-------------------------------------------
Dec 26th 2004 – 7th Feb 2005.
Firstly, I hope that you all have had a fabulous Christmas & NYE celebrations.
(And I spose now it’s a far off memory, but a happy one all the same……….)
Christmas in South Africa.
Needless to say I had a corker too – there really is nothing quite like 30 degree heat, swimming in a cooling pool and eating huge crayfish on the braai with 25 other fellow xmas revellers at the Backpackers Hostel; which I took long my lap-top with all its music, so a large and long party was enjoyed by all.
Christmas away from UK is such a breath of fresh air – no crowds of moody people pushing you about at the shops/pubs/clubs/restaurants for 2 months; no spending £1000 on a load of useless rubbish; no 3 weeks of continuous hang-overs; no Christmas carols being played everywhere; no naff Christmas TV adverts for 2 months that are so rubbish that you are ashamed for the poor sods that had to film the damn things; no piles of wasted food and no turkey or sprouts. Yyyeeeehhhaaaa!!!!!!
Present to myself !!!
Afew days b4 Christmas Day I had finally found myself some decent wheels and proceeded to obtain a car loan from my bank, only to be told 5 days later that due to the fact that I am not yet a permanent resident of South Africa, then I will not be allowed a car loan. Well why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me that b4 I filled in all the bloody forms and wasted a whole week chasing it up – stupid gits!!! Anyway it all ended happily and I am now the proud owner of a 10 seater VW minibus that’s got all the mod-cons – central locking, alarm, immobiliser, anti hijack alarm, kicking cd/radio stereo, valeted inside and out, alloy wheels and best of all – Air-Con – rrrrrrrrr luxury in this heat.
Boxing Day. More Sandboarding.
On Boxing Day we head off with 9 others to the large sand dunes to spend afew hours Sand Boarding. Then partake in some mad Gorge Jumping into a very deep river of cooling water. There are afew lunatics jumping off the road bridge which is at least 20 metres above the river; head back to the bar at the Hostel to wash all that sand away with afew splendid beers.
Lets Rock.The day after we drive over to the small seaside village of Gansbaai to see a rock festival. Yeah a rock festival!!! We had to go to that just to check out what exactly happens at a South African rock festival. When I say village I mean a village – so only about 1000 people maximum live here full time. There was of course a large beer tent – excellent start, a crowd of about 300 or 400 people, as well as a pretty impressive stage with lights, big sound system and an engineers tower about 50 metres back into the crowd.
The best bit for me (and the rest of the male audience) was that there was also a large jacucci bubble bath on the stage. Well it being a rock festival it was bound to happen.
Yeah you guessed it, there were also 10 very pretty women writhing about in all the bubbles, dancing provocatively in bikinis.
Highly entertaining :-)))
The ladies in the audience had to put up with long haired, tanned, muscular and tattooed sexy rock stars strutting their stuff on stage. Oh shame !!!!! :-)))))
Some enterprising locals had bought along a huge paddling pool which they filled from a handy hose and wallowing in cold and muddy water. That made for a pretty picture too. Every single song was in Afrikaans so we really didn’t know what they were singing about, but who really cares when you have a beer in your hand and scantily clad ladies are gyrating in bubbles in front of you? :-)))
New Years Eve.New Years Eve was a fun packed evening at a local restaurant/ bar called Marumba. Can’t remember much after about 11pm, but can just about recall a Soca band of 20 gents dressed in blue & white suits turning up to parade along the walking street outside and some silly sod letting off 2 distress flares that he held in his hands. What a load of smoke and bright red glow that was.
Well by now we all know the result of England visiting South Africa for a test match of good old cricket, but if you are not that well informed, England just about won the series. I won 100 Rand on that bet.
Here they have 2 New Years Days as public holidays. Yeah 2, weird, but apparently it’s because it was the only day of the year that the slaves/workers had as a holiday. Uuummm one day in ever 365, how generous!!!??? :-))))
The local rock venue, The Gecko, has a really good Cape Town band called The Boulevard Blues Band play once a fortnight, so we go for a jump up and down on the dancefloor to their fine tunes.
Downhill Biking.For 2 Sundays in a row I go off to witness and video, one of the most extreme sports there can be - Downhill Biking. This is not your light weight mountain biking, this is jumping off 5 metre vertical walls of dust, rock, trees and bushes; flying and flipping in the air off crazy rams, while doing stunning aerial twists and turns at VERY HIGH SPEED. The crashes are amazingly spectacular, that’s why they all wear body armour made from light weight but extremely tough plastic. Hand to shoulder; foot to hip; around the rib cage, plus space age helmets, all in multi-colours.
There have been 2 collar bone breaks, one big toe smashed, 2 twisted ankles, one broken knee cap and load of cuts and scraps to take to the hospital that have happened at these 2 meetings and this isn’t even the season yet, this is just practice sessions. This all makes for some great video action and with a sprinkle of Metallica and Slayer thrown into the film soundtrack, makes for some entertaining dvd editing and viewing.
In about 2 weekends time a massive meeting happens about 50 kms away, which lasts a full 5 days and includes every single biking discipline that there is – from marathons, to sprints, circuit, cross country, bmx stunts, slaloms, downhill, rally, road, endurance, etc. It’s all catered for here. That will all be worth videoing for inclusion on a mad DVD.
Road Trip and Safari Game Drive.
Now that I have a fabulous vehicle I think it’s about time I take this little beauty for a road trip, so my German mate Steffi & I take off to Cape Town to collect one of her friends Julia and we drive to the northern towns of Tulbach & Ceres. The girls are going to visit a childerns home that they worked at for 3 months last year to surprise the kids and take a huge suitcase of xmas gifts that Julia has bought all the way from Germany.
While I go on to 2 wildlife safaris in the nearby Karoo, staying in a B&B in the small town of Ceres.
These 2 safari parks are the nearest and the most advertised Game Parks in the Cape Town area and as they are within only 3 hours drive, they are an easy day trip from Cape Town for all tourists. Both are about 3500 hectares each, have been open for about 7 years, as well as both offering a 2 to 3 hour game drive and more. So it will very interesting to see how each operates and how different they are.
Aquila is the 1st one. It’s on land that can only be described as fairly barren, i.e. there are only about 5 trees, the rest of the land is covered in thigh-high shrubs and bush. This obviously makes spotting the animals from the Land Rovers easier, but you do think that it would be nice to have a few lorry sized plants about for the animals to hide amongst, especially to provide shade in the screaming heat of the day.
There was a large watering hole which had 3 hippos in it, (hippos kill more humans than any other wild animal – the insect equivalent is the damn mosquito) as well as spotting many different water birds like storks, Egyptian geese, spoonbills and heron. The antelope species seen were – springbok which apparently breed like rabbits; zebra, 3 giraffe, some blue wildebeest, eland (the largest antelope) and 3 white rhinos (from quite a distance). We also visited an enclosure that had 3 white lions in it that Aquila had bought from the Atlas Mountains region of southern Morocco. Why they did that is a very good question cos these lions looked well out of place – not your usual golden brown colouration or size that you would expect to see on a safari. And next to them were 3 other white lion cubs. They will be separated for another 6 months b4 they are all placed in one huge enclosure. If they were placed them together now then the younger ones would be immediately killed by the adults.
They also say that they have buffalo and leopards but we didn’t see either.
Leopards obviously being extremely difficult to ever spot as they are nocturnal and hide in high mountain ridges and canyons.
The buildings were in lovely classic African design of thatched roofs and orangey walls, with a good pool, bar, rest areas with sofas and a big restaurant.
This 3 hour safari (plus a compulsory supper) cost R625, which is about £60.00.
Worth it?? We will see.
Day 2 Game and Safari Drive.So the next day I zoom off to Inverdoorn Game Park.
Positioned on an old fruit farm, the land is fairly flat but the 1st thing you see are loads and loads of high trees and thick high shrub and bushes – this is more like it. This game park is owned by a lovely French couple.
The main buildings are extremely well decked out with lots of room to spread out & relax under trees and large umbrellas. The overnight chalets are very tastefully equipped – air-con, satellite TV, small kitchens and lovely linen. There’s a secluded swimming pool, an aviary and afew decorative water features. While the food is outstanding – had to be didn’t it as they are French. Yummy!!!
So we jump into the Land Rovers and off we go – 3 more lions in an enclosure the size of a football pitch but at least these are golden brown and have some trees to lie under. These have been saved from an utterly horrid process called Canned Hunting. A barbaric way of breeding them so that someone can have them killed and stuffed as a trophy. So it's very good to see that they have been saved from that horror.
Next to them are 7 cheetahs which they are breeding and will hopefully be release into the park to chase all the small antelope about. That will be very interesting to come back and witness, as “kills” are a rare sight, but at least there will be the potential to witness one taking place one day.
When I go wildlife viewing I want the safari sightings to be as close to a David Attenborough documentary as possible, so to see 14 giraffe all together, marching majestically along was a lovely sight. Herds of zebra, springbok, eland, wildebeest, oryx, duiker (small deer), 2 white rhinos that we were so close to that we could have touched them; a herd of big buffalo with 2 baby calves, kudu (another large antelope), some eagles and goshawks near the water holes.
The dust roads were in a good condition, so the Land Rovers were able to go along at a reasonable pace too.
And the price for this – R425 = £40.
I know which one I will coming back to again with my minibus full of tourists. :-))))
Last Years Questionnaire Winner.
Plus the winner of the competition for filling in my tourism questionnaire late last year, that 120 very kind people completed, is – my Mum……
So a FREE adventure sport like - great white shark cage diving, abseiling off Table Mountain or paragliding off Hermanus mountains is awaiting you when you come to visit. Hope that’s cool with you Mum??
Des-Res.
And to completely round off one of the most amazingly active months of my life –
I am now a land owner in South Africa and moved into my new house on 24th Jan. 2004.
So now none of you have any excuses whatsoever for not coming to stay.
2 double bedrooms, bathroom, a large lounge/diner/kitchen that’s 7 metres by
7 metres and a garden that’s 20 metres by 20 metres. My architect has just finalised the latest plans of how the buildings will look when I start building later this year.
All I need to do now is fill the place with a massive stereo system for all those parties we’ll be having here. The neighbours are going to love me. NOT!!! hahahahahahhaaa!!!! :-))))
Up The Creek Festival. Late Janruary 2005.Once a year there is a large rock festival called “Up the Creek” which is held on a farm in the nearby town of Swellendam. So 10 of us from Hermanus pack up 3 VW minibuses and off we go for 3 days of utter silliness on a large site that holds 5000. The Breede River flows thro the grounds of the festival, with a large beach and is swallow enough so that you are able to wade all the way across the 200 metre wide river to the other side. Most refreshing in the 30 degree heat of the day.
As with every festival I have ever attended everyone is very friendly and good humoured; the food stalls produce some mighty fine cuisine; the bar has freezing cold drinks and the markets stalls are selling aload of stuff that you never knew you ever wanted, but you spend your money there for some weird reason.
The bands playing were all South African, with the majority performing rock (with a good sprinkling of Folk, Blues, Reggae, Ska, Punk and all points between). There were 2 marvellous bands who got us all dancing – one band of 8 musicians throw out some very fine Soca / Caribbean tunes called - Freshly Grounded. While another band blasted us with some furious sounds that were a cross between Rage Against The Machine meets The Clash meets The Beastie Boys meets The Police - a fabulous mixture, called - Bed on Bricks.
There were certainly some facilities at this festival that I have never encountered b4, the most notable being flushing toilets WITH toilet paper and the crowning glory – HOT SHOWERS – while my comfortable nights sleep were on a double blow-up mattress with pillows and duvet in the back of the minibus – rrrrrrr!!!! Luxury.
So it’s all full steam ahead down here folks and that’s about the lot from this part of the planet.
Percy “Safari Ranger” Heywood.
www.percytours.com
Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.
Dec 26th 2004 – 7th Feb 2005.
Firstly, I hope that you all have had a fabulous Christmas & NYE celebrations.
(And I spose now it’s a far off memory, but a happy one all the same……….)
Christmas in South Africa.
Needless to say I had a corker too – there really is nothing quite like 30 degree heat, swimming in a cooling pool and eating huge crayfish on the braai with 25 other fellow xmas revellers at the Backpackers Hostel; which I took long my lap-top with all its music, so a large and long party was enjoyed by all.
Christmas away from UK is such a breath of fresh air – no crowds of moody people pushing you about at the shops/pubs/clubs/restaurants for 2 months; no spending £1000 on a load of useless rubbish; no 3 weeks of continuous hang-overs; no Christmas carols being played everywhere; no naff Christmas TV adverts for 2 months that are so rubbish that you are ashamed for the poor sods that had to film the damn things; no piles of wasted food and no turkey or sprouts. Yyyeeeehhhaaaa!!!!!!
Present to myself !!!
Afew days b4 Christmas Day I had finally found myself some decent wheels and proceeded to obtain a car loan from my bank, only to be told 5 days later that due to the fact that I am not yet a permanent resident of South Africa, then I will not be allowed a car loan. Well why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me that b4 I filled in all the bloody forms and wasted a whole week chasing it up – stupid gits!!! Anyway it all ended happily and I am now the proud owner of a 10 seater VW minibus that’s got all the mod-cons – central locking, alarm, immobiliser, anti hijack alarm, kicking cd/radio stereo, valeted inside and out, alloy wheels and best of all – Air-Con – rrrrrrrrr luxury in this heat.
Boxing Day. More Sandboarding.
On Boxing Day we head off with 9 others to the large sand dunes to spend afew hours Sand Boarding. Then partake in some mad Gorge Jumping into a very deep river of cooling water. There are afew lunatics jumping off the road bridge which is at least 20 metres above the river; head back to the bar at the Hostel to wash all that sand away with afew splendid beers.
Lets Rock.The day after we drive over to the small seaside village of Gansbaai to see a rock festival. Yeah a rock festival!!! We had to go to that just to check out what exactly happens at a South African rock festival. When I say village I mean a village – so only about 1000 people maximum live here full time. There was of course a large beer tent – excellent start, a crowd of about 300 or 400 people, as well as a pretty impressive stage with lights, big sound system and an engineers tower about 50 metres back into the crowd.
The best bit for me (and the rest of the male audience) was that there was also a large jacucci bubble bath on the stage. Well it being a rock festival it was bound to happen.
Yeah you guessed it, there were also 10 very pretty women writhing about in all the bubbles, dancing provocatively in bikinis.
Highly entertaining :-)))
The ladies in the audience had to put up with long haired, tanned, muscular and tattooed sexy rock stars strutting their stuff on stage. Oh shame !!!!! :-)))))
Some enterprising locals had bought along a huge paddling pool which they filled from a handy hose and wallowing in cold and muddy water. That made for a pretty picture too. Every single song was in Afrikaans so we really didn’t know what they were singing about, but who really cares when you have a beer in your hand and scantily clad ladies are gyrating in bubbles in front of you? :-)))
New Years Eve.New Years Eve was a fun packed evening at a local restaurant/ bar called Marumba. Can’t remember much after about 11pm, but can just about recall a Soca band of 20 gents dressed in blue & white suits turning up to parade along the walking street outside and some silly sod letting off 2 distress flares that he held in his hands. What a load of smoke and bright red glow that was.
Well by now we all know the result of England visiting South Africa for a test match of good old cricket, but if you are not that well informed, England just about won the series. I won 100 Rand on that bet.
Here they have 2 New Years Days as public holidays. Yeah 2, weird, but apparently it’s because it was the only day of the year that the slaves/workers had as a holiday. Uuummm one day in ever 365, how generous!!!??? :-))))
The local rock venue, The Gecko, has a really good Cape Town band called The Boulevard Blues Band play once a fortnight, so we go for a jump up and down on the dancefloor to their fine tunes.
Downhill Biking.For 2 Sundays in a row I go off to witness and video, one of the most extreme sports there can be - Downhill Biking. This is not your light weight mountain biking, this is jumping off 5 metre vertical walls of dust, rock, trees and bushes; flying and flipping in the air off crazy rams, while doing stunning aerial twists and turns at VERY HIGH SPEED. The crashes are amazingly spectacular, that’s why they all wear body armour made from light weight but extremely tough plastic. Hand to shoulder; foot to hip; around the rib cage, plus space age helmets, all in multi-colours.
There have been 2 collar bone breaks, one big toe smashed, 2 twisted ankles, one broken knee cap and load of cuts and scraps to take to the hospital that have happened at these 2 meetings and this isn’t even the season yet, this is just practice sessions. This all makes for some great video action and with a sprinkle of Metallica and Slayer thrown into the film soundtrack, makes for some entertaining dvd editing and viewing.
In about 2 weekends time a massive meeting happens about 50 kms away, which lasts a full 5 days and includes every single biking discipline that there is – from marathons, to sprints, circuit, cross country, bmx stunts, slaloms, downhill, rally, road, endurance, etc. It’s all catered for here. That will all be worth videoing for inclusion on a mad DVD.
Road Trip and Safari Game Drive.
Now that I have a fabulous vehicle I think it’s about time I take this little beauty for a road trip, so my German mate Steffi & I take off to Cape Town to collect one of her friends Julia and we drive to the northern towns of Tulbach & Ceres. The girls are going to visit a childerns home that they worked at for 3 months last year to surprise the kids and take a huge suitcase of xmas gifts that Julia has bought all the way from Germany.
While I go on to 2 wildlife safaris in the nearby Karoo, staying in a B&B in the small town of Ceres.
These 2 safari parks are the nearest and the most advertised Game Parks in the Cape Town area and as they are within only 3 hours drive, they are an easy day trip from Cape Town for all tourists. Both are about 3500 hectares each, have been open for about 7 years, as well as both offering a 2 to 3 hour game drive and more. So it will very interesting to see how each operates and how different they are.
Aquila is the 1st one. It’s on land that can only be described as fairly barren, i.e. there are only about 5 trees, the rest of the land is covered in thigh-high shrubs and bush. This obviously makes spotting the animals from the Land Rovers easier, but you do think that it would be nice to have a few lorry sized plants about for the animals to hide amongst, especially to provide shade in the screaming heat of the day.
There was a large watering hole which had 3 hippos in it, (hippos kill more humans than any other wild animal – the insect equivalent is the damn mosquito) as well as spotting many different water birds like storks, Egyptian geese, spoonbills and heron. The antelope species seen were – springbok which apparently breed like rabbits; zebra, 3 giraffe, some blue wildebeest, eland (the largest antelope) and 3 white rhinos (from quite a distance). We also visited an enclosure that had 3 white lions in it that Aquila had bought from the Atlas Mountains region of southern Morocco. Why they did that is a very good question cos these lions looked well out of place – not your usual golden brown colouration or size that you would expect to see on a safari. And next to them were 3 other white lion cubs. They will be separated for another 6 months b4 they are all placed in one huge enclosure. If they were placed them together now then the younger ones would be immediately killed by the adults.
They also say that they have buffalo and leopards but we didn’t see either.
Leopards obviously being extremely difficult to ever spot as they are nocturnal and hide in high mountain ridges and canyons.
The buildings were in lovely classic African design of thatched roofs and orangey walls, with a good pool, bar, rest areas with sofas and a big restaurant.
This 3 hour safari (plus a compulsory supper) cost R625, which is about £60.00.
Worth it?? We will see.
Day 2 Game and Safari Drive.So the next day I zoom off to Inverdoorn Game Park.
Positioned on an old fruit farm, the land is fairly flat but the 1st thing you see are loads and loads of high trees and thick high shrub and bushes – this is more like it. This game park is owned by a lovely French couple.
The main buildings are extremely well decked out with lots of room to spread out & relax under trees and large umbrellas. The overnight chalets are very tastefully equipped – air-con, satellite TV, small kitchens and lovely linen. There’s a secluded swimming pool, an aviary and afew decorative water features. While the food is outstanding – had to be didn’t it as they are French. Yummy!!!
So we jump into the Land Rovers and off we go – 3 more lions in an enclosure the size of a football pitch but at least these are golden brown and have some trees to lie under. These have been saved from an utterly horrid process called Canned Hunting. A barbaric way of breeding them so that someone can have them killed and stuffed as a trophy. So it's very good to see that they have been saved from that horror.
Next to them are 7 cheetahs which they are breeding and will hopefully be release into the park to chase all the small antelope about. That will be very interesting to come back and witness, as “kills” are a rare sight, but at least there will be the potential to witness one taking place one day.
When I go wildlife viewing I want the safari sightings to be as close to a David Attenborough documentary as possible, so to see 14 giraffe all together, marching majestically along was a lovely sight. Herds of zebra, springbok, eland, wildebeest, oryx, duiker (small deer), 2 white rhinos that we were so close to that we could have touched them; a herd of big buffalo with 2 baby calves, kudu (another large antelope), some eagles and goshawks near the water holes.
The dust roads were in a good condition, so the Land Rovers were able to go along at a reasonable pace too.
And the price for this – R425 = £40.
I know which one I will coming back to again with my minibus full of tourists. :-))))
Last Years Questionnaire Winner.
Plus the winner of the competition for filling in my tourism questionnaire late last year, that 120 very kind people completed, is – my Mum……
So a FREE adventure sport like - great white shark cage diving, abseiling off Table Mountain or paragliding off Hermanus mountains is awaiting you when you come to visit. Hope that’s cool with you Mum??
Des-Res.
And to completely round off one of the most amazingly active months of my life –
I am now a land owner in South Africa and moved into my new house on 24th Jan. 2004.
So now none of you have any excuses whatsoever for not coming to stay.
2 double bedrooms, bathroom, a large lounge/diner/kitchen that’s 7 metres by
7 metres and a garden that’s 20 metres by 20 metres. My architect has just finalised the latest plans of how the buildings will look when I start building later this year.
All I need to do now is fill the place with a massive stereo system for all those parties we’ll be having here. The neighbours are going to love me. NOT!!! hahahahahahhaaa!!!! :-))))
Up The Creek Festival. Late Janruary 2005.Once a year there is a large rock festival called “Up the Creek” which is held on a farm in the nearby town of Swellendam. So 10 of us from Hermanus pack up 3 VW minibuses and off we go for 3 days of utter silliness on a large site that holds 5000. The Breede River flows thro the grounds of the festival, with a large beach and is swallow enough so that you are able to wade all the way across the 200 metre wide river to the other side. Most refreshing in the 30 degree heat of the day.
As with every festival I have ever attended everyone is very friendly and good humoured; the food stalls produce some mighty fine cuisine; the bar has freezing cold drinks and the markets stalls are selling aload of stuff that you never knew you ever wanted, but you spend your money there for some weird reason.
The bands playing were all South African, with the majority performing rock (with a good sprinkling of Folk, Blues, Reggae, Ska, Punk and all points between). There were 2 marvellous bands who got us all dancing – one band of 8 musicians throw out some very fine Soca / Caribbean tunes called - Freshly Grounded. While another band blasted us with some furious sounds that were a cross between Rage Against The Machine meets The Clash meets The Beastie Boys meets The Police - a fabulous mixture, called - Bed on Bricks.
There were certainly some facilities at this festival that I have never encountered b4, the most notable being flushing toilets WITH toilet paper and the crowning glory – HOT SHOWERS – while my comfortable nights sleep were on a double blow-up mattress with pillows and duvet in the back of the minibus – rrrrrrr!!!! Luxury.
So it’s all full steam ahead down here folks and that’s about the lot from this part of the planet.
Percy “Safari Ranger” Heywood.
www.percytours.com
Designer Tours of Hermanus, Cape Town and the Western Cape region.
