By far one of my favourite flowers is the Arium Lily. The grow very much wild in the Tsitsikamma forest because of the high rainfall and lot of water there. Some of the are huge compared to those you see in people's gardens. When I used to be a tourist guide I got to visit the Tsitsikamma very often, but alas I haven't been for a while. This pic I took on the Mouth Trail in the Tsitsikamma National Park…
The Garden Route is not just a very scenic area but also an adventure junkie's playground with near countless activities to be done by thrill seekers of all shapes and sizes.The ultimate adventure activity can be done at the Bloukrantz River Bridge in the Tsitsikamma. The river is also the boundary between the provinces of the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape. Here you will find one of the highest commercial bungy jump sites in the world.Measured at 216 metres…
The Khoisan people were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa. Having had a relatively lighter skin color than most black Africans, evidence shows that they lived in the area long before the Black people moving down the east and west coasts of Africa arrived in the south or European colonization. The Khoisan people are divided into two cultures. The hunter gatherer San (commonly known as Bushmen) and the pastoral Khoi (sometimes known as Hottentots). The San was found…
The area between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town is known as the Garden Route. It is one of the most popular tourist routes in South Africa. About 160km west of Port Elizabeth you enter the Tsitsikamma. The Tsitsikamma is the area wedged between the ocean and the Tsitsikamma Mountains and consist of indigenous forests, magnificent coastline, river gorges, streams and some of the most awesome scenery on the whole Garden Route. The indigenous forest consist of trees like the Yellowwood,…
Today I just wanted to post a couple of random elephant photos taken in the Addo Elephant National Park. Its been a while since I've been there and today I was kind of missing the park, so I decided to do a post on it. I have posted on the park before and you can read my first post explaining more about the park here. A family of elephants drinking water at the Domkrag waterhole. A mother elephant is leading…
The area around Port Elizabeth is one of the prime game viewing areas in South Africa with a big amount of malaria free game reserves situated within one to one and a half hours away from the city. The biggest and best known one is the Addo Elephant National Park. As it is a National Park, it is affordable for South Africans to be able to visit it. The majority of the game reserves are private game reserves that offers…
Red Location is one of the oldest settled Black Townships of Port Elizabeth. It derives its name from a series of corrugated iron barrack buildings, which are rusted a deep red colour. Building materials for these sheds stem from the First South African War (1899-1902) structures - the Boer concentration camp at Uitenhage as well as the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at De Aar.Visitors to the Red Location Museum are not treated as consumers but active participants. The conventions of representing…
Today we had the annual Port Elizabeth Airshow. It is one of the big events on the events calender here in town and have participation from the South African Airforce, Acrobatic teams, Police and Rescue aircraft as well as private aircraft. All the funds raised through the event goes to the MTR Smit Children's Home. There were tons of people today and even though the winds blew a bit, the show went on and it was awesome. Now I'm not…
The village of Colchester is nestled on the banks of the Sundays River, about 35km outside Port Elizabeth. Starting at Colchester (west of the Sundays River Mouth) heading east is the Alexandria Dunefields. These are reputed to be the largest coastal dune field in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. The western part is locally known as the Colchester Dunefields and can only be reached with a boat by cruising down the river and landing on…
On my recent trip accompanying the Chinese Travel Services delegation around Cape Town and more importantly the Port Elizabeth area, one of our overnight stops was Kwantu Private Game Reserve. Kwantu is one of the only game reserves in our area that offers visitors a traditional dance performance as part of the stay at the reserve. The dance group comes from a nearby town and it is great to see the reserve owners supporting such a group. Here the group…