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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.
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.
