A farm house on one of the ostrich farms just outside Oudtshoorn on the road to Schoemanshoek. The mountain in the background is the Swartberg where the Swartberg Pass (read here and here) can be found.
Yesterday we drove up the Swartberg Pass and took a break at the top. Today we decent into the Karoo. The northern part of the pass is famous for its switchbacks and you won't find a travel book on South Africa that doesn't have at least one photo of the pass.Just before we started our decent I was curious to see where we were going and saw how the road snaked down the mountain side at a gradual decline. There…
One of the highlights (literally and figuratively) of the holiday was getting to drive over the Swartberg Pass outside Oudtshoorn. The pass links the Klein Karoo with the Great Karoo and its always been very high on my "to do" list. The Swartberg Pass was built by one of South Africa's great pass builders, Thomas Bain, between 1881 and 1883. The construction work was done by convict labourers and the pass was officially opened on 10 January 1888. The pass…
There is an Afrikaans song that says "Oudtshoorn is 'n groot voël paradys..." (translates to Oudtshoorn is a big bird paradise). And that is so true. Oudtshoorn is called the ostrich capital of the world as 95% of the world's captive ostriches are found around the town. In the early days ostriches were farmed purely for their feathers, but today every single piece of the bird gets used. They are farmed primarily for their skin which produces the world's second…
We spent the first week of our holiday in the Oudtshoorn area. Oudtshoorn is situated in the Klein Karoo and its economy is basically split between farming and tourism. The word Klein means small or little in Afrikaans (also in Dutch) and Karoo is a Khoisan word that means Place of Thirst.The Klein Karoo is flanked by the magnificent Outeniqua (the word means Men laiden with honey in the Khoisan language) Mountains to the south and the majestic Swartberg (Black…
One of the new features at the Boardwalk complex this summer are the floating balls. You get into the deflated ball which gets inflated and velcro'd closed before being pushed onto the lake. It doesn't look like the easiest thing judging on the fact that the kids doing it were more flat on their backs than on their feet. It did look like lots of fun though.
Aaaaaaa..... There is no place like home. We got back from two weeks of camping yesterday and although its nice being on holiday, its nicer to get cleaned up properly and to sleep on your own bed and not an inflatable mattress. My back is shot. Now to sort through all the pictures I took to see what can be posted and what can go straight into my stock. Holiday pictures will start tomorrow. In the mean time here are…
This is the view from the top of the Campanile out of the window facing north. The three lane freeway is the Settlers Freeway which connects the beachfront area to most of the city as well as the N2 highway out of town. The buildings on the left is part of the city centre while the bottom right of the picture is the Port Elizabeth Station. In the back the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium is visible with the mountains beyond…
I would like to wish all the Port Elizabeth Daily Photo readers a Happy New Year. May the year ahead bring you nothing but joy and happiness. And stick with us, because 2010 is going to be a very exciting year here in Port Elizabeth what with the 2010 FIFA World Cup and everything else happening in our fair city. Here's to 2010. Cheers!The photo was taken at the annual Opening of the Season that normally takes place on 16…