Guess who got a new hat?

Addo Elephant Park

We got ourselves checked into the chalet style hut which on first impressions were very well done. They all had BBQ’s ready for the nights meat feast..

To preface all the rest of the Addo post it’s fair to say we saw plenty of wildlife.. A quick vote sees Elephants, Caracal (Kinda like a Lynx) and Spotted Eagle Owls as the top scorers… Here’s some photos..















and the accompanying check list...



We headed out on the first of the drives round the park. You can essentially drive yourself round or take one of the Safari tours, but we decided to begin with we’d drive round and head up to the main camp to books ourselves some morning and night escorted drives.

So if you’re in the bush you’ve got to have a BBQ meat feast.



So in no way do I consider myself a 'bushman', but growing up in the lakes you’d like the think that the wild doesn’t prove too much of a problem. How very wrong I am..

So we bedded down for the night in out lovely thatched cottage.. 11pm comes round and I suddenly find myself awake having heard rustling. Light on, delirious searching – nothing to be seen…So let’s try again..5 minutes later the same rustling, this time I had to find out what was going on? Bats?……Mice?….Scorpians?… – light on, suddenly I see a 5 inch tail disappear under the blinds.. we then hear ‘chattering’ in the thatch and catch sight of another furry friend on another beam… At this point both me and Nicky are in a kind of half awake half asleep mode. And then comes ‘underpants change time’ when we catch sight of a spider the size of a small dog sitting watching us…

At this point all rational decision making has evaporated and we elect that sleeping in the car is the only solution…

5 am comes and we wake for our early morning game drive as we emerge from the car with stoops like Albert Steptoe. I think we both need to go on some kind of wildlife rehab.

So then we had a full day of driving round the park. Starting with the early 6:30 drive then followed by a drive round in the car, punctuated by a sleep and then onto a night drive. The good thing was that on each drive we saw new things so even through we covered off the same ground it was still pretty interesting. The Night drive was probably the best as you got to see smaller animals that you don’t associate with the standard ‘Big-5’, but almost more interesting. Jackal, Spotted Eagle Owl and Spring Hares being notables.

Holiday Wednesday - Planes, Dolphins and Pistols

First was our trip to Port Elizabeth to meet Mel and James before heading out on our hols to Addo Elephant park.

We got to sample the delights of Cape Town’s domestic terminal [shed] which was a charm.We we’re flying on what appeared from the outside to be a Lear Jet, but with 48 other people on board. I loved it, Nicky hated it.



Spotted an awesome looking pool from the plane which has now got itself marked on Extreme Sports Map. We also saw a group of dolphins in the bay as we flew in.

Other notables were the signs that you rarely see in a UK airport. Nice to know those requiring they gun to travel with them don’t have to put their fellow travellers through the ordeal of seeing their Holstered Colt 45 as they stretch to put their luggage in the overhead lockers.



Having an hour or so to kill we headed for the aquarium and got the tail end of the Dolphin Show – a classing anyone’s book if you ask me.



We met up with Mell and James, loaded the poor Polo with all our gear and got on the road out of PE, next stop Addo Reserve



Stopping for provisions just outside the park we were suitably reminded of being out in the sticks. Whereas the Spar in the UK tends to have things like lottery tickets, cigarettes and Pannini Football stickers, this one had an abundance of Torches, Knives and Gun Magazines – One particular advert in particular caught my eye. The ad for a torch, printed in lo-fi black and white created the scenario that if you didn’t have a good torch you wouldn’t be able to shoot any assailant who came your way. The illustration depicted an obviously white man taking aim at and dazzling a crowbar wielding man of non white origin to demonstrate the power of this particular brand of torch.

I now wish I’d got myself decked out with the gear including a blade and a torch the reasoning for which will become apparent later.

A surfing lesson

VideoJug: How To Surf A Wave In One Day

Kite Corner

I got slightly sidetracked at Muizenberg on the way to the toilet and ended up in a kite shop...

Only my ingrained northern tightness stopped me from plumping for a top of the line carbon fibre afair but there seemed to be a model for every pocket - how you tell that your kite 25 meters above you has carbon rods i'll never know, but still it did set off a little bit of carbon lust. But still we spent considerably less and ended up with a pretty decent machine.

Easy to put together too as Nicky can vouch for demo'd...


And here's the bad boy in action..

More from Muizenberg

So I got a new lens for my G5, which has turned out to be a bit of a winner. It's a retro fit Ebay afair but acts as an x0.45 wide angle. It's a bit soft round the edges but not by anywhere as much as I was anticipating..

And you get those nice wide angle shots.

Sunday Shining

The sun was shinign so much we decided we had to go to the beach. I'd seen online that there was some organised get-as-many-people-on-a-wave-thing at Muizenberg so we thought it might be good to check it out..

The first Sunday of September sees the anulual event held in several countries to put as many surfers on one wave..

Current record is 77 aparently and some rumours on the day put the best efforts at 69.. Not bad going considering the line up was huge and everyone that counted had to be organised and catch the same wave.

Here's everyone heading into the water..


Nicky enjoying the sun


And the partial line up on one wave

Hermanus Hell

So we decided to head over to Hermanus as it's peak whale season and Hermanus seems to build it's entire economy on the fact that you can see whales whilst sipping your Café Latté..The result unfortunatly is a town so overrun with a sense of tourist money greed it makes the place quite unpleasant and puts you in a bit of a rage..

Anyway, we saw some awesome sea creatures..

Small


And not so small..


Oh and then when we got home we continued our video shop 4 DVD's for 40 Rand telethon with a very good Casino Royale and a not so good Aeon Flux..

The View Today

Nicky, Language Monument, Danke..