OK, I am cheating a bit. Flights on Qatar are (or were when I flew out just over a month ago) ?430 per adult and ?390 for my oldest daughter with a little less for the youngest but lets say ?390 to keep it simple. So ?1640 for flights.

My parents live in Cape Town so accomodation free and we have the use of a car although having hired one before they are pretty cheap (?130 for a week and we got a Merc (an upgrade as the requested car was not available)).

Bed a breakfast in SA is very good value for money and nothing like a stereo typical English B&B (I said stereo typical before someone bites my head off).

So if we take flights at ?1640 add a car at ?130 and accomodation at ?20 per night for 6 nights it comes to ?1890 which is ?134 more expensive than the boating holiday. Factor in food for both and with the Pound/Rand exchange rate you are almost going to bring the figures to parity.

So, Thames or Cape Town!!