The cricket tour to Cape Town departed on a very cold Wednesday morning. After a super trip to Doha on the Airbus A380 and then on to Cape Town after a very short stop-over, we arrived to a magnificent sunny day in South Africa and immediately departed on our first excursion of the tour.
The five cricket fixtures were against Somerset House, Bishops, Rhenish, Bridge House and SACS. All five venues provided their own unique backdrop and boys and parents were stunned by some of the views they were able to enjoy whilst relaxing in the sun. The staff and hosting boys and parents at each school were extremely welcoming and generous and boys from both teams seemed to bond immediately upon meeting prior to every game. The Prep boys were outstanding ambassadors for the school and we hope that the boys will keep in contact with their hosts in some way.
This tour produced the best returns for us as a cricket side touring Cape Town since I have taken over running the 1st team. We boarded the plane on Friday having won three of the five matches we played in. The loss to Bishops was slightly disappointing as we never recovered from a slow start but felt that with another 30 runs we could have pushed them all the way. The loss to SACS was a good lesson to our boys and showed them the level to which they should aspire to play the game as an Under 13 team. Overall, the boys played some very good cricket, with old heads steadying at times a faltering ship and some of the younger boys staking a claim for a permanent spot in the team once the season starts in April.
Over the course of the eight days we spent in Cape Town the boys took part in the following activities:
“Cool Runnings” dry land tobogganing; A trip on the cable car to the top of Table Mountain; A visit to the SA Rugby museum; Crocodile cage diving in Somerset West and getting up close and personal with a baby croc; A morning learning about how farmers and the Cheetah Outreach charity are working together to prevent unnecessary cheetah killings and then a photo opportunity with a cheetah; A half day trip with “Uthando” a charity working within the townships in Cape Town and aiding the people within these deprived areas to work more positively to attempt to uplift themselves and their communities through various projects; A morning watching lions and tigers being fed followed by some down time with birds of prey, the chance to hold and stroke an eagle and to play some music and watch the owls “dance”; A superb scooter trip down from Signal Hill into Cape Town and then down from the foot of Table Mountain into Cape Town; Surfing in the freezing Atlantic waters in Big Bay
I would like to thank the staff, boys and host families at all the schools we visited. They were all extremely generous and kind and we appreciated their willingness to accommodate us. Thank you to the parents who travelled and supported from the boundary – the boys enjoyed seeing familiar faces. Thank you to the boys for the manner in which you conducted yourselves both on and off the field – you made the trip very easy and enjoyable. A final thank you to Mr Stevens and Miss Jones for all their help and for giving up their holidays to come along and help make this trip so successful.
Please click here to see more photos from the trip.
