I went through the plaza twice in December, felt kind of cool I think.

Mooi River was wet and green and as beautiful as ever, I can see all of the appealing things about living there. But the road is also the busiest in the country.

And wanting to get an idea of coast to Highveld and then back down again. Again, if you needed reminding it was thought up by a fellow called Adam Kethro, we were literally standing looking at the highway from his spot, and he is an ex transport bigwig, he thought it would be nice to see the trend.

So here is the table and graph of the number of five axle trucks through the plaza over the years. And December 2010 is another record, for the month that is. Five axle trucks on average take 25 tons worth of cargo.

First, the table:

And this is the bar graph through from 2007, you can see again visually that December was a record.

What backs the Mooi River index data up, is that every month we get the TNPA ports data, total imports and exports through the major ports. And every month the kind lady who sends it to us, Rachael is her name, sends us the year before corresponding month. So you have real data to work with here. OK, first December 2009, total imports and exports through Richards Bay, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, Cape Town and Saldanha numbered 15,225,774 metric tons. And the same number in December 2010 was 15,940,928. So an increase of cargo handled, both in and out of the major South African ports of less than five percent. Up yes, but perhaps not as much as you might expect.

Up periscope We have started MUCH better. That Portuguese bond auction today and Italian bond auction tomorrow will get everyone excited.

Sasha Naryshkine