Cape Town to Port Elizabeth

Hi guys....
sorry looks like this entry was never posted!!!

For those of you that dont know, we have been home for a few months now! Finished off flying from SA to Kenya. Nairobi was a cool base and we visited the amazing Massai Mara, Samburu, Lake Nakuru and spent our last few days relaxing on a beach near Mombassa! We will post some pictures very soon!

See you!
Steve


Hi there everyone,
sorry for the delay in posting an entry, im sure you're used to our laziness by now!

Well here we are in Jo'Burg awaiting our flight to Nairobi, having travelled for 4 weeks from Cape Town by Bus along the Garden Route, the Wild Coast, Swaziland and finally ending up here. So we dont bore you too much we'll write our journey in two parts - From Cape Town to PE and then the next entry will be Coffee bay to Jo'Burg.

Our trip to SA started with a flight from Auckland to Sydney then a long connecting flight to Jo'Burg and on to Cape Town. Due to delays, we actually missed our connecting flight to Cape Town however after a mad dash through the airport, we managed to get onto the next one.
When landing in Cape Town, we were fortunate to get talking to a friendly business lady who offered to give us a much appreciated lift to the centre of town to our Guest House 'Carnival Backpackers' on Long Street.
Long Street is a busy area that really comes to life every evening with live music, nightclubs, cafes and bars etc. Its very central and a good base to explore Cape Towns attractions including Table Mountain and Robben Island. On our second day in Cape Town, we decided to head down to the waterfront for a trip to Robben Island. This is where during apartheid many black people where imprisoned for speaking out against the government, including Nelson Mandela. Upon arrival we were shown around the island by bus, including to 'Van Riebeeck's Quarry' which is the site where prisoners had to spend hours chipping at limestone for no apparant reason, and then had to move piles of stone repeatedly as part of their punishment. We also noted a small pile of stones placed since aparthied during the ex-prisoners visit back to the island to remember what they had to go through whilst on the island.

Our next stop was at the actual prison, an ex-prisoner showed us around the cells, including to that of Nelson Mandela. He shared his emotional experience with us and we were amazed by his forgiveness towards the people responsible. It turns out that he has now got a degree and is due to fly to England to study for a Masters at University of Essex, not far from us!

We'd heard that it was polling day in South Africa, but we really didnt realise the significance of this here, until we met our guide for the prison who was overwhlemed with excitement that everyone can now vote and everyone should vote. There was even a polling station set up on the island for workers of the museum.

The following day we took a walk to the top of table mountain. When we started out the day was nice and clear, however we were dissapointed to see that at about half-way, clouds started to come over and by the time we were at the top, we were freezing and couldn't see a thing beyond one metre! Nevermind, the walk was nice anyway and we met a nice Irish couple on the way too!

Our final day out in Cape Town was a trip around the amazing Cape Peninsula. We were surprise to see that the coastline is very similar to that of Australia and rock and cliff formations are also very similar - its easy to see hows these countries could have once been a super continent! On our way to the Peninsula, we had our first sightings of African wildlife - Baboons on the roadside! Later on we also saw an Eland - apparantly not a common site here.
On our way back from the Peninsula we passed through Simons Town to see the African penguins and we could not believe our eyes when we saw, literally hundreds of penguins just enjoying the sun, posing for pictures! After making the most of the photo opportunities, we headed back to the backpackers.

After enjoying our time in Cape Town (including some great nights on Long Street), our first stop on the Baz bus was to Mossel Bay.

Mossel bay doesn't really have much going for it to be honest, apart from the fact that you can stay on a train on the beach, great! We have been on enough night trains now for the novelty to have worn off. The beach wasn't really that great either. After our sleep on the train, we couldn't wait for our bus to turn up the next day.

One of the highlights for us was our next stop - Wilderness. This also has a beach, however we opted for the bush style camping at a nearby backpackers. The scenery here was really nice and we did a great walk to some nearby waterfalls and then enjoyed most of the afternoon cooling off in the pools! After spending a little too long here, we then had a mad dash back to the backpackers to meet our friends Audrey and Kathryn to catch the Baz bus to our next stop!

Nature's Valley was the place we chose to stop next - this was again a bush setting with amazing scenery. We pitched our tent next to a river and thought we could relax for the evening, until we realised the only food we had was some packet soup and plain noodles (we are not used to camping without a car load of supplies)! And great - the only shop nearby was at least a 30 minute walk and it was dark! Fortunately, when we started to cook our noodles and were ready to pour on top the lovely soup - a local lady took pity on us and offered us some of her freshly cooked stew! We couldnt believe our luck and the generosity of this kind lady! After enjoying our stew we decided to get an early night to prepare for some early morning walks the next day.

Our walks took in the river and surrounding bush and lead us to the river mouth at the beautiful sea and a quiet, unspoilt beach. We spent most of the afternoon relaxing here and swimming in the sea...its such a hard life this travelling you know!

We decided that we wanted to visit Storms River Mouth the next day, however the Baz bus only goes to the town and not to the river Mouth (this is the trouble with the Baz Bus - you then also have to pay for a tour on top of the pricey bus fare). After speaking with one of the rangers at Nature's Valley, for a small fee we managed to hitch a lift to Storms River Mouth (about 30mins down the road) and set up camp on the rugged coastline for the night. This is where we made a new friend Michael from Germany, however he has spent most of his life in London and now lives in Plettenberg Bay! We spent the evening with him sharing our travel stories and drinking the local brew.
He also kindly gave us a lift back to Natures Valley so we could catch the Baz Bus that evening on to our next destination,
Port Elizabeth. PE is not a very interesting place, the seafront reminds us of our home town Southend and to top it off, it even has a sea-life centre just like ours back home.
On arrival here, Steve befriended a Swedish guy who was heading back home the following day - so wanted to make the most of his last night in SA. Therefore we decided to check out the Port Elizabeth night life!

We'd heard that there were some DJ's from Cape Town playing and it was a big night at the seafront clubs. After a few shandys in one bar, we decided to move on to a busier club situated in a shopping centre also on the seafront - This was the typical western style night club playing the dance/club tunes you would hear back home. A little later we moved upstairs and started to enjoy the summer evening on a balcony until we saw a big commotion in the car park below. We looked down and there were two drunk guys having a fight and a large crowd gathering nearby. We were really shocked when we then heard a loud gunshot and the two guys dived to the ground... it appeared that nobody was hit and we think it was a warning shot from the club bouncers. The crowd dispersed and what happens next is a bit of a blur...

It all seemed to get quiet and the party continued, we thought it would be good to head back downstairs. On our way down the stairs a group of clubbers come running up barging past us and one girl shouted to us "run upstairs, they've got guns!"

We promptly went back upstairs and waited out on the balcony until we saw a group of at least 10 police turn up. We decided it was time to head home and found out from a local that there is a back exit however we still have to pass the commotion downstairs. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we had the pleasant sight of a cleaner mopping up a pool of blood from the floor around a blood covered sandal... nice.

Fortunately We managed to get back safe and sound to our haven - the backpackers - which like everywhere else in South Africa has a large metal gate at the entrance thats always locked up. Now I understand why!

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