Day 12

Today we went out to Howick to some local craft shops and the Falls

As you can see the weather is not the best but it means there are not too many people out and about 

We moved on the Nelson Mandela capture site - it's a small exhibition commemorating his life and is on the spot where he was captured on the way to Jo'burg and later imprisoned for 27 years

This is a memorial to him - it's 50 x 10metre high laser cut steel poles - if you are thinking it doesn't look very good 

Wait until you get closer to it and view it from a particular spot - 

Clever isn't it??

A lovely sweet, tender steak cooked on the braai for dinner tonight (Coral doesn't know what she's missing sometimes!)

Our last day in PMB - we move down to Durban tomorrow for our last couple of days.

Day 11

We are in Pietermaritzburg now - a nice gentle day with Lynda & Donald - we had a wander round the town. First stop the railway station - this is where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown off the first class carriage (despite having a first class ticket) - this was an incident that prompted him towards political activism and social justice 

Lovely station - just like they used to be 

We moved on to see a bit of local cricket - the sign near the tree say if the ball hits the tree you've scored a four - I would have maybe moved the pitch 6 feet the left!

We had dinner in a lovely Mozambique restaurant 

Day 10

We've got an 8.00pm flight to Durban today from PE so we've got a lot of time to kill - we drove all the way down to the southern gate of the elephant reserve - a pleasant journey that took a couple of ours - and we saw more Ellys 

And this fella holding up the traffic in the middle of the road 

We made our way back to PE via Sundays River which has the most amazing sand dunes 

We got to PE at about 2.30 - I needed some cash so went to an ATM in a shopping mall and became a victim of crime!

As I went to put my card in a chap came up behind me and said I need to press this button and that button and distracted my attention while his buddy took my card - it was all over with in about 10 seconds and I didn't even realise my card was gone. Unfortunately for these ne'er do wells the place was being staked out by a private security firm retained by the bank. They'd been keeping watch and already spotted these fellas as being up to no good. Within seconds they jumped on this chap and wrestled him to the ground and 'cuffed him - he had my credit card in his hand - I was still standing at the ATM!!

This is cuprit - in the white t shirt

Contemplating his fate

And this is him being taken away - apparently he'll get 3 years in the big house.

They operate in gangs of 3 or 4 and hang around ATM's waiting for likely prospects to come along. Now I feel a bit of a mug falling for this trick 'cos I think I'm a pretty savvy traveler but these fellas were swift and slick - all over with in seconds. And I know they had seen my PIN so they would have rinsed my account before I'd have been able to report it. 

The chap in the red cap is Jose - he's in charge of the operation - he travels all over SA doing this and is pretty successful at it - the team get a bonus for each prosecution - unfortunately he says that a lot of them fail because money changes hands down at the nick and some evidence goes "missing"

We invited them to the bar across the road and bought them a couple of beers - money well spent!

Hope that the next few days are a little less eventful.

Day 9 - Addo Park

We started today on a dawn drive - a 5.30 start - but you need to be up early to catch the wildlife - and  we got up close and personal with elephants and a lion 

And even closer!!

This is a young male - it is actually grey but they blow dust over themselves to keep the insects away and for sunscreen

The guide found a lion - not one of the ones we saw last night - this one is carrying an injury on his leg - he's been scrapping with another lion over courting rites with a lady. The guide reckoned that he would not be the big cheese any more and would eventually be excluded from the pride.

We got quite close to this one as well!

After some breakfast and a spruce up we headed out again on our own for a few hours - we found water buffalo

Mum and baby warthogs

Ostrich 

A beautiful weever bird

And finally a Giant Volvo - almost extinct in the wild we were blessed to spot one of only three that still operate in the park.

We are just about wildlifed out now so this is our last night here before we move on to Pietermaritzburg  and looking forward to staying a few days with Lynda and Donald.

Day 8

Have moved on from PE today - but not before I sorted the Christmas shopping and prezzies - 

This enterprising chap is selling Xmas trees and bow and arrows!!

We are heading for Addo Elephant Park - it's just 50ml up the road but we have moved from a comfortable 20c to 40c here - it's a hot one! 

We got here a couple of hours ago and after a cool down in the pool we are sorting out the itinerary here for the next couple of days - we drove out in the park and found some wildlife.

A hard working dung beetle - no dung though - he must be taking a day off

You wait for a tortoise then 2 show up!

We went on a night drive and the first thing we saw was a mum and baby elly

Elephants eat all the time but only digest about 20% of it so that's good news for the dung beetle. There are about 600 elephants in the park.

We also saw the usual kudus, eland, zebras, jackals and then we came across these two

The Land Rover stopped 10feet away from these two males. There are only 8 lions in the park - there used to be over 20 but they were killing everything in sight so to manage the other wildlife in the park they decided to move most of the lions out. So we were really lucky to find these.

 

Day 7 still in PE

Our last day here - we spent the day wandering around the town and visiting a couple of museums.

Got some wonderful old buildings 

And the tallest and biggest flag in SA - 45m high

We went to the beach - this isn't a lady in inappropriate beach wear - she's the beach cleaner! And a lovely job she does too!

We are off to see some wildlife for the next couple of days so hopefully we'll have some cuddly animal pictures for you.

Day 6

Our bedroom has floor to ceiling windows - all the better to see the rain trickling down as we wake up this morning! After the adventure of the canopy tour yesterday we are chilled about doing anything exciting today so we laze around and wait for the rain to ease off before embarking on a walking tour of PE. That's Port Elizabeth to the uninitiated.

Bearing in mind their history only goes back 200 years and most of the interesting buildings have been demolished for high rise flats, it's a pretty un-spectacular tour so no photos. However, we did dig up a little gem along the way and found the grave of James Langley Dalton .. ..A Brit who won a Victoria Cross at Rourkes Drift (he was 46 at the time) and just happened to die here whilst on holiday visiting a friend - so they just laid him to rest here in a most inauspicious place where Methodists, Jews, Anglicans and Roman Catholics all share the same turf.   (Dave likes to include an interesting fact so I'm obliging)

The sun finally shines so we head for a beach bar and a large glass of chilled white before a long walk back to the hotel to sit and read by the hotel pool. Holidays don't get much harder than this!!

Will leave DS to finish off so this is your PE Correspondent is signing off.......

Day 5

The thing to do in Stormsriver is the canopy tour - you go up in the trees and buzz around from one to another on a zip line. Coral was a bit apprehensive at first but she manned up an donned the gear 

And rode the wire!

It was fun - about two hours running 10 lines - the longest one was 100m

In between all this fun the guide explained the ecology of the area - did you know the national tree of SA is the yellowwood - and you have male and female species and can get to 500 years old.

This is where we went for lunch - next door to the canopy tour.

One moment you are learning about the power of nature - the next you are chomping on a burger in Marilyn's 50's diner! Home of the annual Elvis festival. Both ends of the cultural spectrum!

Weather was a bit iffy today so we pushed on to Port Elizabeth and we are going to stay here for 3 days. Nice view from the bedroom window - 

I know it will be bugging you as to where is the highest bungee jump now - well it's the Macau Tower - only 15 m higher but 230m gets the prize - and funnily enough I've been to the top of that tower about 10 years ago - Tommy and I went there to get away from Hong Kong for a couple of days - he won about £500 in the casino in 10 minutes of getting there and we treated ourselves to the best hotel and some golf - happy days!

Day 4 - moving on

We are at Plettenberbg Bay on our way to Stormsriver 

Stayed here for a few hours and lunch - saw some dolphins about 100 m off the beach - sorry no pics this time - I couldn't be chuffed to go back to the car and get the camera.

We went over Bloukrans Bridge 

This was the highest bungee jump in the world - 216m - not any more though - but I didn't check which is now. And no I didn't even contemplate doing it!

Stayed in a lodge tonight - lovely place out in the sticks