The endangered African Unicorn

“Look mom, tourist types!”

One of the most precious things one can probably see in nature is a mother and her baby. Even more precious if it is an endangered animal like the White Rhino. The sad part of spotting and photographing rhino is that people get all up in arms when you publish your photos to show off these magnificent animals. I took the photos in this post somewhere in 2018 and as much as I would like to use them to promote the reserve I have decided to keep the location anonymous. It was fantastic though to sit and watch mom and baby out in the open just after they had a bit of a mud bath

“Wait for me mommy!”

The white rhinoceros or square-lipped rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is the largest extant species of rhinoceros with about 18 000 animals left in the world. A popular theory of the origins of the name “white rhinoceros” is a mistranslation from Dutch to English. The English word “white” is said to have been derived by mistranslation of the Dutch word “wijd”, which means “wide” in English. The word “wide” refers to the width of the rhinoceros’s mouth. So early English-speaking settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the “wijd” for “white” and the rhino with the wide mouth ended up being called the white rhino and the other one, with the narrow pointed mouth, was called the black rhinoceros.

“Now that was refreshing!”

The white rhino has a gestation period of 16 months before a single calf is born. The calf usually weighs between 40 and 65 kg. When threatened, the baby will run in front of the mother, which is very protective of her calf and will fight for it vigorously.

Information courtesy of Wikipedia

Sards dune ridge

Aaaahhhh, Sardinia Bay. One of my absolute favorite places. Last week we went to Sards for the first time since lock down started for sunset. And a beautiful sunset it was. It is winter though and as soon as the sun is gone it gets cold so we didn’t hang around much longer. I did get a dusk shot down the dune’s ridge to the beach and suddenly wished I could go for a nice long walk.

Sunset at Sardinia Bay

The dune at Sardinia Bay is probably the best and most popular spot in Port Elizabeth to enjoy a beautiful sunset. We haven’t been for ages and I got tired of seeing other people post photos of it on Facebook, so on Tuesday afternoon I made a suggestion to go when I got home from work and was still putting down my bag when I heard the door close as everybody headed for the car.

Common Dolphins in Algoa Bay

Cruising Algoa Bay with Raggy Charters is like a luxury lucky packet. You kinda know what you could find, but when you do it like wow in overdrive. As a tourism marketer promoting the Eastern Cape I have spoken about Raggy Charters and promoted what Algoa Bay has to offer for years with so many invites to join them on a cruise. Something just always came up until I got to finally join them on a cruise a little while ago. Our first big wow of the cruise was a pod of Common Dolphins cashing a sardine bait ball. We followed the pod cameras clicking and at times it felt like the boat was going full tilt to keep up.

Common Dolphins (Delphinus Capensis) is the most widespread and abundant of all the dolphin species, and can be found in pods of up to 2 000. They are highly efficient at capturing small shoaling fish such as anchovies, pilchards and krill. Swimming at speeds of up to 60km/h they hunt down their prey and encircle them driving the shoal towards the surface and continuously tightening the circle around them.

And if you’re lucky, you get a shot like this…

Penguins and dolphins at St Croix

Port Elizabeth and Algoa Bay are promoted as the Bottlenose Dolphin capital of the world while St Croix Island has the biggest population of African Penguins in the world. I was lucky to get both species in one photo at St Croix on an outing with Raggy Charters a little while ago.

Bottlenose Capital of the World – It is estimated that a population of over 28 000 individual Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins make use of Algoa Bay and the surrounding ocean making it the biggest concentration of bottlenose dolphins in the world. The bottlenose dolphins occur in groups of between 10 and 400 individuals.

For more information – Bottlenose Dolphion Capital of the World

African Penguins – About 60% of the total global population of the endangered African Penguins live in Algoa Bay, 21 000 on St Croix, and 5 700 on Bird Island. Strange enough there isn’t a mainland population in the Eastern Cape and they only occur on the islands.

For more information – African Penguins

Sunrise over the Bay

Yesterday morning I was slightly earlier on my way to work than I have been because of levels 5 (work from home); 4 (still working from home); 3 (back at the office but in no rush to get up in the morning) and 3.86 (ii) section G, subsection purple with a tint of green, paragraph the doorbell is ringing but there is nobody there, line do they even know what’s going on, I think I’m hungry now, I don’t smoke but just give them their cigarettes. Oh and when can tourism establishments open, stop dragging your feet. But I’m digressing. Coming down La Roche in Humewood the sun was right in front (excuse the dirty window) and I just had to pull over in front of Bayworld to enjoy the moment.

I love the wide angle lens on my new phone. Makes for awesome photos. My thought was top try and get there before sunset this morning. I failed. Oh well, here is yesterday’s sunrise.

Kragga Kamma aloe fence

A drive up Kragga Kamma Road towards Colleen Glen may just give you a colourful surprise this time of year. I saw a photo of the stunning aloe fence on Kragga Kamma Road in full bloom on Facebook and just had to go and see it myself. The whole aloe fence is probably a good hundred meters in length and all of it is in flower at the moment, making for a stunning site and beautiful photo opportunity.

I’m not a flower expert so I went digging around the internet to find out what kind of aloe it is. My guess was a fence aloe, but it turned out to be Aloe arborescens.

According to Wikipedia, Aloe arborescens, the krantz aloe or candelabra aloe, is a species of flowering succulent perennial plant that belongs to the genus aloe, which it shares with the well known and studied Aloe vera. The specific epithetarborescens means “tree-like”. Aloe arborescens is valued by gardeners for its succulent green leaves, large vibrantly-colored flowers, winter blooming, and attraction for birds, bees, and butterflies.

I’ve got to say, one thing I have missed most because of lockdown is roadtrips through the Karoo and Gamtoos Valley to see the aloes in full bloom this time of year. At least you can still get a taste of it around Port Elizabeth.

What is the Sacramento cannon aiming at?

The name Sacramento is synonymous with Schoenmakerskop. There is the Sacramento Trail, the Sacramento cannon and the Sacramento Restaurant. But what is the Sacramento. She was a Portuguese galleon that aground just off Schoenmakerskop outside Port Elizabeth on 30 June 1647 in foul weather. By the time she hit the rocky coastline, she had a badly damaged rudder and her sails were in tatters. 72 of the crew made it ashore and set off towards Lourenco Marques (now Maputo), 1400km away.

The Sacramento was heavily loaded with a cargo of bronze cannons cast in Macao and destined for Portugal. The cannon lay undisturbed on the ocean bed for 330 years until 40 of them were salvaged in 1977.

One of the original Sacramento guns stand at the west side of Schoenmakerskop pointing in the direction of where she met her fate.

Tsitsikamma cattle roadblock

We decided to break away to the Tsitsikamma for the day and rather than just driving in and out on the N2, we took the scenic R102. The three biggest industries in the area are forestry, tourism and dairy so everywhere along the way you pass plantations, dairy farms and accommodation and activity establishments. What we didn’t expect to encounter was a roadblock made up of cattle. As we crested a little hill I realised that there was something in the road about a kilometers ahead. And not something like a car or a person, but a lot of somethings. A herd of cows being moved down the road from one farm to another with the herdsman in front leading the way.

Rather than just sitting in the car I pulled over and we all hopped out to experience something that is very unusual for city slickers like us, being surrounded by a herd of cows in transit.

Being an 18 year old teenager, Chaos Boy didn’t really show any interest, but Miggie was a lot more excited and inquisitive about the whole thing.

We barely got going when the next herd appeared in the road. This one was moving a little faster with the two guys in the lead breaking out in a jog every now and then with the cows nipping at their heals.

This is what road trips and exploring on country roads is about. Experiences that you wouldn’t get anywhere else.