...something a bit different today....instead of an actual photo of PE, here is a photo of a painting of PE!Looking down Parliament Street towards the bay. Oil on canvas, 750x950mm.I have been invited to exhibit in an exhibition in a private home, along with a group of artists whose work I have great admiration for, so if any of you are going to be in PE this weekend and are into art, here is an invitation for you: Art Exhibition5-6…
The Aloe is a succulent plant that is native to Africa and very common in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces. There are about 400 different species of Aloe plants.The Aloe Ferox is found specifically in South Africa and is one of only a few that were used traditionally as a herbal medicine. Although the Aloe Vera is the best known Aloe as far as medicinal value goes, the Aloe Ferox also has various uses. Today, the gel found…
At the Eastern edge of Port Elizabeth runs the Swartkops River, and there is a delightful little village on the bank of the river, overlooking the city. This part of it has changed little over the years, as you can see from this photo of our French friend, Gaston, fishing there back in 1959. But over the hill, it has grown a lot, and stretches out towards the East, with shops and garages etc.
For the last couple of nights we had a bit of a lunar spectacle in the early evening sky. Looking to the west the moon was flanked by two bright stars. To the left and slightly above the moon was Venus, the evening star, and below to the right was Jupiter.
Albany road seems to be an interesting road, recently we featured floods there, from a burst pipe... Yesterday, as I often do when I am wandering around the house, I looked up to check the view through the front window, and there wasn't one! I checked the side window to see if a mist was coming in but it was bright and clear... so I realised I was looking at a fire in the valley.Luckily the fire department were already…
Very few people would have heard of the little dusty Karoo village of Nieu-Bethesda if it wasn't for The Owl House. Nieu-Bethesda is situated about 3 1/2 hours north of Port Elizabeth close to the town of Graaff Reinet. The house belonged to a woman named Helen Martins. Martins became bored with her "dull" life and resolved to transform the environment around her. She began an obsessive project around 1945 to decorate her home and garden and used cement, glass…
One of the things we were determined to find on this trip to Addo were the lions. We checked in regularly at the reception to see where they were being spotted, and drove those roads, scanning carefully. All in vain. But then, travelling along a section of road we were not really supposed to be on, because our car is not a high clearance vehicle, we got to see a cousin of theirs, and were absolutley ecstatic.... You can spend…
These busy little creatures are dung beetles, and are synonymous with Addo Park. It is cute to see road signs all over the place warning motorists not to drive through elephant dung, and stating that dung beetles have right of way on all roads!
I noticed that this is my 100th post. I didn't realise that I've done so many. So how do I celebrate my "blog century". I went scratching around my photo stock and decided to post a one in a hundred (or probably more one in a hundred thousand) photo. This pic was taken in the Addo Elephant National Park. They released lions into Addo about 6 years ago and at first people struggled to even find them. Since then the…
Addo Elephant Nationl Park is only 40 minutes from home, so it is the ideal spot for a short weekend getaway.