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Camping in the Drakensberg

The general holiday question is always, BEACH or BUSH?  I will probably choose bush over beach 7 out of 10 times but that's because I live on the coast.  It's also because I love getting away to a forest, the bush, a game reserve or the wide open spaces of the Karoo.  Although I feel you can group all these things into the BUSH category, something is definitely missing from that question though.  MOUNTAINS, definitely mountains.  The question should be…

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13/02/2017
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The UFO has landed

One of the Route 67 art pieces that gets the most discussion by visitors is artist Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta's bird-like statue.  The Fish-Bird looks like a UFO that has landed and visitors would be excused if they looked around for little green men running around.  The Fish-Bird represents the fish in Algoa bay and the birds up on the Donkin Reserve and has returning back to the Donkin to take ownership of this transforming site.

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12/02/2017
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Memorials in the Donkin Memorial Garden

Visitors to the Donkin Reserve will notice a number of memorials located next to the lighthouse building in a memorial garden made up of spekboom and euphorbia.  This section of the Donkin Reserve has been dedicated to the memory of municipal councilors who have died while serving the city.  The garden was unveiled to remember 52 (at the time of unveiling) councilors from different political backgrounds who died while in office and who's deaths range from illness to car accidents…

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11/02/2017
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NMMU mass line dance – 2013

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=702mrIEEyIU&w=500&h=400]I came across this video of a mass line dance that was done at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on 21 February 2013.  Don't know how I haven't seen it before, but I just have to share it with you for today's Video Friday post.

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10/02/2017
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A Mandela quote for today

The time for healing of the wounds has come,The moment to bridge the chasm that divides us has come,The time to build is upon us.These words were spoken by Nelson Mandela in 1994 and is on display along Route 67 on the Donkin Reserve.  Words which are as appropriate today as it was back in 1994. 

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09/02/2017
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Chomp up the city

If you stand at the right angle it really looks like one of the seats on the Donkin Reserve is chomping away at the city behind it.  The art is by well known Port Elizabeth graffiti artist Joff, 

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08/02/2017
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The Drakensberg Amphitheatre

The Amphitheatre must surely be the most recognised and best know feature of the Drakensberg and looked down over us while we were camping in the Royal Natal National Park in December.  The Amphitheatre is over 5 kilometers in length and the cliffs along its entire face is about 1 220 meters high at average.  The source of the Tugela River is up in this section of the Drakensberg and the Tugela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world…

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08/02/2017
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Port Elizabeth’s Mandela figure

The Mandela figure at the head of The Voting Line piece on the Donkin Reserve has become a very popular photographic subject since it's installation as part of Route 67 either on it's own or with people posing next to it.  It is sad though that this is the only Mandela figure that visitors get to see with the only two others ones I know of being a life-size figure standing inside City Hall and the Madiba Shirt piece on…

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07/02/2017
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Vygies in the veld outside Matatiele

Vygies come in all shapes, sizes and colours.  These little ones I found on the mountain above Matatiele on a visit to the Matatiele Mountain Lake.  I have two types of vygies in my garden, both creeper type plants with tin green leaves.  This specific one has ticker and rounder leaves and look a more like a typical succulent.  A little search on the internet gave me the following: Stone plants - Aizoaceae or Ficoidaceae is a family of dicotyledonous flowering…

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06/02/2017
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Donkin Reserve intersection

Even though I've been to the Donkin Reserve so many times (I don't want to say hundreds of times but probably can), I still enjoy walking around the reserve and look at the Route 67 art pieces.  It really is one of Port Elizabeth's ultimate iconic sites.

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06/02/2017