Bubbles in South Africa

BUBBLES IN SOUTH AFRICA
 JULY 26TH TO AUGUST 28TH 2018

 

I loved the long flight from Manchester to Istanbul and on to Cape Town because I get to stay up and watch the big screen TV

My Cousin Rachel was very entertaining.

Not so much fun being at Istanbul airport at 12.30 am.

 Arrived in Cape Town on Sunday 29^th July and were greeted by this very friendly elephant.

After quickly booking into the Garden Court Hotel we were straight off to Table Mountain. What gorgeous weather for winter! Unfortunately the cable car was closed for mid- winter maintenance. We had a lovely walk through the Company Gardens.

 

In the evening I experienced paragliding from Devil’s Peak over the Atlantic in the sunset from Signal Hill.

 

 A good breakfast at the Garden Court Hotel set me up for the day of the peninsular tour.

Fantastic scenery – Maiden’s Cove, Camms Bay, Lion’s Head, The Twelve Apostles, Chapman’s Peak on our way to the Ostrich Farm

I bought a couple of souvenirs from a lovely South African Lady

 

 

The ostriches are not the only dangerous creatures. The baboons we met were very cunning when looking for food

 

Off to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point lighthouse. I could see lots of seals at sea.

Getting excited about the big five

 

Went to see the South African penguins. The sand does look like snow. They are wild and a well settled colony.

Evening entertainment from the folklore tribes who were also a bit wild.

The weaver birds were brilliant entertainment in the garden at the Greywood Hotel in Sedgefield.

Along the Garden Route I enjoyed wine tasting at Stellenbosch Vineyard which was ‘dangerously easy’ drinking at 9.30am and I slept for most of the journey to Knysna except to see this massive statue.
A Long walk to Freedom with Nelson Mandela from C max prison.

 

On the paddle steamer I enjoyed the trip to the Indian Ocean and back.

The tallest tree in South Africa!!

 

Does anyone else remember Polly Pocket?

 

 

           Look I had my own super kingsize bed….

I could see white rhinos in captivity from the service station at lunchtime

Sad to see the remaining signs of apartheid when these houses belonging to both blacks and whites where burned down and the people living happily in the mixed community at South End in Port Elizabeth were separated and made to move to colour segregated areas.

 

From Port Elizabeth we flew to Johannesburg and then travelled to the Kruger National Park via the Three Rondalos. What a view.

I stayed in the most glamorous tent

Rhinos on safari

 Up close and personal at the Kruger National Park

 Very hard to make out but this is the tail of the rare pangolin which crossed the road in front of us

 

 This is our guide named Excellent Scout and his wife who worked in the gift shop. He was so pleased he had seen the pangolin he had to go and tell his wife. I felt very lucky to see the big 5 and so many other wild African animals.

 

The kudu

Can you see the lion cub?

There he is ……..

 

More naughty monkeys

 And so to Pretoria on the last day - our final destination before flying back from Johannesburg.

Great trip.

   Lots of love to you all

 

       Bubbles   xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jolly July Jaunt

Five go to Cromford

17th July

First of all the important result of the photography competition... and the winner is:

 

A beautiful damsel fly captured (not literally!) by Helen J

Worthy Winner of the 2018 Annual Photogelly Competition.

 

Sadly Helen wasn't able to join us today so she will have to wait until next time to receive her prize!

Jo(working hard), Julia(living it up in Sicily) and Charlotte (having kittens) weren't able to join us either and Betty had decided that the day might involve too much sitting and chatting which she isn't very good at so she had stayed at home. As a result we were a very select bunch gathered together for coffee by the canal.

 Pam is looking very pleased with her bookmark!

 

It was lovely to catch up on the progress science has made in the neutering of dogs and cats and it is always good to discuss the rising cost of funerals,the merits of different types of coffins and whether or not we should all be taking out funeral plans with good

 friends!

Pam was only able to stay with us for coffee but it was lovely to see her even if it was a fleeting visit but I suppose you can't hang about when you are playing Russian roulette with car parking charges.

 

Lynn leads the way...

 

The four of us set off for a stroll along the towpath, admiring the flora and fauna and hoping that the grey clouds didn't mean that the weather was going to let us down - if it does rain we will blame the absence of a certain Helen J!

 

Some discussion about favourite bridges we have crossed over, under or just looked at - this one was on the list somewhere!

 

Lynn had to leave us after a while so then there were three.

 

We walked on to the junction and put our faith in Maggie who led us into the woods with a promise that she knew the way.

 

Our leader Maggie looking confident...

 

Our leader Maggie looking not quite so confident - just after Alison and I had said "It's a good job that Maggie knows the way"

 

With a little bit of back tracking and working out that if the path we needed to be on was below us then we needed to be walking down hill, we got back on track.

 

This is definitely the right way!

 

We headed back to the café for lunch still hoping that the grey clouds wouldn't amount to anything and luckily they didn't and that they would have something left for us to eat - which they did.

 

These are the birds that we could have seen

 

This is our bird list for the day:

Lots of mallards

Lots of geese

A blackbird

Some Moorhens

A lovely family of dabchicks (bird family of the day)

And we heard something in the woods that sounded rare and exotic.

 

I'm not sure that we were fully focussed! But a lovely day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clicking Away at Kedleston

Kedleston

June 28th 2018

 

Today we settled on a return visit to Kedleston and Helen J, Maggie, Alison and Pam all had fun playing hide and seek with Helen M and Betty who arrived a little after the 11.04 rendezvous time and tricked everyone by arriving in a little white car rather than a big blue van.

 

But eventually we all came together and headed for the café in the glorious sunshine, sadly Jo, Julia, Charlotte and Lynn weren't able to join us and we all sent love and big virtual hugs to Lynn.

 

After a good chat and a catch up on what everyone has been up to we set off on a walk which thankfully took us through the woods out of the blazing sun.

Here we all are on the lawn ready to set off on our walk - I wonder what we might find in the woods!

 

Today's challenge was to take a prize winning photograph so there follows a series of numbered photographs, three from each of us, each one intended to capture something of our day so who has done the best - you decide!

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

 10

11

12

13

14

15

 

Each one a mini masterpiece in it's own way I think you will agree!

 

Who's photograph will be the best?

 

Perhaps it will be this one

 

Look - that's a good view, no it's better from this angle...

 

Betty can't understand why we keep stopping - but she is enjoying the shade.

 

It was a lovely walk through the woods, the trees were beautiful, if only someone had a book about trees we could have identified lots of them! The bird count was only 14 although we did see an oyster catcher which is a new one for this years list.

 

We also learnt that if you were very posh back in the olden day you could have a pet hermit and we saw the lovely little house that he could live in (or she - I'm sure there were lady hermits - or were they something else...)

 

Pam even did some homework when she got home - perhaps she is thinking of applying for the post!

 

 We were a bit late for lunch when we got back to the café but we managed to get the late few sandwiches although some of us had to supplement them with cake. And Maggie gave us a short lesson about Kedleston Hall, perhaps we should all theme each room in our house to reflect our travels - the Skegness room should be a lot of fun!

 

It certainly was a cracking day!