Saturday, Sept 22nd-Thursday, Sept.27th – Sedgefield

(Posted in Port Elizabeth on Oct. 2nd..)
From “The Retreat”, we drove via Oudtshoorn over the Outeniqua Pass into George and on to Sedgefield – not more than a two hour drive. We were staying at the vacation home of our long time SA friends, Wout & Vilia Offerman (see earlier blog). Vilia is an artist (water colors) and had an exhibition on in Port Elizabeth, so initially, they had not thought they would be able to join us and had given us the key when we had visited them with Chris & Linda. Fortunately, the exhibition was a huge success and Vilia decided she could get away for a few days and they had come to Sedgefield and got the house ready for our arrival – many thanks! Sedgefield is an old small (but growing fast) holiday resort on the SA coast between George and Kynsna. It has miles of sandy beaches and a large lagoon which alternates between being open or closed to the sea, depending upon shifting sands and rainfall (floods) that block or clear the opening where the lagoon meets the sea.

After spending time catching up on the latest respective family news, we sat down to a lovely roast lamb dinner. It had turned quite cold, so much so that Wout lit a fire and we were all very cozy.

Sunday (cold wind and a bit rainy) we first drove to the beach to investigate the remains of a fishing boat that had sailed from Mossel Bay, sprung a leak at sea and the crew had been rescued by a passing trawler. The boat then ended up on the beach at Sedgefield, quite a distance from Mossel Bay. As you will see from the photograph, it doesn’t look as though the fishing boat was seaworthy enough to be in a backyard pond, let alone the open sea! We then took a look at the latest building developments going on in Sedgefield; they are building huge holiday homes along the shore there, wherever they can find an empty lot or an old home that they can buy and demolish to make way for a mansion. From there we drove to Wilderness (see earlier photograph on our way to De Hoop), had coffee at “Timberlake”, a little development at the side of the road with a few “specialty shops” to attract passing traffic. From there we found the trailhead of the “Brown-hooded Kingfisher Trail”, which we had come to walk. The rain held off and we enjoyed our walk before returning to Sedgefield for an evening braai where we grilled in the Weber on the stoep due to “rain and cold”.

Monday Sept 24th (our 41st wedding anniversary) was an SA public holiday “Heritage Day”. I had gone to the little Sedgefield Internet café on Saturday at 5PM to make a post to the blog, but it was closing and wouldn’t open again until Monday. I was behind with the blog (still am!) and was “desperate” to make a post but had to wait until Monday. I posted every day for the next four days to catch up as much as possible. We walked to the “Sedgefield Arms” to check if they would be open for dinner and then made a reservation and we also walked around the lagoon/vlei and then watched the final of the World Series 20/20 cricket between India and Pakistan (India won) before setting out to the Sedgefield Arms for a lovely anniversary dinner.

Tuesday morning, Wout and Vilia left to drive back to PE as Wout had a meeting he needed to attend. After breakfast, the three of us drove to the “Gericke’s Point” access parking lot and made the walk to the Point. This walk is best done at low tide to avoid being “cut off”! It is a very enjoyable walk (more rock pools, but a lot more exposed to the public!). On our return I did more internet posting and then we had lunch at the Fynbos Pub & Grill. We all settled down on the stoep to do some reading after lunch and later had “leftovers” for supper. A nice day.

Wednesday was our designated day to drive to Knysna (after another visit to the Internet café) where we stopped in to see the sister (Margaret) of Bob Meyer (a South African from Nelspruit, a town close to the southwestern edge of Kruger Park and quite near the Berg-en-Dal Rest Camp) who now lives with his daughter, Cathy, in our Palmetto Greens development in Myrtle Beach. Margaret is 81 years old and welcomed us as though we had been her brother himself. We visited Kynsna Heads, a natural narrow opening from the Kynsna lagoon to the sea, used by fishing and pleasure boats whose captains are experienced enough to negotiate the passage.

We also visited the “Pezula” golfing estate where Roger Federer has built a holiday home amongst many other “rich and famous”. The golf course looks fantastic and the homes match the golf course. We had lunch at Bosun’s Grill and then drove to Belvidere where we visited the beautiful Holy Trinity Church built in miniature of the Norman style and consecrated in 1855. To balance things out, we then visited “The Bell”, a lovely cottage type pub just down the street from the church. Back to Sedgefield and more “leftovers” for supper.

Thursday we packed up & closed up W&V’s vacation home and after one last trip to the Internet café, started our journey to Port Elizabeth. As we drove on the N2 (National road) at Plettenberg Bay, we almost ran into a huge sow that just ambled across the road in front of us, with no owner or caretaker in sight. A little later, we stopped at the Bloukrans River bridge, “The World’s highest bungy bridge” to see if anyone was jumping. We were not disappointed – three brave ladies jumped one after the other into the chasm below. Hopefully, you can make out the speck in the photo.On to PE where we had planned to be at the gallery showing Vilia’s paintings before the exhibition closed that afternoon. We arrived and were joined shortly by Wout & Vilia. While we were waiting and viewing the paintings, the custodian of the gallery told us she had never seen red stickers (sold) on as many paintings before. Well done Vilia. We drove back to W&V’s home for tea/coffee before driving to Vic & Carol’s PE beachfront flat/apartment to pick up the key for their Sundays River weekend home before driving out there via the Bluewater Bay “Pick N Pay” supermarket where we stocked up on provisions for our stay.