journal entries
Jul 05: [DW] Land of Pharaohs
Jun 05: [TS] Crazy Cairo
May 05: [TS] Sudan
Apr 05: [DW] Serengeti
Apr 05: [TS] Bandit Zone
Mar 05: [DW] Rwanda
Mar 05: [TS] Zanzibar
Mar 05: [TS] Into Interior
Mar 05: [DW] Ethiopia
Feb 05: [TS] Nile Challenge
Feb 05: [TS] The Pilgrimage
Jan 05: [TS] Mtwara
Jan 05: [DW] Tanzania
Jan 05: [TS] Wheel Clamped
Dec 04: [TS] Madagascar
Dec 04: [DW] Malawi
Dec 04: [TS] Mozambique
Nov 04: [DW] Okavango Delta
Nov 04: [DW] Zimbabwe
Nov 04: [DW] Botswana
Nov 04: [DW] Sesriem & on
25 Oct 04:
[DW] To Sun City
22 Oct 04:
[TS] Etosha Nat Park
18 Oct 04: [TS] Namibia
2 Oct 04:
[TS] Lesotho
28 Sep 04:
[DW] Wild Animals
24 Sep 04:
[DW] Wild Coast
16 Sep 04: [TS] Garden Route
9 Sep 04: [TS] Arrival
Aug 04: [TS] Intro
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the garden route:
cape town to port elizabeth
16 September 2004
The southern coastal road from Cape Town winds its way between a mountain range and the water. Its yet another great drive. Rounding False Bay on a clear sunny day we came across a pod of whales close to the shore. So we stopped and studied them. They are beautiful creatures. Just floating, twisting, playing, sticking their fins and tails out of the water and making sounds that I could not understand. Luckily I'm travelling with a whale expert from Lightning Ridge and he said they said ''look at those people up there" . He also said they were blue whales but we found out later that they are Southern Right whales. Southern being from where they are found on earth and right being the right ones to harpoon because they float after being killed.
Fortunately that does not happen any more. They are so graceful and connected. Watching them in the water appearing so free and with a total absence of fear made me think now that man has been taken out of the equation that they are in a perfect little world just cruising around eating plankton. You'd think with all there is to eat in the ocean like oysters, lobsters, fish etc, that they would be having a feast but no, its plankton. But its perfect. They don't have to go searching and hunting other fish and they don't have predators that want to eat them. You might think what about the plankton? To be an organism just floating around waiting for a whale or other types of fish to come and eat you. What sort of life do they have? Maybe we have to ask what we want out of life. For the plankton its just existence that makes it a success and maybe that may apply with us as well. Somehow I managed to feel better about myself and we travelled on and into the night.
It was getting late and refreshments were getting dangerously low so we pulled off the highway into a one pub rural town called Heidelberg. Damien walked into the small bar and the half a dozen people in there stopped their chat and just looked at him! We noticed later that there wasn't any blacks in the bar, not even the barman which was strange considering the attitude people have over here with servants. Heidelberg is the sort of place that even most South Africans have never heard of. So for us to walk into this place it was understandable for these people to look surprised. The banter with the locals was fun. They slipped from English to Afrikaans and back easily but I think they generally spoke Afrikaans. They liked to talk about their successful national rugby team. Don't mention the cricket.
We stayed at the pub and woke to a glorious morning. The pace of this place was notably slower. The few cars that come into town did so at about five kilometres an hour. The people here take such pride in their gardens and are friendly and hospitable. We headed for a place called White Sands because we were told these was about 50 whales just hanging around there. Went through heaps of ostrich farms. On the way back we stopped in a side lane in amongst heaps of ostriches. They were a bit spooked at first and then came back and stood right up to us. It was a big stare off. You could just see hundreds of pairs of eyes. Luckily I have an ostrich expert travelling with me and he said they were saying "how are you". It was a bit too close for me so I went back to the car. Damien came back later. I looked at him and said ''you've got ostrich eyes" and he said to me that "I have an ostrich head''. Yep! We drove on seeing all sorts of animals on the road and then found out an old steam train was heading along the valley and coastline, so Damien caught it and I drove.
The old steam engine is quite impressive but it spits out a mess and makes a racket. Knysna that night and then on to Port Elizabeth the next night. Bit tricky getting in to there at first but then found our way to the oceanfront. The drive on this whole section of coastline has great scenery and the animals are on the increase. Jeffreys bay surf was blown out.
Damien will be writing the next update. So expect something different. Questions that may get answered next update. Why does Damien want to carry around a broken drivers side mirror that's been replaced? Which one of us will take out the first cow, pig, goat, chicken, kudu, etc? (hopefully it won’t be a human but there are many people that walk on the roads and they are very casual around cars) How far does Damien pace when he is on the phone?
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I have lost all my photos for this section of the trip, but here's one of someone I think a lot about (no, it's not the cat)
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