Grubbed up and running on the craft beer sillies we get back to the room and settle into a few items of business:
– Contact the other detectives and let them know we’ll be in Cape Town tomorrow evening (if the poor Polo holds up)
– Contact my friend Karen, whom I’ve known since I was a kid and now lives in Cape Town, to see if she can hang while we’re there
– Contact Kevin from Avis to get details on picking up the safari truck (fuck yesssh, still can’t believe it’s happening)
– Find a place to stay tomorrow in Cape Town
– Look into the ramifications of cruising through a million e-tolls and speed traps
– Figure out what our insurance situation is considering the damage to the Polo

“Is there a frog orgy happening outside?”, “Yeah, sounds like it”

Peter looks into the tolls from the Joburg to Nottingham Drive online. Doesn’t sound like anyone pays them. Perfect, neither will we. Same with speed traps. Bueno. Mark has landed in Cape Town and is staying at the Backpackers. He hooks us up with a room for tomorrow. Woot! Drisdelle says he gets in the day after. We get an ETA on the truck pickup for that day as well from Kevin. And Karen says she can hang that day too. Damn, that’s a productive five minutes.

Sweet detective work from Peter right here though, WTDW:

Looks like we were sensible enough to get the WTDW (windscreen and tyre damage waiver) coverage when we rented the Polo in Joburg. And for a measly $2 a day! What does that mean? Instead of having to pay to replace the tire and windscreen in Cape Town we can just return the car super fucked up for free?!

This information sends us into a frenzy of googly eyed high fives and high jumping back drops onto the bed and back to our feet and back to the bed and our feet and the bed and our feet. No way! We were stressing for nothing. That’s a load off. Ok Stormsriver, it’s on now buddy!

We pound a Mitchell’s and take a roadie for walkabout. It’s started to rain a little but with all of our business sorted and car legs shaken off we’re too fired up to care. Straight to the Hunters Pub.

Is that a stuffed leopard?!!

No one in here, is it even open? A rotund lass named Floretta assures us it is and points our attention to a craft beer menu. Yes, Floretta that will be great, can we also try all of the whiskey in the whole bar please? Excellent, thank you.

Three Ships – not great

This one leads us into an a capella rendition of Toto’s “I taste the Bain’s down in Africaaaaaaaaa”

More like last watch

There is a bar trainee that’s job shadowing Floretta as she climbs a step stool to retrieve every bottle of whiskey in the whole bar for us to try. “Does he look exactly like Barack Obama to you?”, “Holy shit!” What a way for the President to spend his twilight, job shadowing at the Hunters Pub in Stormsriver. I’m not rude enough to get a pic of him though, so here’s Narcopiggy enjoying a pint and a double rocks.

We continue to rampage through whiskey flights and beer at an astronomical rate. Our conversational skills deteriorate proportionally. “Add an ‘S’ in front of any cheesy wine cottage sign and it instantly becomes better. Swine a little… You’ll feel better.”, “Kiss me, hug me, make me swine bwahahahhaa!”, “Welcome to Swine Club dahahhaha!!”, “Wait is there a Swine Club?”, “Like.. getting bacon in the mail?”, “Fuck yeah! Doesn’t that sound awesome?”, “Damn, it kinda does.” We follow this thought spiral down into monthly boxes of pig parts and it leads us to a Fight Club scene involving pork chop wielding duels in the cellar of a seedy bar.

The music in here is just as terrible as we are. We start chortle-howling the lyrics to every brutal throwback tune that comes on. Bar Trainee Obama gives us a disgusted glance when we launch into a full tilt sing-a-long of Mambo #5. Floretta looks like she’s over our shenanigans as well and points to the clock.

Ok, ok we’ll just get a flight of beer each, two double whiskeys and split a pint of the Devil’s Peak stout. Floretta is visibly surprised by this request. She mulls it over with a tidbit of a smirk and head shake. Is she coming around to our rampagenanigans? She looks at Bar Trainee Obama and nods. I think this is just so much nonsense that they’re actually gonna make it happen. And they do. And so do we.

All of this Hunters Pub madness happens within the span of one hour. Peter and I are now completely blasted. Planet Gonzo.

We thank Floretta and BTO for their hospitality and they’re all smiles as we get a couple of parting high fives. We leave a drunk tip the size of Jupiter as a thankspology.

Well what now? Grab beers from the room and walk around Stormsriver? Might as well there’s fuck else to do.

We backtrack for some Mitchell’s through the drizzle and venture off to the outskirts of town. It’s one street over. We walk down the road into the dark until it turns to dirt. Around some trees, through a field and then over some rocks by the water. There’s a broken down walking bridge. Scale down some bridge parts to the rocks. Whoa, rocks are slippery. Cross a field on the other side. Is that a guard tower? Where the hell are we?

Hmmmm, yep, we’re lost now. We circle back in the general direction of where we think Stormsriver central is. Now we’re on a super dark dirt road using our near-dead phones to guide us. Shit! Stepped in a puddle. Soaker. Ah faaaawk?! Double soaker. What is that in the tree? Hives? Just one weird light? Ok, we’re in a horror movie now.

Suddenly a dog comes running out of the darkness towards us. Scares the shit out of us. It’s barking like nuts. It’s a mutt w some husky in him. Doesn’t look pleased. We’re taught, ready to sprint or fight. But thankfully, it quickly loses interest and meanders off sniffing the ground.

“So what do we do if we run into somebody?”, “What, and they want to rob us or some shit?”, “Yeah, I guess”, “Ahhhh, probably fight them with a broken beer bottle?”, “We could use our belts too”, “Like Jason Bourne?”, “Exactly”, “I also have this steaming pot of spaghetti, haaaarn!” It makes no sense. And we’re howling. Throwing spaghetti at our would be muggers. “Alright, you take the guy on the left. Remember. Beers, belts, spaghetti”, “It’s cold”, “What do you mean it’s cold?”, “I brought the breakfast spaghetti.” 8000 whiskeys and this is where we’re at in life. Fighting criminals with beers, belts, and spaghetti.

“We’re like vigilantes”, “Well, drunk vigilantes”, “Yeah, we’re visiting vigilantes, just here for the night”, “Gonna have a few pints and clean up this town. Probably move on in the morning”, “Vacation Vigilantes! Sight seeing by day, crime fighting by night!”, “Oh my god, we’re vacation vigilantes”, “You ready, <in unison> Beers. Belts. Spaghetti!”

We stumble through the slick streets of Stormsriver coming up with Vacation Vigilantes movie scenes. My cheeks are sore from laughing. Reminds me of MacKay and I over-dubbing episodes of Racecar Detectives during the PARTy. We’re drunk yelling at each other in the rain late at night, the small town totally dead. Two fools in the rain doubled over laughing about Swine Club and Vacation Vigilantes.

We get back to the room and have a Mitchell’s night cap, still chuckling about all the stupid shit we came up with throughout our Stormsriver shitshow. “Damn, it’s getting on 4, mate”, “Well…. we’re dumb”, “Yep. Gotta call it. Long drive still tomorrow.”

He’s right. Time to switch off the silliness and get some shut-eye. Garden Route into Cape Town tomorrow. Supposed to be the most beautiful drive in South Africa.