Behind Schoenies
I'm really enjoying the trail behind Schoenmakerskop lately. It's nice and flat, open all around, yet fairly sheltered from the prevailing south-easterly wind.
I'm really enjoying the trail behind Schoenmakerskop lately. It's nice and flat, open all around, yet fairly sheltered from the prevailing south-easterly wind.
One of the things I realised during lockdown that I was missing out on was seeing the aloes in bloom while driving through the Eastern Cape's Karoo Heartland. It's definitely one of my favorite things to see on a road trip and the thought of missing out on it this year kinda depressed me. Business travel opened a little while ago and suddenly I had the opportunity to make a quick trip up to Nieu-Bethesda for work. Yay, yay, yay!…
I've been doing a lot of walking on the jeep track trails behind Schoenmakerskop lately and climbed the one koppie on Sunday afternoon to get a better view of the coastline, the village and surrounding scenery.
Driving up Heatherbank Road between Charlo and Lorraine, one could easily make a head move and think you are driving past a farm and not necessarily still in the middle of the city.
One of my favorite things about driving through the Karoo Heartland during the winter is seeing the aloes in bloom. But there is another Karoo succulent that grows between the aloes that most people don't really notice called Noors. The Noors is a type of euphorbia and found especially around the town of Jansenville. They are smallish, thorny plants with milky sap and the reason that the region is called the Noorsveld. The origin of the name noors is…
A week or two ago I had to go on an urgent work-related road trip and popped into two of my favorite villages, Nieu-Bethesda and Hogsback, before heading down to East London for the night. It was literally whistle-stop visits with no sightseeing. All business. Barrelling along the N2 between King William's Town and East London the sun was setting behind me and the best I could do was snap a pic in the car's side mirror at a hundred…
A couple of weeks ago a number of containers full of export oranges fell of a ship in Algoa Bay during a storm and those oranges have now made their way to the beach, washing up along the Wild Side, Schoenmakerskop, Sardinia Bay and, in this case, landing up in a rock pool at Beachview. Unfortunately the time these fruit spent in the ocean means that they aren't good for human consumption anymore and people are discouraged from picking them…
The Boardwalk buildings reflecting in the lake on a windless morning
One moment you are leisurely strolling with your toes in the sand next to the Maitland River and the next instant sweat is pouring down your forehead as you climb THE dune.
The Tsitsikamma and the Langkloof is linked by a short pass over the mountain between Oudebosch and Kareedouw on the eastern side. The pass only has 7 bends, all of them are minor. It does offer sweeping views of the Tsitsikamma mountains to the left (west) with the green valley on the right dotted with dams. The vegetation changes very suddenly as one crosses over the top and you enter the Langkloof. After a day in the Tsitsikamma I decided…