The Volkswagen plant in Uitenhage

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCW9f4nXcCg&w=500&h=400]Have you ever wondered what it looks like inside the Volsawagen plant in Uitenhage but have never had a chance to go and do the factory tour?  Let me show you through this video I discovered on the Rivista Automobilismo channel on YouTube this morning.

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View of Algorax

Everybody knows the big blue factory next to the N2 just after you passed over the Swartkops River on the way into Port Elizabeth.  The factory is Algorax and is a carbon black factory.  Carbon black is mainly used as a reinforcing filler in tires and other rubber products.  With three of South Africa's biggest tyre manufacturers situated in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro the factory is situated within close range of all of these.  This is the view of the factory…

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Coega IDZ aerial

The last of the pictures I snapped returning to Port Elizabeth recently was of the Coega Industrial Development Zone.  The Coega Harbour is visible on the right and Motherwell on the left.

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Manganese ore dumps

One of the major eyesores and talking points along the Port Elizabeth beachfront is the Manganese ore terminal between Kings Beach and the Port Elizabeth Harbour.  Not just does it look ugly, but the dust of the ore gets blown over the Humewood area when the wind blows from the north east.  There are hopes that the ore terminal along with the tank farm next to it will be moved to the Coega Industrial Port.  The manganese gets mined in…

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Marina Salt

There are several salt pans on the eastern side of Port Elizabeth around the Swartkops and Chatty Rivers.  It is thought that during prehistoric times the sea pushed up to the these salt pans via the Swartkops and Chatty Rivers at high tide and left the seawater behind at low tide.  This water evaporated and left behind salt crystals on the bottom of the pan. The local Khoisan inhabitants of this area used to gather the salt in these pans during the period 1799…

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Men at Work

The other morning there was a sudden racket outside our front windows, and investigation revealed that the edge of the park was being dug up. Later on, I saw the orange pipes being dragged along, which confirmed my theory.... this is our turn in part of a huge operation to lay an entire new network of telephone lines throughout the country, for Neotel. Our telephone system was always government owned, but in 1991 it was partly privatised (the state still…

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purple glory

Port Elizabeth has two satellite towns, Uitenhage and Despatch. Both are about 30 minutes drive inland, and rely heavily on the motor industry. They are both included with PE in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, which runs the metropole.Uitenhage is older than PE by a few years, and has some great old buildings. And at this time of year, it also has some glorious Jacaranda trees, which thrive in South Africa, although they are originally from South America.

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The magic of sunset….

One of the first sights to greet any visitor coming into Port Elizabeth on the N2, from the East, is the Algorax factory, which produces the country's carbon black requirements for the tyre industry. The factory, which is a short walk from New Brighton Beach, is known as Smelly Creek, because the not-too-delightful aroma of the factory is combined with the pungent emissions from the Sewerage Reclaimation Works next to it.This sunset scene gives the factory an altogether different look…

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