beach treasures

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Black Oyster Catcher nest on the Wild Coast

The Wild Coast is all about the rugged coastline, beautiful beaches, rolling green hills, dramatic waterfalls, spectacular river mouths, friendly and hospitable people.  So in fact that many visitors often miss the little things.  And y'all know how I can go on about not just looking at the bigger picture when you are travelling.A little while ago I was staying at Wavecrest Hotel and took an early morning walk down to the river mouth.  It was raining all night and…

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12/04/2017
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The little things on the Wild Coast

I'm a big advocate of keeping one's eyes open for the little things as much as the big stuff.  Spending a night at Kob Inn on the Wild Coast I went for an afternoon stroll down to the Qora River and while the coastline and river held my attention, I still spotted this little scene.  The more delicate side of the Wild Coast.

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19/05/2016
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A walk along the beach in Jeffrey’s Bay

What good is a morning meeting in Jeffrey's Bay with perfect early summer weather if one can't leave a little earlier and go for a walk on the beach? Yeh, says me too.  Early morning and not a breath of air in Port Elizabeth so I took a chance and left just after 7am to give myself a bit of time for a walk along the beach at Kabeljous.The tide was low and water was flowing out of the lagoon…

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09/12/2015
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Discovering Lauries Bay in Port Elizabeth

The South African coastline stretches over 2500 km (give or take a couple of km) from the desert border with Namibia to the subtropical border with Mozambique.  I say give or take a couple of km as I have seen exact distances given of between 2798 km and 3751 km.  Whichever it is, its a heck of a piece of coastline varying between long sandy stretches, rugged inaccessible areas, rural and uninhabited beaches and developed pieces in populated areas.  This all means that there are…

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05/02/2015
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Sea monsters off Port Elizabeth

 Is there such a thing as sea monsters?  Huge tentacled beasts dragging ships in under the waves, long necked dinosaur like animals who survived millions of years in the deep or scaly monsters with huge teeth so terrifying that Great White Sharks flee in fear?  A morning's hiking around the Cape Recife Nature Reserve in Port Elizabeth nearly had me thinking twice that I have found proof.Walking along the Algoa Bay side of the reserve I spotted a spiky spine visible amongst the waves.  I started to…

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27/09/2012
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Penguins under pressure

Last week I saw a stunning yet very sad picture by Luc Hosten on Facebook.  Two days later I was down at Cape Recife in Port Elizabeth and came across the scene photographed by Luc.  The penguin wasn't in the same position anymore and I didn't want to try and recreate the exact scene anyway, so decided on something similar yet slightly further away.  African Penguins are highly endangered and under immense pressure at the moment with some people giving them only 5 years if…

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20/09/2012
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A shell along the shore

Seven of us from work went for a walk along the Sacramento Trail just outside Port Elizabeth the other day.  We were lucky to choose the perfect day with the warm winter sun shining down on us.  I had two cameras hanging around my neck so I was clicking away all the way for both work and pleasure.  As usual my eyes were all over the show looking for stuff to photograph and I spotted the big orange and black shell…

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14/08/2012
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On the rocks

Oh how I wish I could spend the day sitting on the rocks like this and just stare out at sea.  I did have a super relaxing looooong weekend, but now its shoulder to the wheel till after Tourism Indaba.  The next two weeks are going to be seriously hectic at work so please excuse if the posts doesn't have a lot of information in them. If I did decide to slip away to stare at the bay, I would probably…

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02/05/2012
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Sunfish on the beach

Taking a walk along Noordhoek Beach in the Cape I stumbled on a dead sunfish.  This was only a baby, but still something very unusual to see washed up.  Sunfishes are so called because of their habit of drifting at the surface as if basking in the sun.  There are two species of sunfishes found in the waters surrounding Cape Town, the Ocean Sunfish (Mola mola) and the Sharptail Sunfish (Masturus lanceolatus).  Now I'm no sunfish expert so I'm not going…

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19/03/2012
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Sea pumpkin on the beach

Before a sea pumpkin becomes a ... well, sea pumpkin, it spends it's life as a spiky sea urchin living in a rock pool or gully somewhere on the coast.  But once the creature inside the shell dies the spikes fall off and only a green "pumpkin" looking shell is left behind.  These sea pumpkins are very popular with people, specially kids, picking up shells.

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13/10/2011