There are big dairy farming areas to both the east and the west of Port Elizabeth producing milk not just for the Port Elizabeth area, but also beyond. Some of these farms are massive, producing thousands of litres of milk every day. Most of the cows on these farms are Jersey and Friesian cows. The ones on this farm in the Gamtoos Valley west of Port Elizabeth are Jersey cows.
Not too long ago I did a series of posts regarding the International Mohair Summit in the town of Graaff Reinet. I just realised that there was still one post on it that I didn't do although I uploaded the photos. During the summit the Mohair Meander was launched. Its basically a route map that takes visitors through the Karoo region and points mohair related places. One of the main features of the route is the newly launched Mohair Experience…
Farm workers houses in the early morning light on a Karoo farm. Check out the full moon in the background. Note: I don't know if there are actually somebody living in these, cause in the two days I was on the farm I never saw anybody there.
The first biennual International Mohair Summit took place in the Karoo town of Graaff Reinet last week. "What does it have to do with Port Elizabeth?" I hear you ask. Well, Port Elizabeth is seen as the mohair capital of the world as more mohair moves through this city than anywhere else in the world. If you want to learn more about the summit, you can read more about it on The Firefly Photo Files. Specific posts are: International Mohair…
So to avoid boring you with all this Angora goats / mohair stuff, this will be the last post on the topic. Its not the last post about the trip though, as I have lots to show you as far as places and scenery from the area. So stay tuned. An intricate part of the whole International Mohair Summet was the two days of Angora goat competitions. Now I'm not a Angora goat expert, not by a long shot, but…
Imagine being held between a guys knees (no people! no kinky thoughts now) and having a huge pair of scissors cut off all your hair all over your body. Sometimes only centimeters from your eyes. Well, that is what a poor sheep or angora goat must feel like when being sheared.During the International Mohair Summit there were several shearing demonstrations both with scissors as well as the electric shearer. Although the electric one is probably the way of the future,…
Yesterday I kicked off my series of posts related to the International Mohair Summit with some background information. For today's post I want to show off some of the mohair products that was on show at the trade show that was held at the summit. One of the most popular mohair products are mohair blankets. There were several stalls with blankets, but some of the most exquisite ones must have been those on the stand of Jan Paul Barnard (Mohair…
The Gamtoos River Valley around Hankey and Patensie is an absolutely stunning area. This last weekend we went camping next to the bottom section of the Gamtoos River at a camp site called Wackey Woods. Saturday morning we drove to Loerie and Melon, but unfortunately not all the way up the valley to Patensie. The area is mainly a farming area and I couldn't help but to stop next to the road leading to Loerie to take a photo of…
Ok, so I didn't quite have something to post about today. I was going through all my photos to find something interesting and decided to pick a couple of random photos that aren't connected to a certain place. I was going round in circles. Round and round... but just could not decide on something. The worry of not having something to post started going round my head and I started walking in a circle thinking. I came up with a…
In the area to the west of Port Elizabeth there are several protea farms, especially in the eastern part of the Tsitsikamma. Proteas (more here and here) form part of the Cape Floral Kingdom or Fynbos biome. There are 8500 different plan species in the Fynbos biome, more than all the plant types in the whole of Britain. It is the world's smallest biome and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site (natural site) a couple of years ago.On this…