The area about 65 - 120km west of Port Elizabeth is known as the Kouga (Place of many fat animals). The coastal towns of the Kouga is situated around the Bay of St Francis. Included in the area is the surfing and shell town of Jeffreys Bay, the very upmarket marina canal village of St Francis Bay and then the western point of the Cape St Francis. At the point is the Seal Point Lighthouse built in 1878. It used…
One of the most famous landmarks in South Africa is Table Mountain overlooking the city of Cape Town. Cape Town is situated on the south western end of the continent and South Africa's most saught after destination. Cape Town is situated about 750km from Port Elizabeth and the area in between is known as the Garden Route. I don't get to Cape Town nearly enough, but when I was there three weeks ago I got to do some sightseeing with…
Kwantu Private Game Reserve is an unique reserve in that it is owned by a Muslim family and they are sticking strictly to their Islamic traditions by not allowing alcohol on the reserve. Their food is also very Eastern in flavour. I've had the opportunity to visit the reserve a couple of times while I was a tour guide and this giraffe pic was taken one late afternoon at about sunset.
5 days now, and we are unable to upload pictures to blogger. Every time we try, we get the following messageNetwork Error (tcp_error) A communication error occurred: "" The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time. For assistance, contact your network support team.On the forum there is a short note from a Google Employee saying there is a problem and…
An adult male and two juveniles lying in the late afternoon sun in the Schotia Private Game Reserve. This is the same game reserve where I took the sunset photo of a couple of days ago.
Port Elizabeth is situated in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The area to the north and the east of Port Elizabeth is prime big game country with numerous private game reserves on offer in a malaria free environment. Most of the game reserves have some or all of the Big 5 and offer accommodation ranging from rustic to luxury 5 star. The biggest attraction in the area is the Addo Elephant National Park, less than an hour outside…
These lonely looking houses on the leeward side of the island were built for guano collectors. This was apparently not a very succesful venture, as the collection of guano was made difficult by the terrain. The smell of the place would have put any normal person off, before they started.
St Croix Island rises out of the sea like a large rock and looks like a very inhospitable place, but it boasts the largest colony of African penguins in Southern Africa.Wherever you look on the island there are groups of penguins. They are increasingly coming under pressure, as the fishing trawlers have depleted the area of fish. Recent sudies have shown that they travel up to 155 kms to find food. That is a long swim by any standard.
I climbed into the garden for a change and cleaned out the weeds in my rock garden. This little snail was quite willing for me to get all close and personal and click away for some photos. Just having a little compact Kodak EasyShare meant that I had to take these pics from about 20cm away. Good thing for me they don't spit, sting or bite.
There is a man in Port Elizabeth who is both passionate and very knowledgable about marine life in Algoa Bay. His name is Lloyd Edwards, and he owns an operation called Raggy Charters. Lloyd is involved in all sorts of marine conservation, education and research projects, and in order to fund these, he has written a stunning book called Scenes from Algoa Bay, full of photos he has collected over his years of boating in the bay. In addition, he…