Firefly the Travel Guy - Firefly the Travel Guy

Aloes in the Karoo

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!…

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26/08/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Flowering Noors

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…

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19/08/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Rearview sunset

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…

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12/08/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Langkloof Proteas

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…

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22/07/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

A Camdeboo sunset

There is nothing as beautiful as a Karoo sunset. Combine that with a late afternoon game drive that includes sundowners with a beautiful view. Jackpot. Wide open spaces, a slight breeze, the sound of the veld, the last light as the sun disappears and colours the clouds shades of red, orange and yellow as the sky turns different hues of blue.

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20/07/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

The endangered African Unicorn

"Look mom, tourist types!" One of the most precious things one can probably see in nature is a mother and her baby. Even more precious if it is an endangered animal like the White Rhino. The sad part of spotting and photographing rhino is that people get all up in arms when you publish your photos to show off these magnificent animals. I took the photos in this post somewhere in 2018 and as much as I would like to…

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07/07/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Tsitsikamma cattle roadblock

We decided to break away to the Tsitsikamma for the day and rather than just driving in and out on the N2, we took the scenic R102. The three biggest industries in the area are forestry, tourism and dairy so everywhere along the way you pass plantations, dairy farms and accommodation and activity establishments. What we didn't expect to encounter was a roadblock made up of cattle. As we crested a little hill I realised that there was something in…

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18/06/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Grahamstown’s Bible Monument

Depicting an open bible, the monument faces the direction the Voortrekkers departed in Grahamstown has some very well known monuments and historic buildings. The 1820 Settlers Monument on the hill, the Cathedral of St Michael and St George, the Angel Statue, Observatory Museum with it's camera obscura and many more. One I didn't know about was the Bible Monument on the outskirts of town and I would never have known of it if it wasn't that I went in search…

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05/06/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

I’m back… after a hiatus of 2 years

A magnificent King Protea in the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve It's been two years since I've stopped blogging. What I initially intended to be a three week break was extended to two months and then became an indefinite postponement. My mojo was gone. In fact I didn't even take photos anymore. My camera gathered dust and my writing skills became rusty. The last two years have been funny actually. I started losing concentration, thought I developed ADD and frankly, also…

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02/06/2020

Firefly the Travel Guy

Wild Coast lighthouses – Cape Morgan Lighthouse

The Wild Coast isn't called the Wild Coast for nothing. It may be paradise but it can get rough out there if it wants. So with that in mind, it's nogal strange that there are only three lighthouses (some websites say four but I'm not sure which the 4th one is) along this whole piece of coastline, Cape Morgan in the South, M'bashe roughly in the middle and Cape Hermes at Port St Johns in the North. Out of the three…

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07/03/2018