Port Elizabeth Album

We made a trip to Port Elizabeth last weekend. Port Elizabeth is the closest city to East London and is always a pleasant change from being in East london. It takes about 3 hours to get there over some uncomfortable roads so we don´t make the trip too often. We decided to go for an extended weekend last weekend (3 nights), but unfortunately we both got sick on the second day from something we ate wrong, so the trip was not very successful.

Click here to see photos from our various trips to Port Elizabeth. Port Elizabeth has some good shopping, some pleasant beaches and just more people than East London.

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.

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 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.

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 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

About 150 km from East London is a small village in the mountains called Hogsback. Lonely planet describes it as a “magical resort high in the beautiful Amatola Mountains”. It is also in Hogsback that Tolkin is said to have been inspired to write the Hobbit.
All this seemed like a good reason to visit the place on a daytrip on a hot May day. We enjoyed the forests, the streams and the views during a walk in the area, a visit to one of the local eateries (“The edge”) and a bit of driving around. What struck us the most is how it has a completely different atmosphere from the area around it, which is dry and without much vegetagion. Hogsback is a very pleasant place for walks and to get “away from it all”.
Oh, by the way, one of the locals confirmed that Tolkien could not have written the book based on Hogsback, as he was too little when he left South Africa. Possibly, he based it on what his grandmother told him about the place.
Click here or on the image to see the pictures from this lovely day trip!