13th August
Yesterday was the most fantastically positive day we have
had in a long time. Now don’t get me wrong, we usually enjoy ourselves, but
yesterday seemed more positive, or just we enjoyed it even more than usual…if
that is possible.
So why all this positivity?
Well, to begin with I closed my trade on the stock
market….up. Great news, slowly getting the hang of this thing.
We had the most beautiful dinghy trip down the river….and I
mean beautiful. Here’s a slide show. Kyle had a lesson in steering the dinghy
on the way.
Then we got an sms from Billy at the Bluff Yacht Club who
asked if he can rent out our mooring while we are not there…more great news.
A few drinks in the cockpit and Bryan asked if he could pick
us up on Wednesday for a tour…great day!
14th August
Yesterday we went to the East London museum. The main theme
of the museum is…well, East London. There are all sorts of things about East
London there. We got there at about 10am and Barry had a little bit of a
hangover so suggested we do breakfast/lunch first. We ate at the museum
restaurant, The Ceolocanth Café, the
coffee shop was a bit much for me, I prefer regular food rather than a
decoration on a plate type meal. I ended up with eggs, ham and cheese on toast,
we found a regular toasted cheese for Kyle, Rauen had another version of
breakfast and Barry a pita burger. The food filled us but was not anything to
write home about…so why write here?...I ask myself but there had crazy comments
all over the place on blackboards.
We headed into the museum and bought our tickets. The array
of artefacts in phenomenal, we looked at meteorites pieces from various sites
around the world, watched a small video on meteors and discovered what they are
made of, we browsed a shell collection to match some of the greatest around I’m
sure, we looked at life size replicas of endangered or high risk species of
local fish life, the largest manta ray caught in the Buffalo River harbour
[6.2m diameter] a giant clam and other undersea creatures. The next room was
dedicated to the Ceolocanth. A previously thought extinct fish that had been
wiped out with the dinosaurs but was discovered to be still alive by an East
London lady, Mrs M Courtenay-Latimer in 1938.
This fish is rather fascinating in that it gives birth to
live young, it had fins that resemble arms and it can trace it’s history back
to pre-dinosaur days.
From under the sea we went to on the ground animals and
browsed examples of all the local species of mammals and birds, followed by all
the local insects and butterflies and then our favourite…the reptiles…well my
least favourite and the boy’s actual favourite.
We continued through the different rooms of the museum to
discover the next section was dedicated to rocks, precious stones and fossils
found in the area. The oldest trace fossil of a “modern” human was found here
at Nahoon point and the actual fossil is housed at the museum, it as 124 000
years old.
Rauen and I joked about learning the chemical equations to
some of the rocks, they could get crazy long and complicated, I am sure the
picture on his blog says it all!
We went from the local rocks to the birds of prey, and a
second bird room, full of international species and the only known Dodo egg
left on earth!
With the lower level completed we headed up the stairs and
needed a few minutes break. We sat down and looked around at what was in store
for us!
Once refreshed we started at one end of the floor with ship
wrecks. We all know the dangerous wild coast, one of the most treacherous
pieces of sea in the world…right here where we had to take off from. The
artefacts include the maps of sunken
vessels, they split it into 50 years a time and the dots cover the entire open
sea space around South Africa, the maps go along the wall, from 1795 – 1984 and
the wrecks are listed in tiny font around the edges…scary stuff.
So with all these wrecks comes a pile of goodies, we looked
at ship compasses, wheel houses, old china and goodies from shipwrecks, even a
little treasure from the famous Grosvenor wreck. The most famous shipwreck in
recent history, I mean 1991, I remember the incident myself, had to be the
Oceanis, a passenger cruise liner, and there is a whole section dedicated to
it, with lifejackets, flotsam and passenger stories along with a small
dedication to the rescue crew, the ships that saved everyone as there were no
deaths when the ship went down!
From ship wrecks we went to progress, the harbour progress
over the last 2 centuries, with scale models and old photographs we saw how the
harbour developed as well as the Dolos, the specially designed cement structure
we use at harbour mouths for breakwaters, it too was designed right here in
East London, by an ex-Rhodesian to boot!
Next was the indigenous people, the clothing the Xhosa’s
wear, the beadwork, the story of the locals, the traditions of the people and
of course that includes the apartheid era, the poor education, the special
“homeland” areas, the trade done between Xhosa farmers and Afrikaaner shop keepers.
Interestingly the San people are almost extinct today due to
the Xhosa and other locals taking them for farmer workers or killing them for
hunting in their territory.
Following the local inhabitants we continued on to the
colonisation of the East Cape, the 1800 ‘s period dress and housing, onto 1900,
1910’s, 1920’s and 1930’s, the German settlers and the transportation of the
day not to mention the farm implements and finally the living beehive where we
could safely see how the bee’s make honey and the hive is organised.
We headed for the exit, only to find a 3rd floor
downstairs covering the wars fought in SA with big guns, and coats of arms,
soldiers uniforms etc.
An interesting museum, with loads of stuff to see and learn.
We got a taxi back to the boat and all took an afternoon nap after the
excitement and tiring day!
15th August
Yesterday we were collected by Bryan, an old friend who
lives here in East London, he kindly gave a lift to the post office to get
Barry’s book redirected to East London as we were unable to get it collected inDurban.
With that done, he dropped us at Hemmingway’s Mall for an hour
and a half while he went to see a client, then it was off to his place, on the
scenic route in Gonoubie. It is a beautiful area and we had a delicious quiche
made by his wife Irena.
We spent a great afternoon catching up and time flew by so
fast it seemed we had only just got there when we had to leave. We hope to see them again before we head out,
and with the weather as it is we may be here at least another week or more, so
there is plenty of time.
This morning, the weather let up for the day so we took the
chance and headed off to Nahoon Point. We decided to go there when I picked up
a tourist information brochure at the petrol station and discovered it was the
site of the discovery of 124000 year old foot print fossil.
The brochure mentioned there was a hike, a cave and some
blowholes out there so it seemed like a great touristy thing to do. We got up
this morning and donned our hiking gear, shorts, T-shirts and crocs and headed
off.
We went through the museum first and spotted this shark
eaten surf board…We decided surfing here is not for us.
We had a fantastic burger at the restaurant and headed off
on the wooden walkway.
With a map in hand we turned right to find the cave and
blowholes. The first 20 minutes was casual, Kyle and I picked up a few
beautiful shells on the unspoilt beach we were walking along and all was going
comfortably smoothly. Then we turned a corner and discovered cliffs. Was this
part of the plan? No, but we kept on the now invisible pathway towards the
cave.
We came across a huge pile of rocks and Rauen and Barry
clambered across trying to find a route over them, Kyle and I followed all be
it intrepidly.
Once over the first set of rock climbing we headed up the
wooden walkway into the cliff face and ended up spending the next 2 hours rock
climbing, in slops I might add, with a sheer cliff to the ocean on the left and
a cliff into the sky on the right. We had heaps of fun as we did the adventure
trail.
After 2 hours of climbing we came across the blowholes and
then the cave and spent a while admiring the unspoilt, fantastical landscape,
the view of the ocean and the cliff faces. All a little in awe both of the
magical trail we had just completed and of ourselves for actually doing it.
Having climbed the mountains for more than 2 hours we looked
ahead and saw the swimming beaches on the horizon ahead…so we decided to just
continue walking. We scrambled further along the mountains and across huge
dunes that slide off a cliff to the sea and eventually reached flat ground
about 2km further.
Having walked that
far we just continued…and continued…then stopped for a waffle and cold drink at
the beachfront Wimpy and headed back on to the road. 2 Hours later we reached
Yrumoar. Yip, having paid R100 taxi fare to the hiking start point we ended up
walking home a good 12km.
We are all a little tired and stiff, but we all agree that
was the best, most breath taking, spectacular trail we have ever been on. EastLondon’s hidden gem…if you haven’t been here you are missing out!
