Author: fitravel

This author has written 4737 articles
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Hyobanche sanguina

I get very excited when I find something new and hiking along the Guinea Fowl Trail in Port Elizabeth the other day was one of those exciting days.  I saw Hyobanche Sanguina, commonly known as Cat's Paw, for the first time.  Cat's Paw is a parasitic plant which grows on the roots of shrubs.  The clustered red flower reaches about 150 mm in height and it's soft furriness along with the protruding white anthers forming the characteristic cat's nails gives it it's…

5 Comments
12/12/2011
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SAMREC educational visits

In addition to the fantastic penguin rescue and rehabilitation work that the guys at SAMREC in Cape Recife do, they also have educational programmes running all the time whereby schools visit and get taken around the facility.  What makes the place even more amazing is that they only have two full time employees which means that the majority of work gets done by volunteers.  The last time I stopped by there was a group from a local primary school visiting.  The school group…

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11/12/2011
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Happy Valley by day

Happy Valley has always been a very popular spot for both young and old especially during the summer season when the lights are on in the evenings.  I went down not too long ago to see what it looks like these days.  Although there were one or two of the characters that were damaged the area in a whole was in good nick and looking beautiful.  Its a pity that more and more people don't go there anymore due to the perception…

2 Comments
09/12/2011
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Sea pumpkin on the beach

Before a sea pumpkin becomes a ... well, sea pumpkin, it spends it's life as a spiky sea urchin living in a rock pool or gully somewhere on the coast.  But once the creature inside the shell dies the spikes fall off and only a green "pumpkin" looking shell is left behind.  These sea pumpkins are very popular with people, specially kids, picking up shells.

4 Comments
13/10/2011
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Lower Guinea Fowl Trail

I'm always in awe when I read Helen's blog, Walking the Cape, to see how many trails and walks there are around Cape Town.  But living in Port Elizabeth doesn't mean that we don't have trails around the city.  It just seems that the locals over here either tend to rather walk on the beach or use a safety excuse not to head onto the trails.  A bunch of us from work decided to celebrate World Tourism Day on 27 September…

3 Comments
12/10/2011
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Karoo sky

I know its not Skywatch Friday, but I wanted to show you a typical flat Karoo landscape with a typical BIG Karoo SKY.  No wonder some people refer to the Karoo as Big Sky Country.

2 Comments
11/10/2011
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Testing 1-2-3

I've been fiddling with the blog's layout all evening, changing dimensions so that I can add bigger pictures and redesigning the title masthead.  I think I may have it now so the flower with the fly on it will act as a test run.  I do still have a number of pictures that have been edited smaller for the old layout so they will still get posted, but all the new ones will be this size from now on.  Any comments…

3 Comments
10/10/2011
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Summer Christmas feast

We like to get together as a family over Christmas with my family coming over on Christmas Eve and my in-laws on Christmas Day.  We normally eat way to much over the period, but we'll worry about that in the New Year.Because Christmas falls in the summer down here in South Africa, we as a family don't do the whole traditional Christmas meal thing, but rather opt for cold meats and salads.This year we started with prunes wrapped in bacon made…

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25/12/2010
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Opening Christmas gifts

The Rugrats opening their gifts on Christmas morningI want to wish all the regular, not so regular, by chance and "find it through Google" visitors to Port Elizabeth Daily Photo a Merry Christmas.  I hope it was a blessed day and that everybody received the gifts that they asked for in their Dear Santa letters. 

2 Comments
25/12/2010