Day 6

Miss Rhead writes...

Today we had an early start with a 7am breakfast and were off to Khayelitsha, which is one of the bigger townships surrounding Cape Town and home to 2.2 million people. We met our guide for the day, Loyoiso, who lives in the township. Our first stop was to the Iqhayiya school, where we had a match scheduled for the afternoon. On the short journey there we practised saying, "Hello, how are you?" as well as a reply, "I'm good" in Xhosa, a language with lots of 'clicks'. We felt like rockstars with high fives and everyone singing as we were led to the front of their whole school assembly. Theo addressed the school and then we were invited to join the school in their singing. After introductions and lots of attention, we were off to meet The Spinach King (aka Popeye) who had made a spinach fry for each of us to try - it was a bit like a fried vegetable frittata. He runs his business out of a converted shipping container and has franchises in various parts of the country. He has met Richard Branson and Virgin Active has similar goals to his own. At the front of his bakery he has two virgin active bikes which can power smoothie making. It was then back on the bus to see some more of the township as we headed to our next destination The Golden Flower Man's house. He is currently away but our guide and his daughters showed us the flowers he makes from drinks cans. We were told that this recycling has meant their community is litter free because the children are rewarded for each can they bring him.

Our next stop was a local craft market, where we were again greeted incredibly warmly by four musicians who were drumming and singing for our entertainment. The craft market contained several crafts people who design and make a variety of handicrafts - necklaces, key rings, pictures and flowers were amongst their goods. We were given time to go shopping for souvenirs for ourselves.

Back on the bus for our next shop - lunch at Look Out Hill, after climbing all 164 steps to the top to admire another stunning view! This is one of the places where the profile of Table Mountain isn't flat. Lunch included some native dishes including pap (a staple of the diet here), tripe, vegetables, a steamed bread and chakalaka) and our tour guide had another surprise with four dancers showing us some traditional Zulu dance, song and drumming. Several of our team were invited to join them on stage as part of their warm up and rose admirably to the challenge, including Mr Gibbs himself.

It was then time to get our game heads on as we prepared for today's game. With such an incredible build up this morning, we didn't want to disappoint in our England v South Africa showdown. The starting line up gave a great opportunity for some players to making their starting debut. It felt like most of the school had turned out to support their team and, including many of the local residents, the crowd was easily the biggest and certainly the loudest we have experienced so far. Iqhayiya scored first and the roar of the crowd was immense. They scored one more try before half time and we managed two in reply. Mr Fraser and Mr Gibbs made sure that their half time talk was motivational and this led to our players upping their game resulting in our first victory 25-17.

We were then able to present the school with a selection of Rugby equipment and kit that we had fundraised for. We felt humbled to have been given one of their jerseys in return. Today will definitely stay with the boys for a long time to come and with our our kit, we hope that the school's rugby team will continue to develop.

We then headed back to our hotel for some well earned downtime and pizza for dinner, the journey giving us time to reflect and remind us just how lucky we are.