Part 2 of our trip to South Africa

Maximum temperature in the Charente today 13C, minimum 9C.  25 mm of rain measured this morning.  27km/h South-westerly winds with gusts up to 57 km/h!! Very breezy! 

We arrived at Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape in the late afternoon of Monday 14 November after a 2-hour flight. The winds were so strong that the pilot battled to get the plane down, but the landing itself was smooth! We were met by Christelle and Patrick, who drove us home to their place in Kenton, which took about 1 1/2 hours. They had gone to a lot of trouble to make us so welcome and the rondavel with en suite was fabulous!

 On arrival, Nigel was feeling unwell and sadly spent the next two days in bed with bad flu-like symptoms. 

Nevertheless, I was up and about and spent some time with Christelle's family who were there for a couple of days from Zimbabwe.  We took a trip down to the beach and borrowing a pair of rock sandals, I joined them on a walk before the tide came in.  The tide almost beat us to it, and one corner was a little too deep for me and Christelle's nephew gallantly gave me a piggyback around the corner to the rocks on the other side!!  I wish I could show you the video, but with our slow WiFi, it is impossible to load it, so here are a couple of stills taken from it!!!!

It was deeper than this in places...

Rounding the corner...

and Christelle helping me back on to terra firma.   I was very grateful for the lift though we all had a laugh.

Beautiful beach.

This is called Carriage Rock.

The following day the family all left and C and P took me out for a drive to see some of the nearby places.  They are so lucky; close to them is San Estate, and although privately owned and one can only drive around the edge, we saw plenty of wildlife.

Impala (Aepyceros melampus).

Zebra (there several species and sub species (Equus quagga) being the most common and Hartebeest, (Alcelaphus buselaphus) on the right.

Zebra.

Nyala males, (Tragelaphus angasii)...

Nyala youngster...

As above.

South African giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis). The giraffe is the tallest land animal in the world. Males can reach a height of 5 m, and females 4.5 m.

See also my Bird blog I have many photos of birds and I will put most of them on this blog.

01/05/2017 Rubbish weather again.. Going through photos once more, and today it was Victoria Falls.

Maximum temperature 13C, minimum 5C. 24 kmh with 39 kmh gusts SW wind. Cloud, rain, hail and a little sun.  15 mm of rain measured this morning.

On 6 February this year, we took a trip from our hotel in Chobe to Kazungula in Botswana  There is no bridge, and all vehicles have to travel by ferry to Zambia. You can see the new bridge across the Zambezi river, which is now being built in the background.

It was raining when we got to Livingstone in Zambia. A drive by photo of the High Court.

Christelle, myself, Nigel and Patrick ready for a soaking from the spray.... the rain had stopped.

Mosi oa Tunya - The smoke that thunders...

Victoria Falls from the Zambian side...

You can see the spray from above the falls as well.

Some interesting points.

David Livingstone I presume.

Details of the bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The bridge over the Zambezi river.

Our driver took us over to Zimbabwe so we could walk back across the bridge.

Here we are walking across the bridge.

Variegated Skink (Trachylepis variegate) by the side of the track

In Livingstone, this baboon was obviously looking for scraps and decided to sit here and watch the world go by.  They are dangerous; do not feed them or try to touch!