Diamond Drive Part 5
Port Elizabeth
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.
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.
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?
Bit of a bumpy ride. This was back in Oudtshoorn. Sorry. So was the next one.
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, the cockatoo, owns the hotel and lets the humans feed her peanuts and beer.
Dunno who that fat bastard is. I think he's standing in the sea because the beach is too crowded.
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.
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.
In the evenings,
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.
The water here is incredibly clear, which makes it a doddle to dawdle down the beach at low tide and hunt for oysters.
Whatever that means.
Treasure
Yeah, 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.
Buy it! Now!
