Farty's Fortunes

Wednesday 30 January 2008

Diamond Drive Part 5

Port Elizabeth


Dolphins

Domino
P.E. has its own captive dolphins, which I'll admit I'm not entirely happy about. more here
It may take days watching and waiting for the wild dolphins to appear further along the coast, but seeing these free creatures surfing the big waves together is an experience I'll never forget. Sorry, no picture of that, I was using binoculars. For hours.

Chickens on the braai.

Braai
What you do is you open a can of beer, stick it where the sun don't shine and place on the braai. The beer boils up through the chicken and argle slurp slobber I feel hungry just thinking about it.

Funny-looking horse

Zebra
Sometimes the most telling items are what you see when you're not able to take pictures. Ten minutes after we spotted this "zebra" in one of the numerous safari parks near P.E., while changing the batteries in the camera, we passed a very large, empty tin labelled "white paint". Sceptical? Moi?

Crisis?

Ostrich Racing
Bit of a bumpy ride. This was back in Oudtshoorn. Sorry. So was the next one.

Walking On Eggshells

Eggses
According to our guide, ostrich eggs are easily strong enough to support the weight of an adult human. Ecce! However, just a week earlier another lady had tried the same stunt. One of the eggs had, er, gone off. And when she stepped on it, it broke. Stinkorama!

East London


The only thing I remember with any clarity about East London is the very friendly Afrikaans couple we stayed with. McDonald's had just opened for the first time, so they drove down to collect an order, brought it back and served it on the best china plates. Mmmm, that good, local, home-made cooking that we travelled half-way around the world to experience! Yum!
ANYways, I pointed out that one of the benefits of fast food was that you could eat it straight from the packaging and not have to worry about the washing up.
"Oh, we don't worry about it anyway, the maid does the washing up."
*sigh*

Both P.E. and East London have world-class cricket pitches. I like cricket, but not enough to take photos of people standing about in a field. Imagine our surprise when we were perched in a bar somewhere, watching the Cricket World Cup being played out on the telly, and the commentator said, apropos of nothing, "If you get some spare time in between watching the cricket here in P.E., you should get down to the Wild Coast. There are some great waves to surf at Kei-Mouth and Morgan Bay."

Which is precisely where we were sitting at the time.

Morgan Bay


Baldy Bird

Baldy Bird
Baldy, the cockatoo, owns the hotel and lets the humans feed her peanuts and beer.

Baldy Man

Fat Bastid
Dunno who that fat bastard is. I think he's standing in the sea because the beach is too crowded.

Morgs beach

Crowded Beach
I think nothing of taking long walks along the mile-long beach at six o'clock in the morning, before the sun gets too hot. Mrs Farty doesn't think much of it either.

Crashing Waves

Crashing Waves
Some people are mental enough to climb these rocks. Fer Cryssakes, why??? There's an easy path up the back way, all the way to the top.

Krantzes

The Krantzes
In the evenings, if the weather is good who am I kidding, the weather is always good, the owner of the hotel will rev up the 4×4 and take a dozen or so guests up the dirt track to the top of the Krantzes for "sundowners". This is a complicated ritual taking place at sundown - who would have guessed it? - which involves drinking, admiring the beautiful sunset and, er, more drinking. Oh, and drinking. And if you're lucky, you might see a whale and her calf. *sigh*

Yellow Bird

Yellow Bird
Coming from the Big City, we were used to the idea that birds are shy and will tend to avoid humans. Hence the binoculars. But in the wilderness, birds hardly ever see humans and will come right up close to see what you're up to. Ah, well, you live and learn. Being a keen ornithologist, I was able to identify this yellow bird as belonging to the species birdus yellowus.

Lucid Pools

Lucid pools
The water here is incredibly clear, which makes it a doddle to dawdle down the beach at low tide and hunt for oysters.

All Ur Bait R Belong 2 Us

AYBRB2U
Whatever that means.

Treasure


Diamond RingYeah, so we bought a diamond, and a ring. But there's more than one kind of treasure. Mine is the memory of walking hand-in-hand with Mrs Farty through the ankle-deep, warm waters of Morgan Bay lagoon, then stopping to watch the tiny little fishes swimming around our feet.

6 comments:

BOSSY said...

A beer can up the arse, eh? Gee, and all this time Bossy just thought that was a Parlor Game!

Laurie said...

Judging by the nest, I think I can narrow that down to Weaver irdus yellowus.

Sewmouse said...

I am thinking the yellow bird is thinking
"In Ur tree, Gonna poo on Ur hed"

Unknown said...

I don't know what I'm thinking, but that could be due to Pedigree!

Great pics though!

Memarie Lane said...

I never took you for a romantic, but you got an audible cooing sound out of me at the end there.

I agree on the dolphin thing. I've been to Sea World, and I've been out on the ocean with binoculars, and it's just soooooo amazing to see a whole herd? flock? pride? of dolphins leaping along as they please. It's like eating fresh tuna instead of canned. Bad analogy, but you get it.

Mr Farty said...

Bossy - Those Afrikaans really know how to par-tay!

Laurie - I did look it up, but then I forgetted again. There were about 30 nests hanging from one tree, birds flitting in and out.

Sew - Wish I'd thought of that!

John - Pedigree? You mean Di serves you dog food? No wonder you're barking mad!

Marie - Herd of dolphins? Of course I've heard of dolphins!