The long open road. The view from the front seats of our hire car is frequently a wide expanse of horizon with a road running through the middle of it. The sky here always seems more dramatic than back home. The trip from Bloemfontein to Jo'burg might seem a short hop in comparison with some we've made, but it is still not far short of 400km and, with a stop, took us over four hours to cover. A key memory of this three week trip will certainly be the driving and the roads. Outside of the cities, there is rarely a great volume of traffic and on the main routes, often single lane roads. They work quite well because there is usually a hard shoulder, which slower vehicles will use to allow faster ones to pass. We've done that ourselves to allow those in a serious rush to get by once we learned it is an acceptable use of the road here.

Once we reach Johannesburg, it is a different story regarding the driving. The main ring road around the city is a four lane highway where it is every man for himself. Think 'Whacky Races' if you are of a certain age or maybe Super Mario Kart for those of a younger persuasion. Undertaking is par for the course when you have slow vehicles refusing to budge from the middle lanes (Martin says they are paranoid about having an accident and might not always have insurance). It is no wonder that South Africa's roads are amongst the most dangerous on the planet. The media have wrongly given a very negative perception of some aspects of this country, but if they were to say you are taking your life in your hands driving on the N1, N2 and N3 roads, I could not argue. You just have to be aware (especially of your blind spot) and ready to react. So far, so good.

It being the day of Adam's return home, I dropped him at Oliver Tambo airport. It will be weird doing my final 48 hours and two matches with him not around. He's done 15 matches in 17 days and seen every stadium - Soccer City, Ellis Park, Durban, Cape Town and Pretoria twice. The most remarkable aspect of the trip is that, despite living out of each others' pockets for such a long time, we've not had a fallout. I could not envisage at the start of the trip that we would get through it without a disagreement or two, but I guess we are both tolerant people who will compromise when required. It is certainly the best solution when you have a common goal. Enough energy is used up doing what needs doing without getting worked up.

Having said our goodbyes, I drove to Martin's and was welcomed by Susie. It seems like a long time since I last saw her and yet it was only Thursday morning. Surreal. After she gave me some lunch I headed down to the centre and a meet up with Mark, who has travelled over for three matches in three days, using spare tickets I have for the last two. His trip to Soccer City last night was painless, as it turned out the park and ride buses left from very close to his hotel. He said it had been very cold at his game, and Susie had loaned me one of Martin's winter jackets as insurance against a repeat this evening. It was good to meet Mark and get news about how the tournament was being portrayed back home, and of how poor some of the pundits are, although ITV new boy Adrian Chiles received a positive review. We watched the Holland v Slovakia game on his hotel room TV. I nipped out at one point to check on the car, as I had a sudden fear I had parked in a stretch where you had to feed a parking metre without realising it. I was okay, but took the opportunity to visit a cheap looking corner store in search of a cheap holdall.

I've a little too much to take back as hand luggage, so the idea is to buy something I can put the valuable stuff in and put my small suitcase with stuff that shouldn't interest a discerning Johannesburg luggage handler in the hold. This store had a selection of bags, although mostly sold packaged food of various types. The bags were all on the top shelf and most of them were broken in some way - such as the zip not working or the strap being broken. One had suffered a bit of mould and it was obvious that no one ever really looked at these items. They were just kind of filling shelf space in a big shop with more shelving than it needed. One of the staff had a look at the back of the store and dug out a reasonably intact one which I paid 30 rand for. One less thing to take care of. The feel of the shop kind of reflected the poverty of the area. There are attempts to reclaim the Central Business District (CBD), and Mark's hotel - The Ashanti on Anderson Street - is certainly high spec and very modern, but there are still many many poor people living here, and it makes for a strange experience to see the contrast.

I returned to see the end of the Holland game and then we drove towards Ellis Park. Unlike my previous two visits, this time we were approaching from the west rather than the north with the intention of parking on the south side of the stadium. Driving through the east side of the CBD, the lack of street lighting was positively sinister. However, we managed to find our way to the roadblocks near the stadium, and knowing this was as close as we could get a car took the offer of a local to park us up in a street that, although also somewhat pitch black, was being used by other fans and had housing that looked positively respectable by the standards of others in the area. We headed to the ground and killed some time in the stadium fan zone where all the sponsors pitch up and provide pre-match entertainment.

We had pretty decent seats, four rows from the front of the upper tier and about halfway between the penalty area and the centre circle. We took our places a little before the teams came out, although the cold was not as bad as was feared. It was just under two weeks ago that I first caught Brazil (officially the coldest game at this tournament so far) at this very stadium on our first stop in the capital. This was the fourth time I have seen them having, by luck of the draw, not missed a single game of theirs. At previous tournaments, I have always caught at least one Argentina game, but this time around have not. When you apply for tickets before the draw is made, it can be pot luck who you end up seeing. The 'big' teams I have not caught at this tournament have been Argentina, Holland and Italy. So it goes. The stadiums were the priority when the trip was planned.

The game itself exposed why Chile had reached this stage due to victories over Honduras and Switzerland. They were simply not good enough to threaten Brazil, who looked imperious to these eyes. Howard Webb was the referee and had a decent enough game, although he had balls to book Kaka so early in the game. It's difficult to see beyond a Brazil v Argentina final, although if any of their matches go to a penalty shoot-out, then elimination is entirely possible. Certainly Holland will provide a stiffer test to Dunga's men and a semi against either Spain or Portugal seems likely. These are matches I will be watching back in England on the TV. One imagines if Argentina get past Germany they should win a semi against Ghana or Uruguay, although the latter might not concur.

Tomorrow is my last full day here, and my final match. Number 16. As I have had three days without games since my first one on June 11th, it means I will have done those matches in 19 days. By the time I dropped Adam off at the airport, we had covered approximately 5000 kilometres in the trio of hire cars we have had. Pretoria will host Paraguay v Japan for my in the flesh farewell to this tournament. As time online might be tricky to come by on Wednesday, there is every chance the news of my final full day here will not be relayed until I get the chance to post it back in the UK. So for those mad fools that are following my account of this tournament on any kind of regular basis, please bear with me.