On our own again

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As you can see we have reached the other end of Africa now. South Africa has been great (so far), we are really enjoying all we are seeing and doing. Its weird not being with the truck and all our "new" friends anymore though.

We crossed from Namibia into SA and headed down to Stellenbosch. A lovely town, full of well looked after Cape Dutch style buildings, and of course vineyards. We did a tour round four wineries, sampling well at each. All the wines were good, some were just better than others. We did get a couple of bottles, but of course we have drunk them already!

From there it was a short drive down to Cape Town, in the rain! Table Mountain could barely be seen, and we certainly couldnt see the top. We had one final night out with the truckkies, a meal at a Mexican restaurant at the V&A Waterfront. Then it was off into the big wide world on our own! We did meet up with friends around town, especially in the STA travel shop buying tickets! (For those interested, we get back to England early on the 26th July.) We did some of the usual touristy things, a tour round Robben Island guided by ex-prisoners (one of our guides was a political prisoner, the other was in for arson), out to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope stopping off to see the penguins at Boulders Beach, a few museums and up to Table Mountain on a good day. What views from the top! We only had one bad day in Cape Town and that was the day we arrived, the rest were warm and sunny.

From Cape Town we headed along the Garden Route, stopping in Knysna, Plettenburg Bay and Natures Valley before arriving here in Port Elizabeth. Knysna was a strange place, a mix of hippies and rich boat owners. We did an afternoons canoeing up the Knysna river, peaceful, disturbed only by Vervet monkeys and baboons, and a catamaran trip out past the Knysna Heads. There wasnt enough wind to sail out unfortunately, but seeing a whale out in the sea more than made up for that. We think it was a Southern Right Whale, it kept surfacing closer and closer to the boat which for once in Africa was doing the right thing by staying away and cutting the engine right down.

In Plennenburg Bay we paid loads more money for a whale watching trip, and we saw loads more. First we went after some dolphins and were rewarded with a pod of about 50 Bottle-nosed Dolphins feeding and playing in the surf. Next was a Hump Back Whale feeding, it would surface to breathe six or seven times then dive down for about five minutes. We watched this cycle a few times then left it alone to feed in peace. Then we saw a Brydes Whale, but it was a bit shy and wouldnt let us see much for long. We were heading over towards a seal colony, passing plenty in the water, when the guide spotted some whale activity out to sea a bit. We rushed over there to find three Hump backs playing furiously, leaping, breaching, tail slapping, ignoring us completely. Two of them were even tail slapping together in time with each other, some thing the guide and 'captain' hadnt seen before. Its not quite peak whale season here yet, but we have been lucky.

Natures Valley was the quietest place we've been to so far. All you can do there is walk or sit around. We did two walks the first day, but only one the second day as it was raining! We vegetated in front of the National Geographic channel and the movie channel for the afternoon before the bus came for us again!! Natures Valley is a point where the Tsitsikamma NP meets the sea, so we had beach and rocky coastal walks and walks in the hills. Most of our walks managed to combine the two.

We are now in PE, doing a bit of city stuff - shopping and cinema - and a bit of more cultural stuff like a good museum and an ok heritage walk through the centre. Tomorrow if all goes to plan, we are going to a hostel in the southern Drakensburgs for some more walking and a look at some San rock art. Its likely to be even colder and wetter there as we will be much higher. We may even try and visit Lesotho too while we are there.

We spent up big this morning and got ourselves two tickets for the All Blacks v Springboks in Pretoria in a couple of weeks. So if anyone is watching the game, keep an eye out for us!!

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Photos

Dolphins
I love this photo!