It's Mr Gay South Africa tonight

Guest at Durban View Guesthouse Hendrik from Windhoek, Namibia, was delighted to be on the Rainbow cruise this week that hosted the finalists of the Mr Gay South Africa Pagent which culminates in a Grand Finale tonight.

In the photo with Hendrik on board the MSC Sinfonia is finalist Chris McGreggor, who hails from Durban and is looking awesome here at the White Party on board the ship resplendant with wings and cock-tail... mmm

Guesthouse Lizard lays eggs

Some say it's lucky when a lizard decides to lay eggs at your home and this plucky mom chose the Guesthouse driveway to lay her eggs.

If anyone knows what kind of lizard this is, just leave a comment here.

From the top of the world to the deep south

In South Africa we have Cape Agulhas, the southern-most tip of Africa where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic. In Norway the northern-most tip of Europe is at North Cape, where our guests Asbjorn (left) and Kenneth (right) run hotels catering for the thousands of tourists who flock to this part of the world each month. This is also where you can see the famed northern lights.(see photo)

Asbjorn is General Manager of the Rica hotels group which operates three of the hotels in the area and they have taken time out from the hotels which close over the dark winter months to visit Mocambique and us at the guesthouse in Durban. We were honoured to have such busy executives come stay and delighted that they enjoyed their extended stay in Durban.

10th Birthday at The Lounge

It's The Lounge's 10th Birthday - Durban's only gay Club is 10 and going from strength to strength and it's a month of celebration.

Part of the celebrations is a free entry night on Friday 20th November. Andre and Thomie wish to thank all regular patrons for helping The Lounge grow.

In the photos are guesthouse visitor from Sydney Dan, seen with Durbanview Guesthouse co-owner Dave and The Lounge barman Sandhip.

Olympic Sportsman visits Durban

Welcoming South African Olympic Badminton player Anton Kriel from Pretoria to the Guesthouse are fellow guests Gregg from Portland, Oregon, Anton's partner Stuart, and Greg's partner Eric.

Anton took part in the Barcelona Olympic games in 1992, the first year that Badminton was accepted as an Olympic sport and he has countless other trophies to his credit including the All Africa mixed doubles and men's doubles championship trophies, as well as the Wanderers 1999 Sportsman of the Year trophy.

Sinderalla in Durban

Damon Beard of East Coast Radio seen with Llewellyn (Durban View Guesthouse) on the opening night of the Durban Adult Pantomime Sinderella which runs at the Jubilee Supper Theatre until the 5th January 2010.

The cast features Anthony Stonier (in his 14th year – he has performed in every adult panto), Thomie Holtzhausen and Junaid Cassidy who were both in the panto last year; the unstoppable Rowan Bartlett as Buttons; and newcomers Rikki Hastings (as Sinders) and Daisy Spencer (as the Fairy Godmother).

Bookings are through Computicket and you can get more info from their facebook event by clicking on the link here.

Dave and Llewellyn in Pride March

Dave and Llewellyn took part in their first gay Pride March this week in Buenos Aires Argentina. Pride is the first Saturday of November each year and this year we just happened to be in Buenos Aires in time for Pride and our first experience of marching in a Pride Parade.

There were about 20 000 people in the March and we were in the second row. It was an awesome experience and we bought our first Rainbow flag which we took with us on the march and is now in our Guesthouse pub, along with the few bits and pieces we bought in Buenos Aires. What a wonderful experience.

Phone access for guests

As a new service to Guests at Durban View Guesthouse we now give a complimentary MTN sim-card starter pack to them. This is particularly useful for international travellers who do not have a local sim-card when visiting South Africa, and now gives them afforable local telephone contact.

A purchase of R50 airtime is necessary to activate the account and this should be sufficient for the duration of their visit to this country and will save them international roaming rates. Airtime is available to guests at the guesthouse through MTN Banking - a vendor for airtime across all networks as well as offering banking accounts and credit cards - a great new initiative of MTN in conjunction with Standard Bank - South Africa's leading banking institution.

Party weekend

It's the weekend and here to party up a storm in Durban are guests John, Gerhard and Rudi, and Cape Town visitor Marcel who popped in for a drink.

If you're in Cape Town and needing a fabulous flowers and decor for weddings, events and corporate functions, Marcel is your man!

Rudi is here on an MTN-Banking mission with MTN Mobile Money, a new concept in cell-phone and internet banking also marketing the re-selling of cellphone air-time by sms.

Images of the city from the Guesthouse

Our recent guest Friedrich was a whiz with his camera and took these photos of the city from the Guesthouse.

In the top photo is our new 2010 FIFA World Cup Football Stadium which has just been completed. There were sceptics who said the Stadia in the country would never be completed in time, but they were proved wrong. The Durban Stadium, the Moses Mabhida Stadium feature a stunning cable car lift which ca take visitors to the top of the Stadium arch and for those more adverturous there are stairs on the other side to take one up or down as well.

In the middle photo are the night lights of our beachfront hotels, whilst the day photo below shows the CBD of the City from the Guesthouse. Thanks Friedrich for these stunning new pics.

Braai for the tourists

Whilst we don't generally provide an evening meal at the Guesthouse, when we have a few international tourists staying with us and more often in summer, we have a braai (or barbeque as they may know it) with some of the local flavours and dishes. This also gives the guys a chance to meet and chat.

In the photo above are Julian (San Francisco) with Stuart and Furdoon (London). Both sets of guests took advantage of Emirates new flights to Durban which skip out the inconvenience of and time delay stopping in Johannesburg - unless you intend to spend a few days in that city.

In the case of Julian who flew from San Francisco to Durban via Dubai business class, he was also given free accommodation and meals for a stop-over in Dubai which he enjoyed thoroughly.

Saturday Fun

In Durban from Secunda is engineer Freidrich who came to collect his new car - VW Tiguan - and spend a few days at the Guesthouse.

Joined on Saturday by Donovan (left) and Ryan (second from left) from Durban, we all puffed on a hubbly bubbly in the roof-top jacuzzi and enjoyed a few drinks around the bar.

London calling

Guests Stuart and Furdoon from London enjoy breakfast at the Guesthouse. They are doing Durban largely on foot and have done some big walking seeing the sights.

Muffin Dave

Llewellyn is usually the muffin man, but here Dave bakes and takes some fresh muffins out of the oven for morning breakfast at the Guesthouse.

Busy Sunday

Jerry (Salt Rock), Wynand (Irene) and Dave (Guesthouse co-owner) enjoy a drink at the Guesthouse on Sunday evening. Wynand owns and runs Gorgeous, a popular restaurant in Irene, Johannesburg and is taking a well-earned rest in Durban.

In the second photo Lindeque from Cape Town joins John (Financial Services trainer from Johannesburg), Llewellyn (Guesthouse co-owner) and Pieter of Queer City events, in Durban to organise Salvation, the most famous Gay Parties in London and the World, coming to Joburg (26 Dec), Durban (29 Dec) and Cape Town (31 Dec).

Best of the Berg - 2 1/2 hours from Durban

We love the odd weekend away when our host Thomie looks after guests at the Guesthouse - and a great destination is our Berg mountain range.. especially the northern Berg Amphitheatre area at Royal Natal National Park where we stayed at the Thendele huttted camp.. accommodation closest to the mountains.

In the pics are from top - the Amphitheatre with the changing cloud patterns. The Tugela Falls in the middle of the Amphitheatre (12 hour hike there and back) is the second tallest in the world (938m).

The Cascades middle pic is a short 15 min walk and then of course there were the rocks just above our camp site where we could chill and unbutton the baggies....

Weekend Fun

The rain and clouds of the week cleared up nicely in Durban for our weekend guests at the Guesthouse. Having fun in the roof-top jacuzzi are Llewellyn (guesthouse co-owner) with John (Johannesburg) and Shaun and Tom (Cape Town).

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Vote for Mr Gay South Africa

Now you can vote for KZN entrants in the Mr Gay South Africa Pageant by SMS.

In the photos above are hunky Ballito boy Gavin Deale seen at the Guesthouse recently when he won through to the finals of the Mr Gay South Africa Pageant.

If you want to vote for Gavin, simply sms GSA Gavin Deale to 35215 and your vote will be recorded.

Another hot finalist from Westville is Tyrone Nell (below), seen in this recent shoot.

Tyrone qualified as a finalist for the Mr Gay South Africa Pageant at the Knysna Loerie Festival earlier this year. He was also in attendance at the KZN Finals of the contest at the Guesthouse here last month checking out the competition.

You can vote by SMS for Tyrone by sending a message GSA Tyrone Nell to 35215 and make sure that one of our spunky KZN boys wins the Pageant for our Province.

Good luck guys... and to the readers, please get your sms votes going now. You could win a trip to Tanzania just by voting.

You can view more finalists by clicking on this Facebook link.

Vote for Mr Gay South Africa

Durban boy and finalist from the KZN regional finals of the Mr Gay South Africa Pageant, Tyrone Roberts will be viing for the top title in Johannesburg in November.

Voting by sms is now open and you can record your vote for Tyrone by sending a message reading GSA Tyrone Roberts to 35215.

Tyrone is one of 3 KZN boys in the running for the title.

Public holiday

The sun is shining bright and it's a public holiday today in South Africa so we're off to the beach... let's hope we can find some hot beach bodz at Scottburgh where we are headed.
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