It is not that common to get a picture of us together, so I thought I would post this recent picture at the Family day at the company:
Johan and Karl
Us
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November … cold and miserable?
It would seem that we have been transported back to the Northern Hemisphere … The last few days (and the next few days by the weather predictions) have been cold (15-18 degrees Celcius/60-65 degrees Fahrenheit) and rainy. A bit like a typical November day in Belgium, except that I have been told the weather there has been very nice the last few days.
It is supposed to be almost summer here, and last year we were swimming in the pool about every day at this time of the year! Not that we didn´t need the rain as we have been having many veldfires lately, but still …
What do you do on a miserable day like that in East London? You go shopping and go to the movies (together with everyone else). We went and saw Flightplan with Jodie Foster. The movie had an interesting plot about a woman who looses her husband and transports his coffin back on a plane together with her daughter. On the plane, the daughter disappears completely and nobody appears to have seen her. The movie had some interesting twists, but overall the movie didn´t make that much sense. A good movie for a rainy November afternoon, but not much more than that!
Wild Weekend
Wild Coast Album
A couple of weekends ago we visited the Wild Coast. We drove up on Saturday to hotel Seagulls, crossing the river at Kei Mouth and driving a bit around in the Transkei, one of the poorer parts of South Africa. Hotel Seagulls was very disappointing. The hotel was nicely located at the beach and we had a lovely beachwalk, but the food, including their “seafood extravaganza”, was poor, the rooms very basic and we didn´t appreciate the Karaoke during the night until well after 11pm. We wouldn´t recommend staying there, especially since it wasn´t that inexpensive (704R for both of us Dinner Bed and Breakfast).
The next day we drove back, stopping over at Morgan Bay which was stunningly beautiful. Particularly nice was the Double Mouth Nature reserve right by Morgan Bay. Very worthwile a visit.
Click here or on the picture above to see the pictures from this trip and another trip I did a few months earlier to the same area.
The Wild coast is Wild, but incredibly beautiful. Although only 70km or so from East London, it is a completely different world with a high degree of poverty, more traditional houses and a very different coastline. The Wild Coast is in the Transkei which is seen as a more dangerous area of South Africa, so you do have to look out where you go although it would appear Umtata and Port St. Johns are the main areas to avoid.
First swim this summer!
Summer must be coming up … today I managed to swim for the first time this summer. The water temperature was 22 C (72 F), which is not that warm, but warm enough for a short dip in the pool. It was lovely! Cann´t wait for the warmer weather!
In the next few days, temperatures will be in the lower 30 C (86 F)´s so we may be able to do some more swimming. Usually, the weather gets cloudy and cool in the afternoon, though, so it may not be combinable with work.
Tigers are dangerous!
Tiger at Lion Park
Remember our visit to the Lion Park where we petted lions and tigers? Turns out that this is actually not as safe as it may seem. A 17 year old girl was attacked by one of the tigers during such a visit forcing the park to ban visitors from petting the tigers. I guess we were lucky that we still were able to pet the tigers before all this happened.
Culture in East London
Poster Handful of Keys
Although East London is a small town, there are some good cultural activities now and then. The latest show we went to was “A handful of keys” – a very good South African show in which two good pianists combine humor and music in a show with a variety of music.
The show basically consisted of two pianists and two grand pianos …. the musicians played a variety of piano music including classical, jazz, broadway and pop music. Probably the most impressive song was a great version of “Funeral for a friend” by Elton John. They also played an impressive medley of broadway music throughout the ages – in twenty minutes or so they went through more than 100 musicals from 1931 until now. Throughout their great musical performance, there was a good amount of humor both in terms of the dialogs between the songs as within the songs themselves.
Overall, this show is definitely worthwile and highly recommended. It is a South African show, so not that likely to show up in other countries although this show has had performances in London and Australia.
To and Fro Kruger Park
To and From Kruger Park Album
Part of the fun of our trip to Kruger Park was that we drove there all the way from East London – approximately 1500km/950 miles! We stopped over in Bloemfontein, Gold Reef City (an amuzement park close to Johannesburg), Graskop and Johannesburg. This album contains the pictures of the trip itself – See also the “Kruger Park” album for pictures from Kruger park.
Kruger park … the pictures
Kruger Park Album
We made a trip to the world-famous Kruger National Park. As Kruger National Park is in the north-east of the country and we are in the South of the country, we needed to traverse quite a bit of South Africa to get there (about 1500km/950 miles). We visited some places on the way to and from Kruger and I will post the pictures of the trip separately. In the mean time, you can see the pictures of the actual visit to Kruger Park by clicking here or on the picture above.
We spent about 4 days in Kruger, partially driving around ourselves and partially participating in organized game drives while we stayed for a couple of nights at Tinga Private Game Lodge. The accomodation at Tinga was lovely, but we were extremely disappointed by the level of service provided for the price they charge (list price 6050R/$972/Euro775 per person per night! – we paid less, but still very expensive). We had our own private lodge, which was large, private and had a lovely game viewing deck including heated pool. There are some pictures of the lodge in the album. However, the lodge was operated like a “packaged tourist place” where everything had to be done on their schedule. Some examples of this include:
* When we arrived, we could not get a quick lunch because the person at reception had to give us a full tour first that took an hour and could not be changed to meet our schedule!
* When we decided not to go on the game drive the first evening, but instead get an early dinner in order to get up early the next day, this could not be organized as dinner is only served after the game drive is back (19:30).
* When we enquired about a walking safari this was seen as an unusual request, even though it is mentioned on their website, and could not be arranged because there were not enough rangers available.
* When we had a “private dinner” the second evening at the managers suggestion, this was poorly organized – the crew moved our deck table indoors, and told us it was considered dangerous to sit out, at night (the general manager contradicted this to us the next day); dinner was served after 20:30 because they hadn’t taken our order before we left on the game drive and when they finally brought dinner (really not much more than room service) they forgot water and wine. It took them half an hour to bring the drinks!
Overall, I would not recommend staying at Tinga unless they improve their levels of service dramatically. What we experienced was unacceptable for a 5 star place, which is what Tinga claims to be and charges for.
In Kruger we saw the “big 5” (Leopard, Lion, Buffalo, Rhino and Elephant) as well as many other mammals (antelopes, giraffes, hippos), primates, birds and reptiles. The phrase Big Five Game was coined by game hunters and refers to the five large mammals that were originally most sought in Africa based on their difficulty to hunt.
We bought a high quality lens (Canon 100-400 IS L Series Lens) for the occasion and got great pictures which you can see in the album.
Some more beach pictures
You would almost think we live close by a beach or something … It turns out that the beach is one of the most pleasant and safest places to go for a walk. It is also a great place to take photographs. Here are a couple of such recent photographs from Quenera beach, which is about 2km from our house. As usual, click on the picture for a bigger version.
Two Xhosa girls walking on the beach
A nice composition framing a rock on the beach
August 9: National Women´s day
August 9 is a holiday in South Africa … National Women´s day celebrates the contribution women make to the South African society. You can find a pretty good description about the holiday and where it came from here.
To celebrate this holiday, here is a nice recent picture of a local (probably Xhosa) woman in deep thoughts on the beach:
Woman in deep thoughts on beach