Travel Blog

Uncategorized

Filming the Sundays River

A week or so ago I accompanied a group of media around the Port Elizabeth area for a couple of days.  One of the activities we did was cruising down the Sundays River with the Sundays River Ferry before climbing the big Colchester sand dunes.  The camera man of the SABC 1 show Real Goboza had a ball of a time both on the boat as well as the dunes and here he's busy filming while we were cruising downstream.

Comments Off on Filming the Sundays River
09/09/2012
Uncategorized

Boardwalk construction crane

The construction on the new Boardwalk Hotel, Spa and Conference Centre is coming on very nicely with the roof having gone up already. 

Comments Off on Boardwalk construction crane
08/09/2012
Uncategorized

Grey Institute after dark

I always like photographing historic buildings lit up with spot lights after dark.  Perhaps its just me but there aren't as many these days as there used to be in the past.  I had to go to an evening meeting at the Grand Hotel in Central and because I was a bit early I popped along the Donkin Reserve to get a couple of photos of those buildings that were lit up.  This is the Grey Institute.

3 Comments
07/09/2012
Uncategorized

Taxi’s in the wall

 One of the latest art pieces to be installed in the city centre as part of the Route 67 initiative is a row of taxi's inbedded in the wall on Whites Road across the road from the Opera House.  The piece was done by Mark Wilby in collaboration with Bongani Njalo, Bamanye Ngxale, Jason Olivier, Gabriel Chaponda and Siya Mboniswa.  The discription in the Route 67 brochure states the following: "History is often shaped by momentous events, while cities with their alleys,…

3 Comments
06/09/2012
Uncategorized

Tsisha Nyama

What do you do when you're taking a foreign journalist around and he wants to have something local for lunch? Well, I phoned a colleague at work and suggested that we take him for liver and stew in the township.  He then suggested that we do something else and take the journalist for a traditional ikasi tsisha njama (township braai or barbeque).  Sisha Njama is a Zulu phrase and literally means "burn the meat" while in Xhosa it is spelled Tsisha Njama.  I…

4 Comments
06/09/2012
Uncategorized

Oysters and sparkling wine

I always wonder who the first person was to be brave enough to open an oyster and put the "meat" in their mouth, allowing it to gently slide down their throat.  They most likely did it while in search of a food source but whoever it was did us all a huge favour and today oysters is very much a delicacy.  Fusion in Richmond Hill had an oyster promotion when I had lunch there the other day and I couldn't help but snap…

1 Comment
05/09/2012
Uncategorized

Olof Palme Road

Swedish visitors to the Red Location Museum in New Brighton always stand in amazement at the fact that the street in front of the museum is called Olof Palme Road.  Olof Palme was the Prime Minister of Sweden until his assassination on 28 February 1986 and a big supporter of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa.  The Swedish government has also made a number of investments in upliftment projects in the New Brighton area since the dawn of democracy.

Comments Off on Olof Palme Road
04/09/2012
Uncategorized

Cuyler Manor water mill

I think its very sad that so few people visit the Cuyler Manor Museum in Uitenhage and get to see its many features.  One of these is their working water mill which if you ask very nicely, they may just show the workings of to you.

3 Comments
03/09/2012
Uncategorized

Church ruin

Seeing that I've done a couple of posts promoting the events organised by Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism for Tourism Month, I thought to do just one more. People tend to immediately know what you're talking about when you mention District 6 in Cape Town, but very few actually know that South End in Port Elizabeth has a very similar history.  South End has a number of heritage sites which are connected together by the South End Museum Heritage Trail.  One of the sites the…

1 Comment
02/09/2012