Thursday, October 22, 2009

Eastern Cape Gnus

Eastern Cape Gnus

Hello to y’all, ‘specially those whingeing about tardiness of a latest update.
I just felt SA is so familiar, the things we do and see are so ordinary compared to those beyond the borders, that the gnusworthiness is somewhat lacking, bordering on boring and me having to work up the enthusiasm to write, but looking at the pix since last time, suddenly felt a flash of spark, resulting in long sentences like this, which, if you are still reading, will shortly come to a full stop.
On our last day of Natal S Coast, visited Beaver Creek coffee estate, drank too many cups of Java, and looked over the Mtavuna gorge towards the ‘Kei - a world heritage site.
The rain and lack of sun drove us to skip 'Kei this time and head inland to Burgersdorp – near Aliwal North, to visit dear friends John & Karen Herbert who are leading a warm & vibrant congregation – Burgersdorp Family Church. Despite 3 days of chatting, eating together & exploring the town and meeting several of their friends, we forgot to take any photos of them – sorry guys, missed your 5 min of fame on this blog. But I have one overlooking the town, and loking north, taken when Karen & I were comparing cameras, landscape & sunset shots.


On the way to the coast, we stayed over at Mountain Zebra National Park, near Cradock. Campsite a bit full because of the Fish River Canoe Marathon, but quite a different park. Here’s where we saw some gnus, which gives this dissertation some gnusworthiness.
These gnus are black wildebeest, differing from their blue wildebeest cousins with white tails andforward-pointing horns. Nice picnic sites with swimming pools too!


From there, to our favourite Yellowsands, which has constant surf, birdsong and stunning outlook over the lagoon & sea

. This time, tho’ we waited a week, had mainly overcast weather and some rain. Bev n Anne, Lindy’s inlaws, joined us for an overnight camp.
Some expert surfers showing off in front of our campsite,
And another who should reconsider his activities, and maybe stay on the beach!
Lovely landscapes in the area – this one towards Glen Eden, we just love this place. Met and had good fellowship with several of the Glen Eden Church folk, who made us feel right at home.
Then , on the way to PE, we had 2 great days & nights at abovementioned Bev & Anne on their smallholding in Southwell, inland from Port Alfred.

Now in Port Elizabeth, camping near the beaches at Pine Lodge, and spending tme with my sister Theresa and hubby Ted. So far no surf here, but a fair bit of beasterly easterly (onshore)


Attempted a self-timer shot on the beach, but the stairway where I balanced the camera was a bit far from where we were posed, the 10 sec timer a bit too short,


but eventually got there in time….


J-Bay next week…

3 comments:

  1. Oh!! yeh, you see there are a few good pics for us to see. The self-timer thing was a laugh, i had a good hehehe to myself seeing you get more and more uitgepit trying.(hehe once again)Another thing, seeing the show off you thought to your self "i can also do that" hey! well drou i know you can ,but did you have to put yourself in the eyes and print your DISPLAY all over the internet for the world to see? Anyway my friends it still looks like you 2 are having the time of your lives, can't wait to see you KEEP SAFE Harold

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eish... I thought you guys had dropped off the edge of the earth or headed north and we didn't know where you were - not that you'd want us to know if you'd turned around...sometimes the desire to keep heading north takes a hold of me and I have to speak very clearly to myself and pull myself towards myself lest I get out of hand!
    Gosh, just 8 hours up the N2 - not far from home now... you don't want to be here today - blustery, cold had thunder and lightening and gale force winds in the night... whatever happened to summer?
    We off to Sedgefield on Sunday til Friday 5th (methinks thats the date)- looking forward to that.
    See ya soon... enjoy J-Bay

    R

    ReplyDelete