I cruised up to Johannesburg on Friday morning with La Muse, The Dude and Salty. We were up for the highly anticipated launch of the new MINI Countryman. I checked the weather report and it mentioned the late 20’s, so I thought we might as well stay until Sunday evening. I mean, there could be worse things than lounging at The Westcliff Pool, right?

So we left my primary residence, The Cape Royale hotel in Cape Town and headed off to my home away from home, The Westcliff, for a weekend away. I usually only head through to Jozi for a night at a time and the thought of a weekend away there never occurred to me. Luckily, the weather played into our hands.

Finally I managed to get my hands on the new MINI Countryman (4X4) and the experience was everything and more. My God – what a car! With 4-doors, 4-wheel drive and internet radio, I couldn’t imagine a better car for summer!

La Muse and Salty

Karen MINI!

I don’t know how many cars there were all-in-all, but it seemed like a good 40. People were treating it like the Italian Job and were all over the place on the road. We jostled for position and did pretty well (that’s if it was a race?) on the way to the half way point, which was someone’s residence, 50km out of Johannesburg. I don’t know whose place it was, but they had basically created their own Kirstenbosch Gardens – no spice. The girls got manicures on the lawns and The Dude and I planted our faces in the sun and congratulated ourselves.

Lucky for us, by the time we were heading back, Dean Fuel was smashing down his debut Friday set on 2oceansvibe Radio (from 5pm to 8pm). You couldn’t have scripted it better!

Dean Fuel – Live on 2oceansvibe Radio in the new MINI

Oh, and can you believe what happened next? We ended up at our final destination, which was a club (Randlords) in the middle of town, overlooking the whole city. Goldfish were standing by for a magnificent set – sending us into the early hours of the morning.

Found this up-and-coming group in Johannesburg called ‘Goldfish’

And so it went on… until we woke up in a slight haze the next morning, and collapsed next to the pool at The Westcliff. Now look what I made you here – it’s a panoramic photo that I stitched together using the ‘Autostitch’ app on my iPhone 4. Pretty cool, hey?

Click that image for a bigger version (below is only a portion of the whole thing).

Click that for the panoramic photo

There were some fairly incredible individuals at the pool this time, and fitness seemed to be the order of the day. The first chap who was spotted on the other side of the pool, decided to drop for 20 upon arrival. Very impressive.

Twat.

So that was pretty funny to watch, but nothing could prepare us for the foreign guest who wore an incredible ball-hugging speedo and proceeded to nail down at LEAST 10 lengths of HARD-CORE butterfly, to the complete horror of everyone around the pool. Just to set the scene – no-one does anything more than breaststroke at the Westcliff pool. It’s just not that kind of place. Here is a video of Mr. Awesome.

I swear to God if I had to do what he did, my buddies would think it was the funniest thing ever. But this chap wasn’t kidding around. He was dead serious. Every now and then he even took a break between lengths to do aqua-dips in front of us. I just caught the end of his dips, but he was doing about 15 dips a time. Check out this video.

Do you understand that he is RIGHT in front of us in that video?

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

See what I did there?

By the way, those videos were taken on my iPhone 4 and uploaded directly to YouTube.

I’m just saying..

So a big thank you to MINI and The Westcliff, for making it a superb weekend away.

We even got a tan!

Who would have thought?