Very few people realise how beautiful it really is along the rivers and streams around Port Elizabeth. The Baakens Valley is truly stunning and so is the Maitland River Valley. I found this lily pond upstream in the Maitland River.
I'm not a big bug fan unless I'm looking at it through my camera, but if I had to choose my favorite spider it has to be the Golden Orb-Web Spider. They get their name from the gold coloured web that they spin. I have seen them at Sleepy Hollow before and with this last visit kept an eye out for one as we were walking along the river. And I wasn't disappointed.
After spending two days going down the slippery slide with the kids at Sleepy Hollow my Boet and I decided to go and try out the foofy slide (zipline) at the main swimming hole. Now I'm not one who is very comfortable with heights and I get nervous if I have to lift my feet anywhere higher than mother earth herself. That coupled with the unknown speed of the zipline, submerged rocks next to the bank and... the worry of how long…
I may be in my mid thirties, but I am very much in touch with my inner child who, every now and then, forces himself to the surface and refuses to crawl back in. So it happened at Sleepy Hollow where I went down the slippery slide before the kids even got their costumes on. After the kids had to stop and stood shivering I kept on going (and had the aches and pains the next day to remind me). …
Some of the interesting features at Sleepy Hollow outside Port Elizabeth are a couple of old abandoned silver and lead mines that date back to the late 1700's. Although we did explore them on a previous visit, Chaos Boy wanted to go and have a look again. So off the two of us went one morning with torches in hand to explore the tunnels. The three tunnels go straight into the hillside with the longest one probably being about 60 meters…
As mentioned yesterday there are several short hiking trails around the farm at Sleepy Hollow. We did a number of them and on this specific morning headed out on the main trail, turned off past the old mines before continuing along the Bosvark Trail looping back down to the main trail. In total there are probably just over 5 kilometers of trails at Sleepy Hollow, one of which takes you boulder hopping up to a small waterfall.
Sleepy Hollow is situated in the Maitland River Valley which means that the Maitland River runs through the property. Duh. That sounded better in my head before I typed it. Anyway. There are several trails that you can take with the main trail following the stream up the valley. Along the way the trail passes several pools while you have to cross the stream three times. This is Eerste Drif (First Crossing) where you can either walk through the knee deep stream or follow…
Over the recent loooong weekend we (we being me and my family - Damselfly, Chaos Boy and Drama Princess - my Mom and my Boet, his wife and kid) went camping at Sleepy Hollow just outside Port Elizabeth. I have done some posts about Sleepy Hollow before, but seeing that I have a bunch of fresh pics I decided to do a series of seven posts showing the sights and activities we encountered there. Sleepy Hollow is situated in the…
Plumbago growing next to the trail at Sleepy Hollow just east of Port Elizabeth
One of the pools on the Maitland River at Sleepy Hollow west of Port Elizabeth. In summer a lot of the campers like to cool off in these pools which is situated up the valley from the campsite.