Thursday Oct 11th - Friday Oct. 12th

I wake up with Alison’s cold – how could that happen? Regardless, I still joined Christian for his 10K morning walk. Alison did some laundry and worked on a few photographs for the blog. Late morning we drove out to Theescombe, a rural area on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth in the Cape Town direction. We went to visit Leigh & Tony Parry. Leigh & Melanie met in primary school (Leigh had moved with her parents from Rhodesia to PE) and became best friends and rode together every weekend. Leigh & Tony traveled to the USA for Melanie & David’s wedding and was one of Melanie’s bridesmaids. They talk regularly on the phone. L&T have moved into their current home in the last year and it is quite lovely. She is able to keep her horses on the property instead of having to stable them elsewhere. The panoramic views from the house are astounding. L&T have two very friendly Rhodesian Ridgebacks. It was a nice visit and we will have to give a much more detailed report to Melanie!

I needed to post for the previous three days but had not completed the text so we went to a regular café and had coffee and a sandwich while I finished the blog text in Word. From there to the Internet café and we picked up email and posted the blog and then back to the apartment to change for our dinner engagement.
Tonight we were having dinner with Jorn & Sandy Bulbring, another PE couple with whom we have a long history. Sandy used to be Sandy Turpin and she and her former husband Dick lived in Bluewater Bay and we met them soon after we moved there in 1969. Jorn and I played on the same squash team together and became good friends. Sandy and Jorn met at a dinner party at our house in Bluewater Bay in 1974/75 (I’m sure they can remember the exact date) and they have now been married over 30 years and are going strong. We ate at a restaurant called “Madison on First”. Great food, service and atmosphere. Sandy and “Bully” thanked us once again for that introduction so long ago. It was a lovely evening.

Friday morning I woke up feeling the full effects of the cold I had caught and was unable to join Christian on his walk. Later when we finally arose, Marlies (who swims at the beach at 6:00 every morning all year round) told us that there were whales down at Kings Beach. Alison had been keen to walk to the harbor wall at the far end of Kings Beach anyway, so we took a walk along the beach and took some photographs. We did see the whales, but once again they are very difficult to photograph. We realized we could actually see the flat where we are staying from the beach.

At noon we were picked up by Pat & Judy Moffett. Pat was the Branch Manager for Burroughs Computers in PE in the late 70s early 80s and I was initially a customer and then a friend. We have kept in touch over the years. Although Pat was transferred to Johannesburg around 1982 and worked and lived there for over 20 years, he always wanted to “retire” to Port Elizabeth. Last time we were here in 2005, in conjunction with their daughter Sarah and her husband Ralph, they were developing a large wedding venue from scratch in the area of Lovemore Park on the outskirts of PE. This time we were able to see the finished product, but first we stopped off at Sea View for lunch at “Barnacles” overlooking the rocks and ocean. The wind was really howling and all the chokka (calamari) boats were inshore sheltering. We sat on the terrace of the restaurant and watched the dolphins surfing in the waves. After lunch we drove to “The Plantation” (http://www.theplantation.co.za/) and saw all the wedding facilities which are quite magnificent. They had a big wedding starting at 4pm and the banquet tables were all laid out for 150 people. There is also a wedding chapel on site. Pat & Judy have a beautiful home in the grounds, as do Sarah & Ralph with their children. P&J’s youngest son, Paul, also works at The Plantation so it is truly a family affair. Another son, Sean was visiting from Cape Town. We had a traditional SA braai in the evening and were joined by Sarah & Ralph when their supervisory duties of the staff allowed, but the children were with us for the whole evening. Another wonderful day with old friends.

Monday Oct 8th – Wednesday Oct 10th

The start of three days of cold wet weather – thank goodness it wasn’t like this when Chris & Linda were here. Alison woke up with a nasty cold which was to get worse. I enrolled for a month at the Virgin Active gym. Although we will only be here for two weeks, at R470 a month it is cheaper than R95 a day if I go more than 5 times – motivation! I needed to post at the internet café but Alison was not feeling well and spent the afternoon in bed. I bought her Med-Lemon, SA “mootie” for colds & flu. In the main house where we are staying, there is an extremely large entertainment room on the ground floor, which, besides a very large bar, and casual dining facilities, includes a full size English snooker table. Our host, Christian Meyer has a snooker evening every Monday and Vic Wolff is one of the players. Although we were going out for dinner at 6.30, I met the snooker guys for “one drink” at 6.00 – which turned into one game of snooker. Due to some very bad play and only Vic actually sinking any balls, the game lasted longer than anticipated so when I returned to the apartment above the garage to pick up Alison, I was late and in trouble! We had dinner at the home of Peter & Jenny Aston and they another guest, Colin Trader. Colin is 85 years old but looks much younger. When I told him that, long ago, I had crossed the finishing line of the Karoo 50 miler marathon with a Roger Trader, he confirmed that that was his son! We had a lovely evening with them. I will find the photograph of us crossing the line together, hands held high in the air in elation at finishing, and send it to him.

Christian Meyer is a walker and on the Monday evening we agreed that I would join him at 8.30 on Tuesday morning which I did. We walked 10K along the beach and back (5K each way – 6 ¼ miles – Alison stayed in bed to help her cold. We went to a Rotarian lunch at the PE Club as the guests of Arthur Ahlschlager where we met a number of old Round Tablers and other friends – Ross Kobus, Cameron Scott, Tony Oshry, Vaughn Giles, Philip Shaw, Peter Long. We stopped at the internet café on the way back to pick up email. Vic was coming to the apartment at 5pm to sort out some accounting for the first two weeks of our trip but we had an area wide power outage at about 4pm (after all, this is Africa). Fortunately, it didn’t last too long after 5pm and Vic and I were able to allocate various receipts to participating parties so that we can send them a “statement of account”. We picked up Carol at about 7.35 and when to an Italian restaurant in the Casino/Bordwalk complex and had pizza and red wine – a great combination.

Wednesday I walked again with Christain and then Alison and I went off to lunch at the PE Golf Club where we met Tony & Christine Oshry. Tony was at Shatterprufe when I joined them in October 1968. Also Ross Kobus, who is a well known PE vet, and Pat & Cameron Scott. Pat is the sister of Frank Thompson who I sailed with at the Swartkops Yacht Club in the late 60s, early 70s. A nice lunch and great to see old friends again, but just not enough time to catch up with everyone. Back to the apartment via the internet café and as we drove along the beachfront we noticed (not difficult) that the traffic lights were not working and surmised that we had another power outage. This was confirmed when our remote wouldn’t open the gate at the Meyer’s home. Because it was still light, Marlies (who was playing bridge with her ladies) had no idea there was a power outage and it was only when I called her on her cell phone and said we were stuck outside in the street that she found out. The gates were changed to manual mode and we drove in. I was feeling the effects of my morning walk and “had a rest” while Alison worked on some photographs for the blog. This evening we went to our log-time friend Netty Green’s for dinner with invited guests Cris Tinley and Rob & Jenny McWilliams, all of whom we have known for almost 40 years. Chris was Managing Director of Shatterprufe where I worked for 17 years and he was instrumental in moving me in 1985 to Solaglas in Los Angeles, USA. He swears that it wasn’t to get me out of his hair! Considering how much it must have cost to move the whole family and containers, I think he is telling the truth. It was a great (and late) evening.

PS. We have just had a cell phone call from Marlies - the power is out again (third day in a row) so the gates are not working (This is definitely Africa!).

Thursday Oct 4th – Sunday Oct 7th - Sundays River/PE

Thursday we had a quiet day on our own, writing the blog for the previous few days and preparing the photographs for posting (the elephants!). Late afternoon we drove into PE to the internet café to make the post and pick up email. From there we went to the Humewood Golf Club where we had arranged to meet another old friend and one time work colleague, Jim Gray. Jim belongs to a fraternity known as the “Dipsomaniacs” who meet once a month to play golf, playing at different courses in the area. We returned home for dinner.

(Photo omitted from a previous post).
Friday, I drove into PE to have lunch with members of the “Springbok Stein Club” (notice that these fraternities all have names related to drinking!). I was chairman of the club in 1976 and was impressed to find that a number of members at that time were still attending, including Ross Clements, who at 72 looks 10 years younger, also, “Porky” Connor, from whom we bought Alison’s second engagement ring (she lost the first one in a big surf at the beach). It was good to see them again. In the evening we drove to the home of Jim & Debbie Gray and had a drink before leaving to have dinner at a restaurant called “The Butcher’s Block”, owned by James & Jenny Mackenzie whose wedding we went to around 30 years ago. We had a great meal and then returned back to J&Ds, where we talked very late before retiring (as planned).

Saturday morning we watched the qualifying rounds of the Chinese F1 Grand Prix and Hamilton, to everyone’s surprise, ended up in the pole position once again. After breakfast, we went back to Sundays where I had a date with Bernie Hoffman for one last fishing trip on the river. I got very lucky and caught a very nice spotted grunter measured at 65cm (you do the conversion). At 3pm we (including Bernie) were settled into our seats in front of the TV to watch one of the quarter finals matches of the World Cup rugby, England vs. Australia, in which England had an unexpected, but deserved victory. This was followed by an early braai as the second quarter final started at 9pm – New Zealand v France. France won the game in another unexpected upset.
Sunday was moving day, but first the Chinese F1 Grand Prix at 8am, which was extremely exciting and ending disastrously for Hamilton as he left the “track” while actually on pit row, got stuck in the gravel and had to retire. This means that the World Championship Driver will be decided at the final race of the season in Brazil in two weeks time, with three drivers competing for the title. We piled everything into our rental vehicle and drove to our new accommodation in PE, a little self-catering apartment near the beachfront, in the grounds of the home of our “hosts”, Christian & Marlies Meyer. All this had to be completed in time for us to get to Vic & Carol’s by 3pm when the big quarter final of the weekend was to take place, Springboks v Fiji. Another old friend, “Chippie” Henderson joined us to watch the game. The Springboks were huge favorites and were leading 13-3 at half time, but with 15 minutes to go the game was tied at 20-20. The Springboks went on to win by a comfortable margin but they certainly had their fans and themselves worried that another upset was on the cards. After the game, Chippie’s wife Pam joined us and the six of us had dinner at a beachfront restaurant, the Bluewaters Cafe. A misnomer considering the weather conditions that day.

Apologies that there are few photographs, but the game park and sight seeing side of our travels are over for a while and now it is all about meeting old friends and former colleagues, most of whom will only be known by Melanie and possibly Clare who was only seven when we left SA.

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”.

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.