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Passover
The first night we were invited to Jans’ Aunt and Uncle, where they had a very small evening of over 20 people, and for the first time in a long time we were sent to the children’s table, along with Jan's brother, his girlfriend and a couple of cousins.
The next day we were invited to the Rabbis house for lunch, and despite not all arriving in time for the end of the service, which finished very early, had a very nice meal, with Passover Pizza for Jan, a total oxymoron but very tasty.
Second night we went to a nice small Seder at Jan's friend Moniques mothers house, which was an illustration of just how quick a Seder can be, with Mon's brother Harry, being very well rehearsed.
Off to the Wild Coast
Our next destination in our tour of South Africa was to go on a hike along the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape, leaving from East London. However as this is quite a distance away, we decided to take a two day road trip to get there with Jan's dad and girlfriend.
The first day we stopped in a little
place called Sedgefield, where we had reserved a cabin with 2 rooms. The two of us had the downstairs bedroom, which due to the extreme lack of sound proofing meant that we could not only hear footsteps from above but every word that was said, if only we had a broomstick to hand to hit the ceiling!
The next day was a 7 hour drive towards East London, where we met with our other 4 meanderers. Our hearts sunk when we realised that Ronnie and Mary-Anne were once again in a room above us, and we were relieved to hear that there was some sound proofing. That evening we had a dinner of freshly BBQ’d fish with Matzah, which would be come the running joke during the hike which was Matzah with everything.
Our other companions for the next few days were Harold & Lesley Taub, along with Lesleys sister, Stella and her husband Mel. The next morning after a breakfast of eggs and matzah we headed for the start of the trail - the Kob Inn. Once there we found a little warm up trail for us to stretch our legs after several days of travelling, and
we were relieved to start walking.
The next morning as our first day hike was only 6km, we decided to borrow some kayaks and go kayaking down the river estuary next to the hotel. On the way back from seeing fish eagles swooping on several leaping fish, the wind picked up making paddling difficult and this was then combined with the tide going out resulting in it being easier to hop out of the canoe and walk in the sand bars instead of paddling.
After a quick lunch we went on our first day of the hike, where we met our first guide Christopher as well as our porters. The special feature of the hike was that they assist the local communities by hiring mainly female porters so that the money they earn goes to the family and food as opposed to drink. For some unknown reason the smallest porter always used to pick up Stephens pack, which was by far the largest, but not the heaviest!
Our second night was again spent at a lovely rustic hotel where there was hot showers, great views and good food. Due to Passover, obviously this was slightly more complicated
than the usual vegetarian, no pork or shell fish requirements, and the restaurant manager took us all in her stride.
This was after we had spent some time relaxing by the side of the pool eating the remnants of Stephen's home made chocolate Passover brownies, which Lesley finished off with a spoon!
Cows on the Beach
Our next days hike was the longest of the whole trip, of 22km of walking on the beach, where it was fortunate that the sand was hard enough to walk on. The views during the hike were spectacular, and the somewhat bizarre site of cows walking along the beach and up and down sand dunes. However the next day we had become so accustomed to this site, that we noticed their absence.
Over the duration of the hike, we were lucky to have great weather, and fortunately for us just after our final days hiking, the heavens opened and we could happily spend the evening and start of the following day in the hotel.
On our penultimate day of the hike, the two of us went on Trevors Trails which took us deeper in to the surrounding area of
the hotel we were staying in and not only did we get to see some Fish Eagles, but we learnt about the medicinal and other properties of several of the bushes and trees that we had been passing by the previous few days.
Dungbeetle Lodge
The next morning we were taken back to our car in East London, in order that we could start our journey to the Addo Elephant Park. On the way we stopped off in Grahamstown for the first proper pizza in weeks at the famous Ginos, which was excellent.
We eventually made it to our B&B just outside Addo - the Dungbeetle Lodge. This was a delightful B&B on the banks of a river, owned by a lovely couple, Etta & Derek, and the first thing we did was borrow some Kayaks to cross the river to explore the magnificent sand dunes that went as far as the eye could see and were great fun to run up and down, or just pull each other down. Making the dunes even more fun was the dog from the B&B who came with us. She was a cross between a rat and a warthog, but
had a great personality and loved running on the dunes.
Once back in our rooms, once again we could hear Ronnie and Mary-Anne talking through the walls, which were NOT thin. This time we could hear them practicing Xhosa, where they kept repeating the words for ‘good morning’ in both the singular and plural!- Molo - Molweni. They were talking at the top of their voices. Unfortunately we did not have earplugs and they did not come equiped with volume control or even mute buttons!
Addo Elephant Park
The next morning we headed into the Addo Elephant Park, where we were told to be careful about running over the flightless dungbeetle, and we saw several of them pushing their great big balls of dung, along with several ball-less ones.
In addition to these little creatures we saw families of Elephants, who came up close to the car, as well as seeing them playing in several water holes. The other creatures we saw loads of were warthogs - or as we were later told - Lion Fodder. Unfortunately we did not see the lions, but did manage to see Buffalo, Kudu, Ostriches, Hyenas, Zebras and several other
variety of bucks.
Having made the exit with 3 minutes to spare before we were to be locked in we had a lovely dinner of fresh fish and lasagne back at the B&B where we spoke to the owners who were also game guides and told us stories of several of the elephants
Back Home
The next day we drove back to Cape Town, which took most of the day, but on the way we met up withBrian and Lori who were taking advantage of several public holidays to go to the Knysna region for a quick break.
Our next stop in back to London fpr a short while, we are catching a flight this Thursday, arriving back on Friday morning, and we hope to see as many of you as possible at the Bull & Bush on Saturday Evening from 8pm
Love J&S
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