Friday, Sept.28th to Wednesday, Oct. 3rd – Sundays River/PE

(Posted Oct 4th in Port Elizabeth )
Friday, Vic arrived at Sundays in the morning to check that everything was okay and then I followed him back into PE and then took him and Carol to the airport for their flight to Johannesburg where they would be met once again by Ted & Marilyn Turner and would travel with them next day into Botswana and on to the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers where they would be spending seven days on a luxury houseboat, fishing and game viewing. From the airport I went straight to the Virgin Active gym and had a weights workout for the only time since our arrival in SA. When we move into PE next Sunday, I intend to go regularly for the next two weeks (promises, promises!). From there a quick visit to another Internet café to check email and then back to Sundays where we had a quiet afternoon and an evening braai with just the three of us.

The next morning we drove down the road, through a caravan park and found our way to the Sundays River mouth by road – previously we have always gone in Vic’s boat by river to get to the mouth. We walked on the beach, normally deserted, but that day there was a fishing competition going on, with fisherman at intervals all along the beach casting into the surf. We didn’t see anyone catch anything – just like Myrtle Beach.
At noon, I met up with an old friend, Warwick Owen and we drove into PE to the Algoa Bay Yacht Club where he was meeting with members of a fraternity known as the “Rum Club” (draw your own conclusions). The first person he introduced me to replied “I remember you, you played scrum half (a rugby version of quarterback) for Crusaders” – seeing that was around 1968-1970, I thought he had a pretty good memory and also that I couldn’t look that different! I also bumped into some other old acquaintances, Peter & Jenny Aston, who wanted to know where Alison was and want us to get together when we move to PE – we look forward to it. Back to Sundays River and a quiet afternoon before going out to a local restaurant at the “Elephants Foot Lodge” for dinner.

On Sunday morning we drove into PE to the Walmer Park shopping center and I did some blog posting while the ladies shopped for the braai we were having in the afternoon. We had Warwick & Lyn Owen, Arthur & Bev Ahlschlager and Eppity Dodd out to Sundays (these names will mean nothing to most of you readers, but they will certainly be known by Melanie, Clare and possibly a few others). We had a great afternoon “Reminiscing” (Little River Band!). Our guests left and we watched South Africa play USA in World Cup Rugby. I had been wondering how USA could field a rugby side and a statistic was given that only two of the USA side where natural born Americans, the rest were “imports”. The USA team acquitted itself well, but lost by a substantial margin.

Monday (Oct.1st), we were up early to drive to the Addo Elephant National Park (www.addoelephantpark.co.za) where we had a game drive booked for 9am. A short history: This area (Eastern Cape) was teeming with wildlife when the first Europeans arrived, including thousands of elephants. Hunting for ivory began in earnest in the early 1700s and by the 1900s hunters had exterminated most of the remaining elephants (The last black rhino in the Eastern Cape was shot in 1880 and the last lion in 1879). In 1931, the Addo Elephant National Park was proclaimed, at which time, there were only 11 elephants remaining in the whole of the Eastern Cape. Today there are over 400 elephants in the Park as well as other wildlife that was originally native to this area. The Park has been expanded considerably over the years since we lived in PE, and in fact there is now an entrance within a mile or two from where we are staying in Sundays River.

Our game drive lasted for 2 hours and our guide was very knowledgable. After the game drive, we had lunch and then went back into the park in our own vehicle and had more terrific eleohpant sightings at the waterholes.

It was a wonderful day and Angela enjoyed herslef thoroughly and considered this day to be one of the highlights of her holiday. The photographs say it all.

Tuesday, Alison & I went into PE to make travel bookings and also did some blog posting. Angela elected to stay at Sundays, sitting on the deck to enjoy the view and peacefulness of the river. In the afternoon I went fishing with Bernie Hoffman on his boat in the river, and we had a few bites and caught one undersize grunter – it was fun though. Bernie stopped by for a couple of beers and we had a quiet evening.

Wednesday was Angela’s day to fly back to the UK. The time with her has flown by and it feels as though she has jjust arrived. We drove into PE with her packed bags in the car and, after visiting the Internet café to get her an assigned seat on the international flight, took her to the Boardwalk and Casino complex to show her a bit of the tourist side of PE. She thought it looked quite “American”. Lunch on the beachfront and then off to the airport for fond farewells and her flight to Cape Town and then on to Heathrow. (We have just had a phone call from her that she is safely home in Coventry.) We returned to Sundays for a quiet evening at “home”.