The King Edward Hotel in Central is one of Port Elizabeth's landmark hotels and was built in 1903. It was taken over by a Dubai group a couple of years ago and is busy going through an extensive renovation process. The Grand Hotel across Western Road has also started a renovation process while the Donkin Reserve in front of the hotel is in the mids of a major upgrade as well. All of this bodes well for Port Elizabeth, and…
Elephants are amazing animals and its not often one gets to see an elephant's skull. The other day I had the pleasure to see one up close at an exhibit. An elephant can weigh up to 5 or 6 tons which means that it's skull is of considerable size. The interesting thing about the skull is that its not solid bone, but consist of tubes like the inside of a plane's wing. The skull didn't have it's tusks in, but…
I don't really need to say it as regular readers of specially my other blog will know, but I have a thing for cemeteries. Specially old ones. This is to such an extend that I have had a couple of people ask me to track down headstones of their ancestors for them. Anyway, Port Elizabeth has several cemeteries with military connections and/or sections. The Forest Hill Cemetery had a 'Heroes' Acre' laid out in 1980. This was in the Apartheid…
The skyline of the coastal city of Durban in KwaZulu Natal. Most of the skyline is dominated by hotels as the city is a popular coastal playground in summer. After South Africa's successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the word on the street is that Durban is going to bid to host the Olympic Games either in 2020 and 2024. Tongue in cheek footnote: I still personally much rather prefer my home town of Port Elizabeth as a…
I decided to start the week off with a nice varied Random ... theme post. The chosen Random ... theme is Ox Wagons. Ox wagons played an important roll in the early history of South Africa, in particular the Great Trek, and forms part of just about every museum exhibit throughout the country. They are specially evident around small towns and farms with ox wagon wheels often found at farm entrances. This ox wagon is on display outside the museum…
The 2010 FIFA World Cup is over. Actually, as I post this the final between Holland and Spain still needs to be played, but by the time most people read this it will have been something of the past. Before the World Cup the doom profits predicted that the event would be an absolute failure, that overseas supporters shouldn't come to South Africa cause they will be robbed and murdered and that the stadiums would be empty. How all of…
During this last month of 2010 FIFA World Cup themed posts I have already done a post featuring the Soccer Ball Light Structures outside the airport and although I don't think they will change the feature much after the event, I thought that I want to post another one just in case they do.
The town of Grahamstown (well, its actually a city as it has a cathedral) in the Eastern Cape is situated right in the middle of Settlers country. It is in this area that the 1820 British Settlers (see here, here and here for the Settler story) settled down and it was inevetable that the town would put a monuments to them. On the hill overlooking the town the Settlers Monument was built as a living monument. Opened in 1974, the…
Can you believe it? The opening game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup between South Africa and Mexico took place four weeks ago and there are only two days left before its all over. People got together at pubs, offices, public viewing areas and homes to watch the big game and that continued throughout the tournament. I have a feeling there are a few folk out there that may just suffer from withdrawal symptoms after the tournament ends.