Holiday! Part 1

Warning! Excessive use of superlatives ahead!






We're just back from the most amazing week's holiday - the best ever according to the girls. We flew to Port Elizabeth, and then drove over 1,000 kilometres along the Garden Route and through the Klein Karoo on our way back to Cape Town.

We crammed a lot in to the week - almost too much, but not quite! We stayed in a different place almost every night, from luxurious B&Bs to mountain lodges and fancy tents. We passed through amazing landscapes: dry bush, plunging canyons, mountains and forests, pounding Indian Ocean coastlines. Rural SA is very different to the cities. Living in the countryside isn't aspirational: this is where the poverty is most grinding and the living standards lowest. In SA, a whole socio-ecomonic class is defined as 'rural' on the assumption that there will be no electricity, no running water, no amenities of any kind. Traditions and customs are still hugely important in the countryside too. Given there is no universal health system and visits to a doctor are expensive and could involve long journeys, witch doctors and sangomas (traditional healers) still hold sway. Plus a deeply held belief in, and respect for, the power of the ancestors.

Anyway, back to our holiday. Quick run through of the highlights.....

Day 1: Flight to P.E. on Saturday morning. Picked up our hire car, and headed to the sea front for lunch. Quite cool and cloudy, so after a walk along the promenade we headed to our B&B to get settled. Girls got straight in the pool despite the temperature, but didn't stay in for long!

Day 2: Off to Addo Elephant Reserve. The third largest game reserve in SA, it covers nearly 3,500 square kilometres. It's one of SA's national parks and teems with wildlife, including the Big 5. In the end we didn't see any lions, leopards, rhino or buffalo, but had some spectacular views of the elephants the reserve originally specialised in. We stayed in a cute and cosy forest cabin, and took two game drives, one a 'Sundowner' with the obligatory drink next to a waterhole. The highlight of this drive, apart from the ellies and the sunset, was the sight of 2 black-backed jackals howling at the moon. Spectacularly eerie!

Day 3: Morning drive at Addo, then a swim in the pool, as the weather is really starting to heat up. Great excitement when a cheeky vervet monkey ran off with one of Elizabeth's Crocs. We had to chase it over the fence to get the shoe back! We spent the afternoon on a slow drive through the length of the southern section of the reserve, spotting kudu, zebra, eland, elephant herds complete with babies, warthog (really cute, if very ugly). Stayed in Jeffrey's Bay overnight - the unfortunate Afrikaans word for town (dorp) just about summing up this unexceptional place, renowned only for surfing as far as we can tell.

Day 4: Quick get away from dorps-ville, and off to another national park, Tsitikamma. We stayed at the Storms River Mouth rest camp in another little lodge. The national park accomodation is excellent, and very reasonably priced. Amazingly located right on the edge of the sea with the surf crashing and banging on the rocks day and night.

Before we even got to the sea however we took the treetop canopy tour of the local forest. Right up in the tops of the tallest trees, amongst the forest buzzards, monkeys and snakes (none in evidence thankfully), we whizzed down 10 zipwires as we zigzagged across the forest. Lottie has been excited about this activity since we first suggested it, but Elizabeth was more reticent and started off feeling quite scared. (So was I, but I could hardly admit it to Libby). Our instructor was very patient and gentle and, as I had fully expected, after the first couple of 'zips' Elizabeth was declaring her love for the tour and how she didn't want it to end. She was left dangling a few times though on the longest wires - too light to really get enough momentum up.

Day 5: A second day at Tsitsikamma. We spent today walking and exploring the fabulous scenery of the national park. In the morning we did a short but fairly strenuous walk to the lookout spot high on the neighbouring hill. The views were stupendous. We returned via the suspension bridge across the gorge. The world's highest bungee jump is at Storms River, but we didn't see any mad souls attempting the leap!

After lunch we headed off on the waterfall trail, despite the scary sounding warning.



And so glad we did as it was a lovely walk, mainly boulder-hopping along the rocky shoreline, but with stretches through the forest. Unfortunately, due to the prolonged and severe drought (the worst in over 100 years in the Eastern Cape), the waterfall was underwhelming when we reached it, and the promised swim in the fresh water pool didn't materialise as a lack of running water had made the pool look a bit suspect.

We did however catch a glimpse of the Knysna Loerie, a bright red and green bird with a peculiar shield on its head, and a long tail.

Got home as dusk was falling, meaning Neil had to braai in the dark!

All in all an amazing first half to our holiday.