Mohair yarn strands

The Hinterveld Mohair Mill Tour in Uitenhage is not your normal run of the mill (excuse the pun) tour, but visitors go there expecting one thing and leaving with a whole different impression.  The factory is also heaven for photographers with so many interesting objects and angles like this one of all the colourful mohair yarn strands going into the weaving machine, turning it into exquisite blankets.

No 7 Castle Hill historical museum

Sailing into Algoa Bay as one of the 1820 British Settlers, Reverend Francis McCleland would have been standing on deck looking out over the bay towards the beach, little knowing what awaited him in the Cape Colony and how he would influence what would become Port Elizabeth.  Rev McCleland became the colonial chaplain in Port Elizabeth and oversaw the building of St Mary’s Anglican Church (later declared a cathedral) which was completed in 1834. Only a couple of years before, in 1827, he bought a piece of land on Castle Hill for three guineas (three pounds and three shillings) and built a house for his family.  A building which is one of the oldest surviving Settler cottages in Port Elizabeth and today is a historic museum.

 

 

 

Visitors are met at the door by a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable Grizel Hart who is the curator of what is now the No 7 Castle Hill Museum.  No 7 opened as a historic museum in 1965 and is furnished in period to show a picture of domestic life as enjoyed by an English middle class family in

mid-19th Century Port Elizabeth.  It really is the kind of place where kids will discover things they have never seen before in their lives while older folk will be reminded of items their grandmothers still had in their houses.  While Grizel shows you around you may just spot a couple of kids with sheets of paper in their hands moving from room to room like their looking for something.  Kids visiting the museum each receive a treasure hunt sheet of paper with drawings of furniture pieces and items found throughout the house to try and track down.  It's the best way to keep the kids interested and learning.
 

 

By far my favourite room in the museum is the old downstairs kitchen.  It really feels like every time I visit there is something new (or should we say old?) to see.  So of the things I remember from my grandmother's kitchen from years ago while others most people have probably never seen.  The ingeniousness of most of the old items does baffle one though because often you wonder why we can't have tools like that now.

 

The museum's courtyard with it's cobblestones is another of my favourites.  The courtyard has a working water pump.  Water is gathered in the well from the roof and pumped out by hand for use.  I bet all the kids visiting the museum want to have a go at the pump and I have to say I often do as well.  Best of all (said wearing my Geocacher hat), there is a Geocache close by as well.   

Jurassic Park at Bayworld

Did I stumble on a long lost valley filled with dinosaurs?  Did somebody finally invent a time machine that allows one to go back to the time of the dinosaurs?  Did I get invited to the set of Jurassic Park 4? No, no and... no.  I visited Bayworld in Port Elizabeth.  Bayworld has an very interesting section by the Snake Park that has life size moving dinosaurs.  Every kid's dream.

Baby elephant at Addo Elephant National Park

International visitors to South Africa all has Kruger Park on their lists of places to see in the country but what many of them don't realise is that you can get just as good an experience in the Eastern Cape.  Addo Elephant National Park is probably one of the most under rated game parks in the country with perceptions changing as soon as people get there.  You may not be able to spend 4 or 5 days there like in Kruger, but the variety of animals, birds, plants and sightings are up there with the best.  On my last visit we were watching a family right next to the road and this little guy decided to move away from his mother and allow to snap his picture.   

Penguin Awareness Day

The African Penguins aren't having it easy.  Their numbers are declining and often those fighting for their future feels like they are fighting a loosing battle.  But they aren't giving up that fight.  There are two days a year to celebrate penguins, World Penguin Day on 25 April and Penguin Awareness Day on 20 January.  Yesterday was Penguin Awareness Day and for some reason I missed it. Darn!  If you missed it as well, why not celebrate it today to make up for it.  Visit one of the penguin colonies at Boulders in Simon's Town or the one in Betty's Bay, otherwise pop into one of the various penguin rehabilitation centres around South Africa.  I live in Port Elizabeth and the South African Marine Rehabilitation and Education Centre (SAMREC) is one of my favourite attractions around.  Well worth a visit and by doing so you support penguin conservation.

Irrigating the Gamtoos Valley

How often do you wonder where exactly the water in your tap and fruit and vegetables in your kitchen comes from?  We'll, if you live in Port Elizabeth its possible to answer both these questions for yourself by visiting the Gamtoos Valley.  The Gamtoos Valley is often referred to as the food basket of the Eastern Cape as it is one of South Africa's biggest citrus and vegetable producing areas.  The farms get their irrigation water from exactly the same place we get our drinking water from, the Kouga Dam.

The dam is a double curve arch dam with an 82 m high wall and storage capacity of 128,7 million m3.  The catchment area is inside the Baviaanskloof Wilderness Area from where the Kouga River carries the water into the 34 km long dam basin.  Other than for water supply the dam was also built as a flood control mechanism to lessen the impact of a flood on the lower Gamtoos River.  Visitors can get right up to the point where I took the photos from for a view of the dam and dam wall with it becoming an even more exceptional sight when the dam overflows. 

Water is taken from the Kouga Dam to the Loerie Dam via a main canal while irrigation water for the farms in the valley is distributed by means of a series of canals and pipelines.  7400 ha of scheduled ground are irrigated with every irrigator being supplied with at least one draw-off with a self registering meter.  These are then operated by the farmers themselves according to their needs and up to a maximum limit of 8000 m3 per ha per year.

And this is where the irrigation water goes.  Citrus orchards like this and fields of potatoes and other vegetables.  The Gamtoos Valley is the ideal breakaway for city folk in the Port Elizabeth area.  The area offers beautiful scenic views, fresh air, lekker food, genuine farm stalls and real wholesome country living hospitality, with most guest houses and B&B's situated on working farms.

Port Elizabeth Whale skeleton

The Port Elizabeth Museum, which forms part of the Bayworld complex, has a very unique exhibit hanging in the Marine Hall.  It's the skeleton of the last Southern Right Whale to be harpooned in Algoa Bay.  Its the focus piece of a exhibit that covers whales and sharks along with everything associated with them.