Lunch with the hippos, weaving weavers and a cheetah with a shoe fetish!

Lunch with the hippos, weaving weavers and a cheetah with a shoe fetish!

A typical Sunday in East London Album

A typical Sunday in East London Album

Living in East London can sometimes be quite exciting. The other Sunday, we decided to go to the nearby Mpongo game reserve and stop at the nearby Lion Park on our way back. Mpongo park has a special 3 course Sunday lunch which is served in the restaurant right next to a lake with three hippos. They also feed the hippos (some kind of bread) at 1pm. Lunch was decent and observing the hippos, turtles and birds definitely made the exerperience very pleasant.

While we were leaving Mpongo park, we noticed a weaver (bird) who had just started a new nest and was in the process of building it. It was fascinating to see this and we got some lovely pictures of the busy weavers.

On our way back, we stopped at the lion park. Apart from the lions, they now have a young cheetah (about 7 months old or so) that you can pet. It was a bit shy at first but once Karl started talking to it and it had some food, it became much more alive. The cheetah, named Chinx, loves to chew on feet. Luckily we put on shoes before our visit, otherwise we may have had some very sore feet!

Although the trip was only a few hours, it was great fun and we ended up with some lovely pictures of hippos, weavers and cheetahs´s. Click here or on the picture to visit the gallery! As always, make sure to check out the captions for additional insights!

Share Button

A whale of a time in Hermanus!

The last weekend of August we flew to Cape Town for a long weekend (3 days) and visited Hermanus, which claims to be “the best land-based whale watching” location in the world. A very tall claim that we needed to check out!

The trip was amazing! The weather was sunny with summery temperatures of 26C/61F, after it had been miserably cold and wet for a few days. Hermanus is a nice town where you can easily walk around the towncenter and next to the ocean. The accomodation was great – we stayed at a self-catering apartment right by the ocean that gave us great views over the bay (If you visit the website – select the left hand section for 45 marine drive, not the right hand section for the Esplanade). And Hermanus MUST be the best place to see whales – we saw many, including some close to shore, some breaching (this is where they jump out of the ocean), some sailing (this is where they stick their tale out of the water for an extended period of time), some waving (where they stick one of their fins up and seem to be waving) and we saw some mothers playing with their youngsters! We also heard the whales making noises as if they were calling to each other.

This must be one of the nicest experiences we had, yet, in South Africa. Definitely worth a visit during whale season (July-October)!

As always, we had our cameras with us and took some great pictures of Hermanus and surroundings as well as the whales. Click here or on the picture to go to the album.

Hermanus Album

Hermanus Album

Share Button