Fountains and Kings

 

The plan was to get takeaways for supper and then to take them to watch the musical fountains at the Boardwalk.   When we got there we saw the perfect seats outside the Wimpy.   Well, I thought, Wimpy is just about like takeaway.   So some of us procured the table and ordered cappuccinos for 5 while the others went to get their meals from other places.

The sun was just setting and we settled down to enjoy our cappuccinos.

We can’t claim that they didn’t warn us.   On the railings near our table were signs saying that the area could get wet when the fountains are playing.   Well, we have fountains in Randburg – at the Brightwater Commons - and a little bit of spray never bothered me.   It would, in fact, cool us all down because we were having a lovely spate of ideal holiday weather, sunny and hot and sometimes windy. 

Our food was arriving just as the fountains were introduced and we were advised to get our wellies, raincoats and umbrellas and enjoy the show.    Well, this was not a bit of spray!   More like a torrential downpour.   I was wearing an all weather jacket so I put up my hood and zipped up.   Brian evacuated immediately with the tray of food but some of us die-hards stayed put.   And the spectacle was magnificent.

However, when my denims were getting wet and there were so many drops on my camera lens that they interfered with my photography, even the die-hards caved.

We went inside to eat our supper.

The next day we were in the beach area again.   We decided to spend a short while at Kings beach and to investigate the possibility of hiring bicycles to cycle along the beach front.   The beach was much more crowded than Sardina Bay!

After spending about half an hour enjoying the waves and trying to avoid other people enjoying the waves, we made our way along the beach towards the MacArthur Pools.

It turned out that bike hire was R100 per day and we didn’t want to spend a whole day cycling.   We lingered at the flea market and wondered at the chair set in a pool of shallow water.   Some kind of art perhaps?   We thought of sitting in the chair and taking a photo but wondered if it was a tourist trap and somebody would jump out and ask for R20 or R50 for the privilege.

Another sunny day in Port Elizabeth.

Christmas cheer and Sardinia Bay

We stayed in a spacious studio at the Old Cash Store in Sardinia Bay.  In nearby Mount Pleasant somebody had taken a lot of trouble to bring Christmas cheer to the community.

We read about it in the local newspaper and went to have a look.   They had even organised a security firm to hang around in one of their patrol cars.   This reminded me so much of the Christmas we spent in Napier, New Zealand.   There an estate agent had organised a Christmas light competition.   To enter, one  posted the address onto a web site and the rest of the community could go onto the website and plan a tour around the town looking at Christmas lights and voting for the best.   Apparently the competitive element had got out of hand and when we visited, it was just an opportunity to visit the houses that had registered on the website.

This was not the only similarity we notice with Port Elizabeth and New Zealand.   The beauty of the scenery and the drives along the coast were another.

3km from where we stayed is Sardinia bay Beach.   We went early because for all it is the Friendly City, Port Elizabeth is also the windiest city in South Africa so if you don’t get to the beach early, the wind picks up later in the morning making beach activities less pleasant.

From the parking lot there is first a high sand dune to negotiate before going downhill to the beach.   The view, of course, was stunning.

Although it is the height of the holiday season, the beach is not overly crowded as some of the more popular beaches are.

 

 

 

We had brought a portable shelter and spent a lovely couple of hours.   We were about 500m from the official swimming area but when some other people started swimming in the waves I did too.   I was very impressed with the lifeguard.   While I went back to the shelter to fetch my inflatable pillow to more seriously ride the waves, he came all the way across from the swimming area to tell the 3 remaining swimmers to move to the designated area if they wanted to swim.   He obviously took his job seriously.

The journey back to the car was daunting.   The sand dune was much higher from the beach side.

 

However, after we had successfully completed the challenge, we treated ourselves to an ice cream.