Hermanus Happy Christmas from South Africa. Percy Tours Update 5.

-------------------------------------------

26th Nov. - 25th Dec. 2004.

Well firstly – A BIG Happy Christmas & Mighty Splendid NYE to you all.
Hope it’s a right corker & all your dreams come true.

So after all the fun, games and many stupid kappers spent with Roger holidaying here for the last 3 weeks, I thought it was about time I finally pulled my finger out and started doing some sort of work.
(Of course if it’s sunny – then I have to keep the sun tan topped-up and I only do any real work when it rains – which on current counting is 5 days out of 91, so uumm!!) :-)))))

Abseiling.
And within 10 minutes of Rogers departure I am already abseiling down the cliffs of Hermanus Harbour. Abseiling could easily be my new sport, as it’s quite a thrill to be falling down the side of a cliff face to your sudden death, when the rode suddenly stops and you realise that death thankfully is not on the cards. There’s quite some skill and technique in being able to push off the cliff face with your legs, let go of the rode, free fall for awhile and bounce back onto the cliff face again without injury.

Film Editing.I have collected well over 5 hours of video film of all sorts of sports & adventures from the last
3 months, so I set about constructing & editing the footage so that it is all action and no boring bits, with added music and credits interlaced onto the film.
Each finished DVD of say 25 minutes of cut & edited film, can easily take 6 to 8 hours to compile, add music and edit; with the burning and arrangement of menus taking a further hour. This whole process takes a good days work to finally come up with a highly presentable, polished & professional looking movie.

More Housey bits.
Go over to my future house with my Architect in tow, so that we can do loads of measurements of the existing structure and the plot, so that we have a fair idea on what new buildings will fit onto the available space. Go and see my Geologist to discuss afew major foundation issues.
See my mortgage broker, my mortgage solicitor, my house solicitor (yes 2 solicitors, they do things abit weirdly over here – I’ll explain one day if you are interested) and a local surveyor to kick them all in the right direction.

Sandboarding.
And then zoom off to the smaller sand dunes at Vermont, as the Hostel has called me to say that there are afew people wanting DVD films of their action on the slopes. It’s a screaming hot day and one where a hat and sun block are most definitely required. Thankfully we go off to Onrus beach to be pounded by the cooling sea & massive waves. Excellent fun.

CivAir.
On the odd occasion that I do read a SA newspaper, I find out that the new cheap ticket airline run by CivAir in Cape Town, has sadly gone bust, stranding afew unhappy customers at the wrong end of the planet. This company’s demise is a right blow as they were looking like serious competition to the major carriers and had done their utmost to really hammer down flight prices by a third of what was already on offer.
Just goes to show that cheap is not always best and there’s a business moral for us all to ponder on there.

Business Visa.Well the big news this month is that after all the running around and mucking about –
I finally get my Business Visa thro’ which means that I can now stay here for 2 years – which is a huge relief and now means that all my future plans can now really start to get off the ground.
Including - finding & buying a vehicle so that I can finally get rid of this expensive £500 per month Hertz beauty I presently have. As well as obtaining the many mod-cons that will go into my new pad, like beds and sofas. Open a South Africa bank account and a PO Box for all that post.
After some waiting at my Printers, I finally obtain my first business cards, which even tho’ I say so myself, do look rather excellent – colourful, very informative and lamented.

The Vehicle Hunt is on.So off I go looking at motors that might fit my requirements. As we know, buying a vehicle is not an easy task. Many are too expensive, many are complete wrecks and some are just the wrong colour to match with what I am wearing today lovey !!!! hahhahhaaa !!!

I first start thinking that a cheap little zoom-around car is what I need, but finally go for the idea of a minibus so that I can have double usage from it - for the tourist tours that I will arrange with my new company Percy Tours - www.percytours.com and also use it to move about loads of bulky items that are bound to jump up in the next few months, like tv, fridges, cookers etc.

Minibuses however are very very expensive so it’s off to the bank to get a car loan (this is still to be agreed – so more info when I have it) And off I go to visit as many garages and vehicle dealers in Cape Town as possible. I see over 30 and test drive afew, b4 deciding on a tasty little VW Microbus. Which has only got 75,000 miles / 115,000 kms on the clock (these buses can easily go onto 250,000 miles / 380,000 kms, b4 things start to go wrong), plus central locking, alarm, immobiliser, cd player and the luxury of Air-Con, but it also has a very nifty anti-hijack immobiliser – which on the test drive certainly worked a treat – this works along the lines of – if you get hijacked or the vehicle gets nicked, then after about 200 metres the alarm starts making a right racket, the lights start flashing and the engine starts to stutter and cough and after about 1 km the engine completely dies. Which means all you have to do is walk up to your vehicle, bang the thieving "bar-steward" over the head with a rather large stick, while you calmly get back into the vehicle, press the magic hidden button and hay-presto you are off and motoring again – result!!

So hope to take control and ownership of this beauty in the next few days. Nice xmas pressie to myself – well if you don’t spoil yourself nowadays then who the hell will. Haven’t decided on a nick-name for it yet, so any suggestions from you guys will be most welcome.

Temporary House Move.As if all this wasn’t quite enough to be getting on with, I had to move house again – this time into a flat, as the house I was living in suddenly has its rent going up by 3 times as much - it’s the summer school holidays and rental prices go thro’ the roof in this holiday town by the sea.

My Architect has suggested that I obtain the official building plans and dimensions of the house from the council, so that we have accurate measurements of what’s already on the plot and also suggests that I start to draw up afew basic floor plans of how I would like to have my future house. This is great fun and after afew days and many pads of graph paper, I finally have what looks like a good shape and a functional house.

On one of my many zooms thro’ to Cape Town to look at vehicles on garage forecourts, I have the misfortune to see my 1st dead person. He was a right bloody mess as he’s been run over by 3 minibus taxis on a fast & busy 4 lane stretch of road. Yuck !!!!

Hostel Kappers.At the Hostel one evening, I bump into 3 very excellent humans – Nick & Jacqueline and Steve. All fellow Brits in their early 30s and we get on like a house on fire. Steve is going up the east coast and intents to drive up to Vic Falls, while Nick & Jacqueline are on a year out and off to Oz in afew days – (Nick amazingly has been travelling for the last 9 years and has many fine stories to tell)

They are all off on a Shark Dive and after much salesmanship skills from myself, I finally persuade them to buy 2 Shark DVDs from me of their dives and sharky action. This deal is only concluded after me losing many games of pool (on purpose of course) and some pretty major piss-taking and haggling.
Very entertaining.

Great White Shark Cage Diving, Gansbaai.The wind was full on and our boat has to jump thro’ some pretty big waves b4 we are out onto the open ocean and even then the boat is constantly rocking backwards and forwards. Thank goodness for travel sickness tablets. The visibility in the sea is therefore only a metre because of this continuous swell, so many divers decide to just view from the top deck of the boat.

We have 3 smaller great white sharks of about 2 metres each, visit us fairly swiftly, but they only stay around for half an hour b4 we are left with a very patient (and boring) waiting game and the arrival afew hours later of a monster 5 metre shark. This magnificent creature stays around for at least an hour and is the crowning glory for the day. The film footage is excellent, even if the waves make it alittle rocky. Later that evening I purchase the video footage from a fellow cameraman and now have 2 completely different view points of that todays action.

And while we are on the subject of great white sharks – the Press over here summed up the possibility of being eaten by a shark in South African waters as very very rare (1 death in every 1 ½ years).
Compared with 350 people drowning in South Africa last year & Worldwide over 150 people die from coconuts landing on their heads. Sobering thoughts.

Music Overload.
I find out that one of my local restaurants has a huge collection of music of some 10,000 tunes, so I do abit of bartering and obtain their entire collection for just afew 1000 of my tunes. That currently makes my music collection some 100GB and 25000 songs. Cool, lets party!!!

Info on South Africa.For those of you wanting to know tons more about this completely outrageous part of the world, should hop down to their local newsagent and purchase a copy of the new and fabulously informative - Time Out – Cape Town 2005, available at the very reasonably price of £4.99 – bucket loads of fab info and pictures…………Tho’ there’s not a Percy Tours advert in there just yet. I will be having afew angry words with my marketing team in a second :-)))

Looks like I will be putting on a few kilos this Christmas day as I have been invited to 3 xmas dinners. So guess I better start that abseiling hobby pretty soon, so that I start to burn off all those calories.

That’s about the lot for this month – apart from me wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a joy fine New Years Eve celebrations.

Loads of love to all, cheers

Percy “Abseiling down a cliff, with a Great White Shark biting at my butt”

www.percytours.com

Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.

Hermanus & sunny South Africa. Percy Tours Update 4.

---------------------------------------

21st Oct. / 26th Nov. 2004
Hello everyone, hope you are mighty fine in which ever part of the world you are in.

Hell what a busy old month – I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even had time to emailing all you lovely people with my latest adventures – so it’s about time I did, right ??

My friends from London - Tom and Kathryn, arrive back to Cape Town after venturing up the coast to Durban and Kruger, over the last 15 days. So I jump in the car for some more Cape Town action with them, but not b4 I fill the car up with 3 lovely ladies from the Backpackers, who are all fellow Brits and want to go clubbing in Cape Town for one last time b4 heading up the coast to Durban. So with Pippa, Rachel and Ali in tow, we arrive at the fabulous Ashanti Lodge backpackers for much fun and stupidity.

Abseiling Table Mountain.
Ascend Table Mountain, for Pippa to be mad enough to suddenly decide that she wants to abseil off the mountain edge – I mean come on – Table Mountain is 1083 metres high and made up of totally shear vertical cliffs – down !! (that’s a drop of a Kilometre – aaaarrrr!!!!!) So she holds on to a small rope and descends into the abyss – nutter!! The DVD is in the post Pippa.

Go Clubbing.
Put on our best outfits and off we go to set the dancefloor alight with our monstrously fashionable hip swings and best John Travola impressions – and hit “Opium” which is a long and fairly big roomed venue, with House of all genres hitting our diaphragms, while the very hottest & sexy Capetonians shake their stuff around us until the weeee early hours. Then drive back to Hermanus in the early morning, after very little sleep indeed, and arrive back to my house for many card games, listening to some pounding Drum’n’bass, sipping gin’n’tonics, while sunbathing and jumping in the pool.

The ladies get the Baz Bus early the next morning - Ali has another 2 months in SA, while Pippa + Rachel have a further mind-blowing 11 ½ months travelling thro SA, Oz, NZ, Thailand, Fiji and USA – excellent onward travels ladies – come back to see Percy soon – the party is awaiting your arrival.

Ill in Paradise.Awake afew days later to find that I feel as sick as a dog, with a huge sore throat and a chronic fever that makes me feel that I either need 20 blankets on top of me or that I need to have no material next to my skin at all. This is a horrid feeling and I spend the next 96 hours in bed sweating like a pig. No food, just water. After a week of lemon and honey drinks, I eventually immerge from the house feeling extremely shaky.

House things.
Met up with me Geologist to discuss what land my new house is built upon and also met a builder, who is a fellow Brit, to discuss my ideas of construction.
Sort out a mortgage on the house and afew weeks later get confirmation that the loan has been approved. So I’m very happy about that.

6th November. Roger arrives.Today I have my very first full time guinea pig arrive for Percy Tours – my mate from UK – Roger.
He will be with me for a whopping 3 weeks. So plans are made to get to some new places and explore this huge country. Roger is Windsurf mad, so a new adventure centre is top of the list.

But first stop - the pub for a welcome beer or 2……and why not spoil the guy and throw in a big juicy steak and an elevated sea view, so as to watch Whales jumping out of the sea, only 30 metres away from us ? ………….Welcome to South Africa Roger.

Relaxing is Rogers initial requirement, so a massage is organised for afew days time; book a river evening cruise; explore the mellow town centre, its markets and generally get to show him the sights around Hermanus. While of course slowly ticking off as many local restaurants as possible.

For our more active moments we book ourselves for – Sandboarding, Gorge Jumping & Paragliding in Hermanus and into the Langabaan Adventure Centre for Windsurfing.

Roger also shows a great affiliation with water and jumps into the pool at every opportunity as well as wanting to get thrown about by the forceful waves at the beaches. Everyone…we have a mad water-baby in our midst.

Snow in UK - ohh shame!!!
I must say that I was deeply saddened to hear that there was snow in the UK last week and can only apologise deeply for my continual use of flip-flops, shorts and shades. You see its rather warm here and must at this juncture also say that my tan is coming along very well – a nice olive brown !!!!
Only had 4 days of rain in….ohhhh……68 days. Where as I’d guess its been 64 days of rain for you and 4 days where its grey clouds…………Nice!!!!

Oh and also I have no clue at all what’s going on in the world and have absolutely no intention at all of finding out either, as I have not read a newspapers since getting here apart from the stimulating Hermanus Times every Thursday and the only TV that I watch is of adventure sports, nature programs, shark DVDs and MTV………well apart from hearing that some guy called George Bush won an election somewhere and a 70 year old lady got eaten by a 5 metre long Great White Shark off Cape Town.
(More on shark attacks later in this bulletin, folks)

Now where was I ???

Loads of food.
One Sunday Roger and I decide that we fancy a huge braai meal. So on this screaming hot day we buy 4 kgs of tiger prawns and 4 ostrich steaks and procede to cook ourselves a monster feast. The prawns are HUGE – please get your left hand in front of you and look from the tip of your index finger all the way down to the end of your thumb, so that you make a “C” shape – well these prawns where 3 inches longer than that “C”– and we have 50 of the damn things to consume. Obviously we need help eating this – so in come our trusty Backpacker staff - Gordon and Tolli, and 2 lovely ladies & a gent from Cornwall - Hayley, Vicki and Kelvin. With Hayley looking like the doppelganger of Sarah Beeny off the TV house buying programs.

After many hours of sunbathing, drinking afew cold beers and splashing around in the pool, we get around to the important topic of eating this monster feast.

A big Thank You must go out to Kelvin for his outrageous video footage of a monster Great White Shark of 5 metres long, that he filmed afew days ago. That folks is a damn big fish that you never ever want swimming next to you. Its like a bus – slow, purposeful and nothing gets in its way.

More Sharky stuff.While we are the topic of sharks again – Hermanus last week was graced with the rather gorgeous Brad Pitt (no sign of Jennifer sadly), who was here for 10 days to do some Great White Shark diving. All the kids were taking afternoons off school to try and get a glimpse of him at the 5 star Marine Hotel.
As well as Brad, other notably equally famous recent shark divers in Hermanus have been – Michael Schumacher, Nicholas Cage, Prince Harry & Jamiroquai.

As for the old lady that got eaten last week – she was bonkers enough to have swam in the sea every day for 50 years and decided that going out 150 metres from shore was as safe as houses. Well unfortunately for her, that day her number was up.

Over the following week the press went into panic overload about sharks – the Cape Argus newspaper hired a helicopter and within only 4 ½ kms of sea around Cape Town they spotted 11 large sharks. For the first time in history, Hermanus beach got closed one day, after 3 sharks were spotted off shore.

This all means nothing tho’, because since 1990 there have been only 9 fatal shark attacks in Cape waters, that’s a tiny figure and obviously that’s less than 1 per year - so from that fact you would guess that this lady thought that the odds were stacked in her favour and was fairly alright to be swimming so far out to sea.

And lets be honest here – if sharks really wanted us all for supper then they would be eating us at the rate of 100s per week, not one meal every other year, as every day along the enormous coastline of South Africa there are literally 1000s of surfers, kayakers, divers, canoeists, fishermen, spear fishermen and swimmers who are in the water ready to be eaten.
So sadly this lady was just highly unlucky that day.

Massages in Heaven.
At 2pm that Monday we are graced by the presence of our own masseur Vanessa.
So that’s the rest of the day (and every Monday for 3 weeks) being a very chilled out and laidback event and for those of you with very prevented minds (so that’s all of you then)……NO there were no “under the counter extras”– this is a respectable establishment thank you ever so much, not some Bangkok seedy bar.

Go exploring.
Take Roger on a whistle stop zoom into Cape Town for a day and zip around the Atlantic beaches, go up Signal Point to watch the Paragliders gently fly around Lions Head and the city centre. To arrive back in Hermanus for a highly relaxing river boat cruise, braai and sundowners in the nearby village of Stanford. Our boat slowly potters along at 2 mph. The scenery is gob-smacking, with white puffy clouds covering the tops of all the high peaks of the surrounding mountains and the sunset creating a varied myriad of reds and oranges across the entire landscape. There are tortoise in the water, large colonies of nesting herons & egrets and 100s of weaver birds making small nests in the rivers wide read beds.
While all this stunning scenery is slowly floating by – the screaming kids on board are being slowly pulled along behind us in big inflatable truck tyres.
Best place for them I say :-))))

Up early to go off Sandboarding at the big dunes at Bettys Bay, with 7 other speed freaks. The sun is full on and after 4 hours of zimming down the dunes, covered in sand from head to toe, we all go off to a river for some Gorge Jumping.
The cliff sides are sheer vertical and there are many different heights to jump from. The highest being some 5 metres up, which made for some very entertaining splashes and excellent video camera work - as I have been filming all this days action and am able to sell 2 DVDs of the days events.
Well a man has to pay the rent somehow you know.

Fame goes to your head ??
One evening we walk into the hostels bar and I immediately stop in my tracks with my tongue on the floor and my eyes popping out of my head, cos in front of me is the most gorgeous lady I have seen in years – this is mirrored by another 8 guys equalling agog and are all swarming around her like bees to the honeypot.

For the next 3 minutes I am transfixed cos not only is she incredible gorgeous but for some weird reason she looks very familiar indeed – is she an actress, a singer or a model?? After my mind working over time I hit the jackpot – she’s Vanessa from Big Brother 5 – the pretty South African one who got kicked out half way thro’. Now at this stage no-one else had clocked her for this and everyone is amazed when I suddenly blurt this out to all and sundry that she’s been on TV. At the time of seeing her on TV in England I was transfixed but having her stand next to me, she was even more beautiful.

Off to do adventure sports.
Spend the next few days at the beach, watching whales and dolphins and eating out at some fabulously tasty restaurants, b4 setting off to our next journey of discovery – Langabaan and the adventure centre, 3 hours north up the west coast.
The landscape changes dramatically after leaving Cape Town, from mountainous to huge flat expanses of sandy fynbos bush and scrubs.

The adventure centre has a warehouse full of Kite Surfing, Wind Surfing, Kayaking, Canoeing, Land Kiting, Diving and Mountain Biking gear. Roger is in his element and finds that they have the most modern Windsurf boards and a particular design that is his favourite back home. So he dutifully jumps into a wet suit and goes zipping across the 2 km wide lagoon……………bye Roger see you in the bar mate.

I, on the other hand, have never in my life stood on a Windsurf board and book an hours lesson for later that afternoon. Now for wind surfing you need wind – obviously, and what Langebaan has is loads of wind. Great you might think but when you are a total novice you want things to go from slow to medium tempo. This is not really possible when it’s a force 5 gale outside. Put that together with having to lift a huge sail out of the sea to get going, as well as balancing your weight on a tiny board, then this all becomes a balancing attack to the senses. Needless to say I was in the water for about ½ the time, but when I did get going I was zooming off into the middle of the lagoon, having difficulty in turning around and getting back to shore.
Was a great laugh tho’ and well worth doing.
Our accommodation is marvellously comfortable with a large lounge and kitchen area, fridge in our room, tv and ensuite, we felt like kings.

What Now??The next day its raining and what - no wind…. Oh drat …..what to do now?
So we pack our bags and drive off to the nearby West Coast National Park.
This 200 square kilometres of unspoilt land is home to over 250 different species of birds, including loads of ostrich and eagles; many antelope like Oyrx and Steenbok and 1000s of land tortoise called Angulate Tortoise. These little gritters have absolutely no road awareness and this makes for a great game of rally driving over the top and around them.

The scenery is breathe taking rolling sand dunes and hills covered in green Fynbos bush and shrubland, with an eerie and very relaxing silence of only nature getting on with live.

For those not up on their flora – the Cape region has over 25,000 plants that can only be found here and was very recently awarded the status of a World Heritage Site for its unique biodiversity. Fynbos consists of many of these differing coloured plants.
This region runs down from Langebaan south to the Cape and east across to the Garden Route.

More Sandboarding.
Return home to be immediately phoned by the Backpackers that there is another Sandboard trip going out in ½ an hour, so immediately jump in their mini-bus with Roger and all my camera gear. This time we go to the smaller dune at Vermont with 4 lovely ladies from Ireland and Austria. This dune is very pretty as it is surrounded by a Nature Reserve and the bottom of the dune runs straight into the sea, which is mighty handy for cooling down in. After that we go to the nearby beach of Onrus and jump in the sea. This is great fun as the breakers are huge and the beach descends very quickly into the sea. So for the next half an hour we body surf the waves and get thrown up onto the beach like dead fish, which made for hilarious entertainment and we immerge with our bodies totally exfoliated and our pockets full of sand.

My 40th Birthday.
The old saying that time flys by when you are having fun is very true indeed – as its my 40th birthday and those 40 years have literally zoomed by faster than a rocket.

The hostel kindly allow me to hold a party in their large patio area and Gordon masterfully cooks up a spit-roast 15 kg lamb. The entire fridge of booze is consumed by the 35 guests and quite obviously after 10 hours of stupidity, I have absolutely no recollection of how the hell we got home.

The next morning is a complete blur and we all know the best way to get rid of hair of the dog don’t we?? Yes that’s to start slowly drinking again – Help, where’s a detox clinic please :-)))

Paragliding.The following morning, we get a phone call from the Paragliders who are ready to give us for a flight off the 300 metre high mountains that surround Hermanus. Oh dear I don’t feel too good.

Slip on a crash hat and get myself harnessed to my pilot and with a large amount of faith I just jump off the mountain edge for an outrageously fantastic flight.
The thermals are very active today and we rapidly start rising…….and we start rising more……and continue rising until we are over 600 metres above the take-off pad. The view is incredible, with everything looking so very small, gently fly over wine farms and over lofty peaks, while the Overberg mountain range disappears miles and miles into the distance inland. We actually start hitting the cloud base for afew minutes. After an incredible hour we land expertly back on the postage stamp sized take-off pad. That was brilliant and I recommend that everyone gets themselves airborne one day as it was truly amazing.

Crystal Pools.The following day, Roger and I drive 100kms around the Gordons Bay peninsular to explore The Crystal Pools. This involves an hours hiking in the roasting sunshine, up a large mountainous gorge, with streams washing along side us and plantation surrounding us. Feel like we should have bought a machete to get thro some of it. Troops of Baboons appear occasional and these creatures can get quite aggressive, so we do our best to avoid close contact. Immerge out of the foliage to discover 4 small, deep and pretty pools separated by 3 great waterfalls. There are some nutters Gorge Jumping into the pools from some very stupidly high ledges. And a group of equally mad Abseilers descending from a rock that is shaped like an upside down triangle, 100s of metres above us.

Roger leaves for cold London the next day but not before we have completed another zoom around Cape Town for one finally time.

Been amazing fun to have him here and he has vowed to return next November.

Cheers xxxxx

Percy "Action Man"

www.percytours.com

Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.

Hermanus & South Africa exploring. Percy Tours Update 3.

--------------------------------------------------------

One Saturday night I venture out to explore the night clubs in Hermanus. There is a marked difference between them all – one very trendy, plush, marble floored and serving up all manner of costly cocktails; to the dark and dirty big roomed venues that are for your “off your head” nutters; to one with a rock band playing cover versions on a small stage, in a very comfy and spacious cliff top bar.

All this I of course do in the name of research !!!! :-))))

Having now collected (and slowly read thro’) over 1000 different leaflets, magazines, flyers, brochures and adverts for local tourist businesses, I can now see more closely what’s on offer here for the discerning tourist.

Met up with a few South African friends and go to where they are camping under the stars with 30 other mad South Africans. Right on the beach, with fabulous views of the sea and surrounding mountains. The camp site evening air is filled with the delicious smell of braai cooking of all manner of meats and all handsomely washed down with afew beers.

As is traditional here, any and all sports are a very important aspect of life – so we zoom off to watch a game of rugby on TV at the local crowded pub – where the Western Province are playing against The Sharks from Durban – Western Province are from the Cape Town area and therefore the team that we all want to win – so there is much merriment when they win by 32 to 24.

For a few mornings in a row I go down to the cliff tops to spot whales (which seem to be more prolific in the mornings for some reason) – also watch many seals playing in the kelp forested sea shores, and shoals of dolphins flying thro the sea and air, which is all very humbling and magical.

Behind me on the cliff faces are a number of mad Abseilers, slowly descending over the cliff edge to the rocky shoreline below.

Well I have now been living in Hermanus Backpackers for the last 2 weeks and although its been great fun and you meet loads of interesting people, its all working out to be very costly indeed, so after a small amount of research I find myself moving into a lovely 2 bedroom self-contained cottage that has a swimming pool only 10 feet away from my front door. So organise to rent it out for October and November. This thankfully is less than half what I would have paid at the backpackers, so I am very happy about that. Plus when you live in a backpackers, you never really have any space to spread out properly; noise can be a problem when wanting a full nights sleep, as well as sometimes when you decide to leave things in the fridges, food can occasional do a magic-vanishing-act, which is obviously quite annoying.

Keep up the house hunting in the nearby areas of Fisherhaven, Onrus, Sandbaai and Vermont with the many estate agents.
It’s quite amazing how varied each house is here – every single one is completely different from the last one seen. All are detached but it’s the variety of their construction and design that is so different that makes looking around them so fascinating. Many seem to have en-suite bathrooms for all the bedrooms as a matter of course. One I looked around was currently being rented out to 11 policemen who are here to catch the Abalone poachers. So most houses are quite roomy.

Find out from the Traffic Police Dept, that I am legally able to drive a 20 seater mini-bus on my UK driving licence, without having to take any extra driving exams.
It takes about 4 lessons for someone to be ready to take the exam and these exam places are fully booked all the way up to 2005, with a new waiting list starting in Nov. for next years places. So I am relieved that I don’t have to go thro all that silliness.

As well as doing Sandboarding and Paragliding a few weeks ago - I have visited - a Quad biking company; the local beer brewery – Birkenhead Brewery; driven to the most southern tip of Africa (Cape Agulhas) to see what’s happening there – not too much really apart from a light house and a shipwreck of a Japanese trawler that rumour has it was an insurance claim job; enjoy a marvellous massage to the very posh Caledon Spa, that has a Casino, Hotel and Restaurants attached; have 2 meetings with “The Shark Man” and will be on his boat for my very 1st Great White Shark dive on Friday 15th Oct. Which I cheekily blag for free – so thats £100 saved - I will be filming and photographing that trip for certain.

Visited and have now eaten at 6 local restaurants that were recommended to me – so that leaves only another 24 to go to then; gone to 3 of the 6 wineries; the Hermanus Flower Reserve/Park; taken over 300 good pictures that will be certainly vetted b4 use on the website + videoed over 2 hours of all sorts of things.

Weds 6th OctoberWeds last week was not a good day or night as we had a storm visit that proceeded to rain non-stop and we had rivers flowing down every road. I also suddenly found out that my lovely cottage has a few holes in the roof, which made for an interesting game of run-around-for-the-biggest-saucepans-possible, for half an hour.
Luckily I discover that it is all coming thro’ one part of the roof and am thankful that none is landing on my bed, as it was in the other bedroom.
This monstrous down pour was most welcome by the locals, as the local reservoir needs to be refilled urgently and this storm made the front page of the weekly local newspaper.

2 days later it starts raining again and we all run for cover – but this only lasts half the day, for which we are most grateful.

While all this water is descending from the sky there is very little reason to go outside, so I camp myself round at the Backpackers to take on the staff at games of golf and rallying on the Playstation2 and a huge session of pool in the bar.

Eventually finish off editing and compiling the Sandboarding DVDs that I have sold to 3 customers and zoom off to Cape Town to deliver them and collect my cash.

Take part in a Pub Quiz at a local restaurant, with our team coming second and rewarded with cocktails of our choice.

Tuesday 12th OctoberWell the big news today is that after many manic days of looking at over 35 properties, I eventually find something that fits the bill, and proceed to put an offer in and get it accepted a few days later. The house buying process here is a lot less complicated and slightly speedier than the UK.

It’s a clean and tidy small-ish 2 bedroom, one bathroom with open plan kitchen/lounge/dining room detached house, which covers about 75m2. Situated on a large plot of 714m2, that has the potential and enough space to put another 3 or 4 bedroom house and a swimming pool.

Completion is planned for Jan 2005. So its now official - you ALL now have a pad to stay at when you come and visit.

The mountains are visable from the front of the house and are an ever continuous range that sweep from left to right called the Overberg.

The sea and beaches are about a 5 minute walk from the front door and the nearest shop is a 2 minute walk.

As you can imagine there’s quite a bit of space around it and an empty plot next to it. Just by complete coincidence the house behind it is owned by the owners of Hermanus Backpackers which will make for some highly entertaining evenings I am sure of that.

Wednesday 13th October
My friends Tom & Kathryn arrive from London – so they are the first “guinea pigs” for a spot of Percy Tours. So off we zoom to explore Cape Town and the local area – The beaches around Cape Town; down to Hout Bay for a great seafood lunch of lobster and monster prawns; drive down the very scenic Chapmans Peak Drive, where we spot over 14 whales swimming in Hout Bay; down to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope and thro to Boulders Beach to swim with the Penguins; while enjoying games of pool at Stones on Long Street, and good meals of ostrich, crocodile and kudu steaks at Mama Africas.
We then head over to Hermanus to stay at my place.

Friday 15th OctoberWell today’s the day that Tom & I decide to become a small snack for a few big
Great White Sharks……….aaaaaaaarrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!

So it’s up early for us – 5.30am – not our best time of the day.
So with blurred vision and fluffy heads we jump into a minibus with 4 other potential “victims” and arrive at Gansbaai half an hour later.
The boat is quite big (thankfully), with 2 decks and therefore giving you a higher angle of vision of the action. As well as a solid cage that houses 5 divers at once.

After about 30 mins the first great white shark turns up – and my are they big, graceful and fast.
Within an hour we have 6 different great whites circling the boat and the action is continuous. Saying that tho’ it is quite difficult to film them, as not only is the boat swaying about non-stop, so that you have to permanently hold-on to something solid, but each shark attack on the bait is fast and from different directions. I have therefore concluded that wildlife photography is a very patient game. Even tho' - this is one tourist activity that i will do again and again. Great fun and a marvelous experience that everyone should do.

There were 4 British scientists on board our boat, who have been surveying and studying these fabulous animals and over the last 5 years they have viewed over 1000 different Great White Sharks here – each identified by individualised markings on their dorsal fins. Their diets are not just seals, as I first thought. Seals only account for about 10% to 20% of their food. Any other slightly smaller fish, like tuna, other sharks, or rays make up the rest of their menus.
The sharks we saw were only babies of 1.5 to 2.5 metres long, as these are less experienced than fully grown adults that can reach lengths of up to 4 or 6 metres.

Also as of 3 days ago, the Great White Shark has now been listed as an endangered species, which means that every single country in the world is now banned from fishing them (but thats obviously extremely differcult to police.)
They have been protected in South Africa and Australian waters for over 15 years and are very much appreciated by the local sea-fishermen as they keep the seal numbers down. Seals as we all know love to eat tons of fish that we humans also like to have on our plates, so fishermen are all for Great White Sharks munching on a few seals.

I will most definitely be doing many more shark trips as I find them such fascinating creatures.

Hope you are all very well, Love to all and more adventures from South Africa soon.

Cheers

Percy “Shark Bait”

www.percytours.com

Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.

Hermanus, South Africa adventures. Percy Tours Update 2.

September and October 2004.
----------------------------------------

Saturday 25th Sept. 2004.

The morning starts raining but then slowly clears up to a sunny afternoon.

The town is into the full Whale Festival swing - with my backpackers lodge and every other accommodation bed being taken – there are 50 beds here at Hermanus Backpackers, all taken and I have never seen it so busy. Makes for a lot of fun as you are always bumping into someone new and friendly – and the evening Braai & pool matches in the bar have become legendary for their good spirited competitions.

Spend a few days wondering around the festival with its many craft stalls, mobile sound systems blasting out all sorts of sounds – eat your heart out Notting Hill !!!!! Theres loads of roads closed off and every single piece of available land in the small town centre has suddenly been turned into a temporary car park. The Capetownians have arrived and have totally taken over the place.

I discover that there are some new restaurants and bars, since i was here last (Jan. 2004) – theres an extremely trendy new bar called Shimmis with its 2 x1210's and pumping JBL sound system. Lovely décor, comfy seats and cos its on the 2nd floor & positioned on the cliff top, you get an excellent view of the whales and the people walking around the streets below you.

Lovely evening drive out towards Stanford for a great sunset and visit the 25 km long Grotto beach.

Sometime last week I was offered to go into business with an internet shop and a brand new idea (and yet to be built) mobile internet long-caravan that will be taken to all sorts of out door events – not a bad offer at all but I have other plans – so had to politely decline.

With one of the guys from the Hostel we go Sand Boarding up a huge sand dune, with 6 gorgeous ladies – 3 from Slovenia, 2 South Africans and 1 Austrian. After afew slow down hill attempts and many falling over sessions, we soon get into the knack of how to do it and are at least moving rather than falling onto our butts every 2 second.

The views are fabulous – with the sea and beaches only afew 100 metres away and the Mountain coastline background being stunning.

After 4 hours of zooming downhill we drive to a deep river gorge with high rock cliffs – and proceed to dive & jump into the freezing cold water – very much needed as we are totally covered in sand and very warm. Most refreshing.

The weather has suddenly turn out to be sunny every single day and averages about 25 degrees in the midday heat. Today (thurs) its 27. So slowly the tan is coming along – well seeing as I originally started with that famously pastey colour of “English Grey”, I then need to proceed thro into the white zone, then pink, then salmon pink, then red, then finally slowly increasing darker shapes of brown. I think I have now achieved the off-white colour successfully.

With tanning you can also easily go thro the stages of what the South Africans call
“a Farmers Tan” – tanning on your arms (below the t-shirt sleeve) – above the neck upwards – and your lower legs – with the rest of you being as white as a sheet. A highly comical look I am sure, but that’s one look I will be trying my best to avoid :-)))

Went Paragliding off the local mountain top – about 300 metres high, with absolutely amazing views of the whole of Walkers Bay and at this height you can actually see the whales a lot easier, as from the cliff tops down at sea level you only really see their humps. Even saw one whale do 12 monsterous leaps in a row out of the sea and was able to catch it on film.

Visit Hermanus Golf course, which is a very prime and proper place, with very manicured grass and dress codes that are strictly enforced – so me arriving in flippies, shorts and t-shirt means I was lucky not to get kicked out instantly. In those situations I adopt a strong posh English gents accent of Lordism and pretend I am looking to buy the whole place – soon gets people running for cover :-)))

Zoom over to Cape Town for a day – to look at loads of cars at my friends Anthony dads work – he works for the Govt dept that sells off old Govt vehicles – so over 50 different motors - police cars, ambulances, mini-buses, jeeps, bmw, vw, range rovers, opels, audis, masdas. All sold off at auction once per month at rock bottom prices, with about 200 buyers turning up – only thing is that they don’t allow you to test drive them or even start the engines. UUMMM not ideal for my first car purchase, but one contact well worth bearing in mind for the future.

Looked at loads of houses to buy and rent – unbelievably house prices have gone thro the roof and are up by 20% since Feb 2004 – that’s £10,000 more in 7 months – absolutely outrageous.
Plots of land have tripled or quadrupled – from £7500 or £10000 to £30000 or £40000 – even more outrageous. With the prices continuing to grow and bank interest rates are still set to go down – so anyone wanting to invest in a property over here had better buy NOW.
So I need to get a house immediately but obviously wont be doing that until I get confirmation of my 2 year business visa – same with buying a car – pointless spending money on items when I might not even be let into the country. Immigration takes about 6 to 8 weeks to process, so I haven’t got too long to wait and gives me quite abit of time to look at everything on the market.
Estate agents are weird here – as its such a small and close knit town – every house is on with every agent – most strange. There are afew sole-agency properties but they seem to need to be hunted down.

Have been meeting loads of friendly locals and travellers alike – even bumped into a UK actress who has been in Eastenders and is one of the girls who works in the office in “The Green Wing” that mad comedy series set in a hospital on Channel 4.

Have already sold 3 dvds of people Sand Boarding and Paragliding – so Percy Tours has already started trading – which I am much relieved about as it shows that there are many business opportunities out here especially when I haven’t started trying to get any business yet.

Well its now Thurdsay 30th Sept, and to be honest it has all been so surreal that I am finally here after working so damn hard in UK for 9 months, that I have to keep pinching myself.

Anyway that’s it for now folks.

Cheers and loads of love xxx

Percy "The Sand Dune King"

www.percytours.com

Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.

Hermanus, South Africa 1st arrival. Percy Tours Update 1.

--------------------------------

Mid - SEPTEMBER 2004.
Its 4 days since landing in Cape Town and after a mad few days I am now in Hermanus.

OK quick run down of events so far –

Got to Heathrow to be told that they would NOT let me on the plane – “oh bu##er”
This is cos I was being a cheeky swine and only bought a single / one way ticket into South Africa and the immigration in South Africa require a return ticket or exit ticket to be shown upon arrival.
So over I go to the SAA ticket office and buy a £100 single ticket from J’burg to Manzini – Where ??????
This is of course much cheaper than a return ticket to Heathrow and luckily is refundable in UK – so not a disaster really.

Cos I am so early to check in I am able to blag a wing seat with lots of room –
result !! – only to board the plane to find that yes I have a wing seat but I am sitting on the window side with my legs being right up against the emergency exits life-raft that is housed in a huge plastic container that’s part of the door and unmovable – this means my right leg can spread out forward for about 15 feet (thats one long leg!!!) but my left leg has my knee up at my chin – as you can imagine this is not conducive to utmost comfort.

Watched afew movies – Troy - with Brad Pitt taking his clothes off right, left and centre, which you girls will obviously love and probably be rewinding over and over again when you get the video out (good for ½ hour and then boring) / then a great action packed and CGI vampire film with the guy who was Wolverine in X-Men, and the guy who was the rich Count in Moulen Rouge, who plays Dracula. (good plot twists and tons of action and flying Vampires and Werewolves) / then had to see the fabulous Shrek 2 again – hilarious and a modern day classic.

Arrive after little sleep to a much warmer day than the BBC weather website had predicted the day b4 – they said some cloud and 16 degrees – and it turned out to be - no cloud, full-on sunshine and 26 degrees – well bring it on I said, so glad I was in shorts and t-shirt not trousers and a jacket as original planned.

Go to the Hertz counter to get my car – to be given a brand new Opel with only 4000km on the clock and brand new tyres – excellent!!! Zoom off to Cape Town centre to the amazing Ashanti Lodge hostel, chillout for afew hours and then straight down to a restaurant at the Waterfront to met my immigration lady – have a great 2 hour natter to go thro everything. After that I asked her - what are her thoughts to the business plan and the ideas? – which she gives me an immediate 9 ½ out of 10. Well that folks, to me is a very high score and I am therefore all smiles and zoom off immediately to get the very best steak in Cape Town at the Nelsons Eye to semi-celebrate (can’t count those chickens too quickly)

Fall into bed at 8pm and sleep like a log.

Then up early to zoom off to Hermanus, watching out for those pesky mobile police speed cameras that they hide at nearly every straight road (god they are everywhere and I mean everywhere – saw one on a huge tripod in a storm drain with just the lense sticking out at ground level); while also getting stopped with another 20 vehicles at a big police check point, for driving licences checks and quick road worthy check to see if I have 4 wheels on my car. Pass with flying colours and zoom off, telling those pesky coppers to eat my dust buddy!!!!

Arrive at Hermanus Backpackers and get the best room in the place, as I am now a fully signed up resident of the place – huge result!! And coincidentally the rooms called “The Love Chamber” - uuuummmm!!!! not too sure if that’s a good sign - either the management have a few lustful surprises already arranged for me later or its just wishful thinking :-)))

Full-on beer, steak braai and pool thrashing session of the locals by me and a fellow Brit, b4 crashing out for the night.

In a hostel its impossible to have a lie-in if you are a light sleeper like me, cos there is action from 7.30am every morning – people getting collected for Shark Dives or shuttled to the Baz-Bus collection point or the loud reception phone going off every 5 minutes or the cleaner with a hoover smashing into your bedroom door – so up early and straight down to the coast path and there straight infront of me – ½ a mile out to sea are 6 Southern Right Whales splashing about.

I was only able to get afew tail photos so far and realise that wildlife photography is a very time consuming activity b4 the animals actually do anything.

The whole town is in full Whale Festival action, which lasts 4 days, with huge marquees taking up afew car parks – with food, ice cream, steaks & braais roaring and as many beer tents as you can stagger to and from; with a big market that’s selling drums, masks, sculptures, t-shirts and African craftwork. The towns busy but not rammed, although all the accommodation venues are full so there is certainly a few people here.

Ok that’s the lot for the last 3 ½ days – more roving reporting in the next few days.

Percy African “Love Chamber”

www.percytours.com

Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.