I'm not a Jazz fan, not by a long shot. For some reason, perhaps because of watching too much television, when I hear "jazz" I think of a smoke filled bar with a lady hanging onto a mic accompanied by a piano, sax and double bass. So when I was invited to Cape Town on a blogger tour which included the Cape Town International Jazz Festival I wasn't too sure what to expect. Jazz? Festival? Me? That's going to be an interesting…
Except for yesterdays picture of the Ironman cyclists, I decided not to go into a long winded series of Ironman posts this year. Not because I don't want to, but because I didn't do the media thing for Ironman this year and rather had family time. Most of Saturday was spent at Ironkids with both of the KidZ taking part. But that isn't what this post is about. Rather, this post is dedicated to the lifeguards who assisted the kids so tirelessly throughout the afternoon. The…
This past weekend (12 - 14 April 2013) was Ironman weekend in Port Elizabeth which, in addition to the main Ironman event on Sunday, also included an Irongirl 8km run on Friday and Corporate Ironman and Ironkids on Saturday. Both Ironkids and Irongirl are the biggest events of their kind in the world. Just for those who don't know what Ironman is, its an ultra triathlon with competitors doing a 3,8 km swim followed by a 180 km cycle and ending off…
It's Christmas eve and tonight Father Christmas will be visiting many children all over the world. Crawling down chimneys, sneaking in windows or just leaving a gift by the front door. Well, not quite all the children. There are many less privileged kids out there that may not be getting a gift this Christmas. On Wednesday Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism and Holmeleigh Farm along with a number of very generous sponsors (and I want to mention musician Wayne Kallis specifically) hosted…
On Sunday I tackled the 2nd annual Urban Run along with about 1000 other athletes runners competitors adventurous people. What an amazing experience!!! Urban Run is a 10,5km urban obstacle course through the Port Elizabeth city centre, the historical part of town, St Georges Park, Settlers Park and surrounding area. The 17 obstacles along the way included crawling through cement pipes, scaling Fort Frederick, crossing the Baakens River on poles and running trough a train. Did I mention the steps? No? There were lots of steps. And…
Road running isn't for everybody. Pounding away at the road for kilometer after kilometer bores me a little bit, but I do like to participate in races with a difference. The Urban Run around Port Elizabeth's city centre area surely is one of those. Urban Run is a 10,5 kilometer urban obstacle coarse which 1. helps to get people back into the city centre, 2. get people to visit places that they may not have seen or visited in ages,…
One of the things that the redevelopment of the Donkin Reserve in Port Elizabeth has done was inadvertently create the ideal winding downhill skateboard (long board) coarse. This has led to the first Donkin Downhill Dash taking place today. The pathway, starting up at the historic lighthouse and pyramid with its crosses representing democratic votes past and future, makes its way down towards Chapel Street and are long enough for the top skaters to clock times of about 1 minute 22…
There is just something special to small town festivals which you don't get in the cities and the Patensie Citrus Festival has that something special. This past weekend the third annual Citrus Festival took place in the Gamtoos Vally west of Port Elizabeth. The Gamtoos Valley is very much a farming area and produce both fruit and vegetables with potatoes and oranges being two of the major produce from the valley. In actual fact the valley is often referred to…
On Saturday morning I loaded the family into the car and headed out to the Gamtoos Valley west of Port Elizabeth for the annual Patensie Citrus Festival. There were a couple of reasons for our little outing the first and foremost being the fact that I loaded a boot full of fresh fruit and vegetables for a fraction of what I would have paid for it in a supermarket in the city. Plus it was absolutely farm fresh. The Gamtoos Valley…
I never really "learned" to drink wine but that surely didn't stop me from attending and really enjoying the annual The Wine Show at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium in Port Elizabeth this past weekend. The weather over the weekend was miserable, wet and cold, so there was no better way to warm up the insides than going on an all out wine tasting safari at the show.Most of the "big" and well known wine estates weren't represented at the…