Tri-Area at Albert Falls

What is a Tri-Area? Well, it’s when three Areas (in this case Natal North Coast, Natal South Coast & Drakensberg) get together on one weekend at one venue and hold their Area

Conferences together. The attendance this time was around 264 people, and what a vibe!

The newly organised club of Tourist 276 (Eugene & Dee Catherine, Fabrizio Altichiero, Wayne & Leza Stevenson and myself) left Port Alfred at around 7.00am on Friday morning. After a stop in East London to collect dress-up clothes for the Ladies, and a near-miss with some falling masonry, we were off! Some words of wisdom: the end-of-the-month weekend Friday is not one to choose for travelling via the old Transkei. We saw everything from a hearse with an Emergency Exit, gravel sections on the N2 and drivers eating mielies, to bridges being built in the middle of Mthatha (really far away from the nearest water mass).

Anyway, we finally got there (12.5 hours later) in the metropolis of Albert Falls, which is about 20km from Pietermaritzburg. After losing our way in the reserve, we found the party at the Yacht Club (yes, amazingly, a Yacht Club) and soon found our party groove. When the clock struck 3am we decided to call it night.

The next day saw me opening the Natal North Coast Conference, followed by my handing over the striped jacket and qwagga show ensemble to their Area Chairman. Let’s just say that the jacket doesn’t fit… At least he is wearing the tie. We then toured around to visit the other two meetings before ending the afternoon with Gin & Tonics on the verandah at the Yacht Club. It was off to dress-up at the house, before we made our way to the main hall for the evening. And guess what? We won the competition for Best Dressed!

After getting into more comfortable clothes, we headed back to the Yacht Club to finish what we could of the bar tokens, but at R 20.00 for a double Captain and Coke you take a while! Eventually we succeeded in getting to bed just after midnight.

The drive back was a little less stressed but we still did it in 9.5 hours, with a slight headache. I can recommend that if ever you have the time, attend a Tri-Area. There are currently two: this one I attended as illustrated above, or the one which is a combined Bushveld, Gauteng & Mpumalanga Areas. And how it works is that each Area of the three in the arrangement has a turn to host so each year the conference moves venue.