.

Fun at the guesthouse

Here for the tourism Indaba in Durban, the boys and girls from Gay Flag SA officially hand over a large SA rainbow flag to Dave for the Guesthouse. Thanks guys for joining us at the guesthouse and making it a lively evening and braai.

Eugene, "Lola Fine", Henry and Dave

Henry, Llewellyn and Eugene

Welcome Indaba guests

It's the annual tourism Indaba in Durban, starting tomorrow - it's Africa's biggest tourism show and the whole world will  be in Durban. Our chance to showcase what South African hotels, safari lodges, tour operators, guesthouses and tourism authorities have to offer.

We welcome a guesthouse full load of guests - great to have you guys with us. Tomorrow (Fri 7pm) we are having a bring-and-braai at the guesthouse, so please feel free to join us.

Dave and Llewellyn

Gay Loyalty South Africa

Our loyal and frequent guests will know that we have been running a successful loyalty programme for several years. From the 1st June we will be extending this programme to other select participating guesthouses in South Africa. The programme is being updated and extended to enable you to spend your points at other guesthouses or to spend your points accumulated at those guesthouses here with us. It is an entirely free programme and each guesthouse will be participating without any exchange of money - a way to say thank you to the discerning guests who prefer to stay gay while you are away from home and keep those guests within the gay circle of guesthouses in South Africa.

For every guest booked per night, you will receive 100 points. 1000 points accumulated gives you a FREE single room with your next booking of 2 or more nights. 1500 points for a FREE double room similarly.

We have created a new website for the loyalty programme - Gay Loyalty South Africa - and this will be updated as more guesthouses are added. The participation logo will also appear on the website of those guesthouses who have joined the programme.

SO LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YA ALL AGAIN!!

4 gay Durban boys adventure

Us 4 Durban gay boys took some time out this long weekend in our little aeroplanes on an adventure from Durban to the southernmost tip of Africa. We've had some awesome moments, over hill and dale, mountains and skimmed treetops, through and around clouds, mist and rain, around Table Mountain and the furthest and highest from home I have been in our Sling since getting my PPL licence only a week before we left. We've used R4200 fuel, at an average of 14 litres of 95 unleaded mogas (car petrol) per hour, 25 hours of flight time, covering 3600 kms at approximately 9,7 litres per 100 kms.

Our Airplane

Our locally made top-rated airplane Sling registration ZU - ZDL (Zulu Delta Lima, short for KZN boys Dave and Llewellyn)

Here are some photos of the highlights:

Most scary moments - coming over the Baviaans Mountains and finding a blanket of clouds on our route forward... dived through a gap in the clouds and found rain and mist under, dropping to 200ft above the treetops of a huge forest and finding the sky was fast falling on us. Managed to make a dash towards the sea and a diverted landing at Plettenberg Bay which was fortunately still approachable.

Over the mountains and diving below the clouds

Best meal - Huge seafood platter for 4 for R300 at Angelo's, Cape Agulhas. Best quality and best value and great staff.

Best flight - Flight around Table Mountain and across the Cape Peninsular. Spectacular views at close proximity including Chapman's Peak Drive, Robben Island, Hout Bay, Sandy Bay (:-)) and Fishhoek.

Click on the link here for the video clip rounding Table Mountain to Camps Bay

Best accommodation - Self-catering apartments at the Knysna Waterfront, followed by the Villa @ Cape Agulhas where we had the light from the Agulhas Lighhouse just below sweeping through the room every few seconds. Kept the curtains open and absorbed the experience. Did you know that every lighthouse has it's own secret code (light pattern - Agulhas: one long, followed by two short bleeps of light) and it's own unique paint job... either thick red strips, thick white strips, red/white/red, white/red/whilte, all white etc - so that sailors can distinguish each from the other?

Highest Peaks - Baviaans mountains at Joubertina and Stellenbosch Mountains - climbing to 7500ft is not the higest our airplane can go, but the highest I have been in ZDL, scraping over the peaks and wondering where we could go and who could reach us if there was any problem!!! Not much chance!

Biggest mountains - yes, this big and thousands of feet to the bottom below us

Furthest over the sea - never been more than 500m out to sea, so flying out towards Robben Island in Table Bay and then False Bay to get to Somerset West under Cape Town International Airport Approach instructions at 500 ft above the waves, was the furthest out I have been. Can't imagine the guys from The Airplane Factory, who built our machine, flying for 29 hours across the remotest ocean and islands of Tristan da Counha (the world's most remote) from Rio to Cape Town - brave souls!!!

Best Sushi - definitely 34 South at the Knysna Waterfront. Amazing sushi crumbed and deep fried. Where has this been all my life!

Best Hospitality - Jaco de Vos (local dentist and son) in Port Alfred. This is what makes the aviation community so special. Close knit, friendly, helpful and hospitable. Thank you Dirk and Jaco for looking after us. And Tracey and Justine from Mossel Bay were incredible. All 6 of us squashed in the car and carted fuel to and fro and enjoyed 2 bottles of tequila over a braai, then rolled into bed there. Love you lots girls.. we will return!!!

Tracey knows how to cook, braai, drink and laugh

Best Beer - Kowie Gold, Pilsener (locally brewed in Port Alfred on the Kowie River) and Mitchell's Forrester (brewed in Knysna)

Best Attraction - Cango Caves, Oudtshoorn. You have to do the adventure trail!

Biggest cloud - leaving Oudtshoorn for Mossel Bay we were not sure if we would get over the mountains. Chatting to Marc in ETD behind us I said I think I can go around this giant cloud in the sky. So we sort of swerved right, missed the looming mountain top, swerved left again heading straight for another mountain then climbed around and up and we were past. Sjoe!!

Stongest winds - usually a 30 kts (55 kmh) wind is hectic, but this one reached 70 kts (130 kmh) en route from Port Alfred in the eastern Cape back to KwaZulu-Natal... but our little plane handled it. For some parts of the journey we put on the auto-pilot as it handles turbulance better than holding the stick yourself. Pilots tend to over-react whereas the auto-pilot makes smaller micro-adjustments which give you a smoother flight.

Best landing strip - must be Port St John's where you have this huge mountain with a tar runway on top, and on take-off Lee had to first chase the cows off.

Port St Johns

Best Airfield - Stellenbosch. Beautiful green grass and tarred runway in front of breathtaking mountains. Good ablutions and nice clubhouse and pub.

Best Mates - our good buddies Marc and Lee in their Yellow Submarine. It's not always easy to travel with other folk, but we had 10 amazing days of riotous fun, many drinks and good chatting around the dinner table and in the sky.. especially when I wasn't sure if we should plunge on through the clouds or turn back!!

Marc, Dave, Llewellyn, Lee at Stellenbosch

For the full story and all the photos, click on this link here, then scroll down the blog from the end to day 1. Thanks for reading. It's amazing that over 1000 people have read the blog this past month!!