The Gamtoos River Valley is a beautiful area just west of Port Elizabeth. It is a farming area producing mainly citrus and potatoes and an awesome option for a weekend or day getaway out of the city and into the scenic countryside. At the heart of the Gamtoos Valley is the town of Patensie and right at the entrance of the town is Tolbos Country and Coffee Shop.Tolbos is a real country shop and you will find everything from home…
There are a couple of old and historic post boxes around the country that is still in use. I found this old post box dating from the Victorian era just outside the Somerset East Museum in the Eastern Cape town with the same name.
The magnificent Victorian Gothic style old Main Library building is situated next to Market Square in Port Elizabeth's city centre. Constructed in 1902, the building's terracotta facade was manufactured in England, shipped to Port Elizabeth in numbered blocks and rebuilt piece by piece on the present site. The statue of Queen Victoria standing in front of the library building is made of Sicilian marble and was erected and unveiled in 1903 to celebrate the queen's Diamond Jubilee which took place…
On our visit to Addo Elephant National Park the other day we found a couple of Burchell's Zebra browsing on an open field just past the Marion Brie waterhole. The Burchell's Zebra is the most common zebra in South Africa and are normally found in short grassland areas within savanna woodlands and grassland plains. The body stripes (each individual have a unique set of stripes, very much like fingerprints) of the Burchell's Zebra is less numerous and broader than that…
The Bayworld Complex on the Port Elizabeth beachfront consist of the Port Elizabeth Museum, Snake Park and Oceanarium. I have done several posts about Bayworld on my blogs, most recently a series of 10 photos early in April on Port Elizabeth Daily Photo. I visited it quite often as a child and it lightens my heart that the Rugrats also enjoy going there. Unfortunately the complex is having financial problems and any exposure and assistance helps, hence this post.My interest…
We visited the Addo Elephant National Park last Sunday for the first time in way too long. There was a time that I went there quite often, so it was very exciting to get back there. Addo had some rain a couple of weeks ago and the park seems to be slowly recovering from the devastating drought that is hanging over our area. We found this young bull at the Spekboom waterhole. At Spekboom you can actually get out of…
Kemsley Park next to the SAP sports fields just off Mount Road was one of two Anglo Boer War concentration camp sites in Nelson Mandela Bay. The other one is situated just outside Uitenhage. Roché Petersen has pointed out to me in a previous post that the dead from the concentration camp was buried in the North End Cemetery where there also is a memorial. I haven't had a chance to pop by there to check it out, but hope…
The Port Elizabeth Harbour is used by commercial boats, fishing boats and recreational boats (yachts). People normally associate fishing with the small harbours along the South Western Cape and West Coast, so PE doesn't get seen as much of a fishing harbour. But that is where they are wrong. It does have a huge number of fishing boats that are based here and that offload their catch at the fishing facilities. Most of the catch gets processed here so you…
In July 1829, Dr. William Gill was appointed District Surgeon of the newly founded town and district of Somerset. Upon his death in 1863, he left the main portion of his estate to found and maintain an institution for higher education in the Eastern Cape. His will stipulated that no portion of the estate was to be spend on the purchase or erection of buildings. Consequently, Somerset farmers and townsfolk pledged that they would erect the necessary buildings. Gill College…