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St Augustines

Port Elizabeth has two beautiful cathedrals literally a couple of hundred meters away from each other in the city centre.  The one is the St Mary's Anglican Cathedral while the second (in picture) is St Augustine's Catholic Cathedral.   When the first Catholic priest set foot in Port Elizabeth in 1840 (after being shipwrecked in Cape St Francis and having to travel the last 100km to town on horseback), there were only 42 Catholics in the town. In the coming years…

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08/03/2013
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Calm waters

Late afternoon on a windless summers day in Montagu in the Western Cape...... paddle boating on the Montagu Caravan Park's dam

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08/03/2013
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Brick work chimney

Talk about a structure standing out like a sore thumb.  In this case looks more than one of the other fingers though.  The Despatch brick works chimney was built in 1882 and was once part of a flourishing brick works. Bricks were "dispatched" or rather "despatched" from here along a railway siding (later known as "Hitler's Halt") to Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth. Many of the older buildings in PE and Uitenhage were built with these bricks. Guess where the town's…

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07/03/2013
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Open air theatre

St Georges Park has a stunning outdoor theatre venue called Mannville which (used to) host the annual Port Elizabeth Shakespearean Festival.  Unfortunately due to people who feel that they are entitled to other folks' property and those who purposefully go out and damage what is not theirs, the festival has been moved to indoor theatres the last two years.  The theatre was established in 1972 by Bruce and Helen Mann and if only these bad elements can be kept out of the park,…

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06/03/2013
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Nippers

On Saturday while having a walk along Kings Beach we found that there was a regional Nippers competition on the go.  Nippers are young Surf Lifesavers between 5 and 14 years old. Unlike senior Surf Lifesavers, the majority of them do not patrol the beaches but focus on fun and surf awareness.Nippers learn about safety at the beach. They learn about dangers such as rocks and animals as well as surf conditions such as rip currents, sandbars, and waves.  Like their Senior…

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05/03/2013
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Marine Hotel view

A couple of months ago I won a two nights Protea Hotel voucher in a competition and the expiry date started to approach so we decided to not go out of town for it but rather enjoy a weekend "holidaying" in our own home town.  The KidZ stayed at their grandparents and the Damselfly and I just planned a weekend of relaxing and walking on the beachfront.  Believe it or not, it actually felt like we were somewhere else.  We…

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04/03/2013
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South End Tree

Across the road from the South End Museum stands an old Wild Fig tree which is thought to be over 100 years old. The tree stands next to what used to be Chase Street in the old South End and back in the days the kids used to climb the tree while the older people sat in it's shade. When the people were removed and the buildings in the area demolished, the fear was that the tree would also be chopped down or…

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03/03/2013