The town of Patensie in the Gamtoos Valley is surrounded by beautiful scenery. Rolling hills, distant mountains, citrus and vegetable farmland, valley thicket, guest farms and some of the friendliest people you will find anywhere.
Imagine flying over a waterfall, across a river valley or down a river gorge. All of that is possible at the Tsitsikamma Falls Adventures zipline east of Storms River. Visitors get to zig-zag across the Kruis River right next to the N2 and the whole experience only takes about an hour. It means that there is no excuse not to stop and experience one of the activities that make the Tsitsikamma the adventure hub of the Garden Route. I've been fortunate enough…
The sleepy village of Wolwefontein lies on the road between Port Elizabeth and Graaff-Reinet and only exists because the railway line runs through it. Over the last few decades a lot of railway stations have closed down due to the decline of the railway system in South Africa but it seems that Wolwefontein is holding on for dear life. I pulled over onto its dusty streets for a quick look on the way to Graaff-Reinet the other day and discovered…
I have never been a big bird expert. When I started working as a tourist guide I went to a lot of effort to increase my birding knowledge, but a LBJ (little brown job) and an Overtheroadian were still the most common answers I gave when something flashed across the road as we drove along somewhere. Addo Elephant National Park has a bird checklist of over 400 species with about 200 occurring within the main game area. In all the years that I…
Late last week I got to go on a pre Nelson Mandela Bay Sevens Instawalk around the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium as the final touches was being put in place for this weekend's #NMB7s tournament. I've been to the stadium so many times before and I was looking for something slightly different and I kinda like the result I got just by changing the angle a little bit.
A couple of weeks ago I spent a couple of days touring around the Eastern Cape with a group of journalists and one of our stops was in the Gamtoos Valley town of Patensie. After a visit at the Malan Cucumber Farm we were taken up to their new cucumber tunnels on a koppie outside town and I snapped these pictures of the view. The Gamtoos Valley truly is a very scenic and undiscovered area with most visitors just heading…
A couple of months ago I spent a night at Ganora Guest Farm outside Nieu Bethesda. What an amazing place! Although I didn't have a lot of time but did get to do a tour of JP's Fossil Museum. Unfortunately I didn't get to go and see the rock drawings on the farm. Before heading into the village for the meeting I was there for I took a walk down to the river just below the homestead. If it wasn't for…
Fly fishing - An angling method in which an artificial "fly" is used to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. Casting a nearly weightless fly or "lure" requires casting techniques significantly different from other forms of casting.Karoo - The Karoo (from the KhoiSan word which means Place of Thirst) is a semi-desert region of South Africa. The Karoo covers nearly 400 000km2 of South Africa and is mostly defined partly by its topography, partly its…
A little while ago I stopped by Fort Peddie on my way from Port Elizabeth to East London and discovered this historic site while hunting for a Geocache. The thing with most travelers is that they are so focused on the big things that they often miss the little ones. In this case the big things were the old tower and the cavalry barracks which I both went to have a look at. The former to find the cache and the latter…
The Anglo Boer War (1899 - 1902) is one of the big turning points in South Africa's history along with the arrival of Europeans in the country, the Great Trek, the Apartheid years and a new democratic South Africa. Okay, so the history is about more than just those five turning points but that is what came to my mind just now. One of the most significant things that happened during the Anglo Boar War was that it was the first time ever that…