We had basically about three and a half days to explore Edinburgh and see lots of Fringe Festival events which, at the time we were planning, seemed like a decent amount of time to spend in this city and I think in the end it was just about right. Though we could have done with more evenings to explore all the good food places and indulge in a proper night out (rather than a fringe festival night out …)

Photos here.

Early Friday morning we took the train from King’s Cross which allowed us to get to Edinburgh for lunch time. We’d opted for training instead of flying because although the actual journey time is longer, once you factor in getting to and from airports at both ends, check-in time and getting through security etc. there is little difference. Plus the train was infinitely more comfortable.

After checking in at our B&B we headed to grab some lunch and ended up at the very busy Monster Mash – a 1950s retro cafe whose main offerings are bangers and mash but whose menu is also quite extensive offering other traditional British fare. The guide book says the cafe is so casual that your waiter will no doubt sit at your table (if there’s space) whilst taking your order – and our waiter did! This was my opportunity to try the Scottish style of deep fried ice cream. Hmmm … interesting. Despite how busy the cafe was it was a good place for us to do our planning for the weekend.

Here is what we ended up covering over our weekend in Tourist Edinburgh:

• Camera Obscura and World of Illusions. The Camera Obscura bit is a “show” that is at the top of the tower that the attraction is located in. Its basically a very simple device that uses lights and mirrors to project an image on to a paper/wall/flat surface. In this case the image was a view over Edinburgh. The other floors in the buildings is dedicated to Optical illusions including funny mirrors, optical illusion pictures, holograms, those 3-D pics that used to frustrate and were all the rage about 12 years ago, etc. You can also do all sort of things like merge your photo with your friend and see what a person would look like with your forehead and nose and your friend’s eyes and mouth. Because the nature of it is interactive it engages your senses and imagination. Good fun for all not just the kids and therefore I can safely say that it was my favourite attraction! Oh – good vantage points for spying on people too! ha ha.

• Scotch Whisky Heritage Tour. This tour is basically involes a dude taking you through several rooms where you will either sit and watch a film or some sort of presentation about how Whisky came into being and what is happening with Whisky these days. It was a bit bo-oring but I did come out of knowing a bit more about whisky in general. Plus you get a free taste of a whisky plus a tasting whisky glass to take home as your souvenir. There is a “ride” at the end of the tour as well. Don’t get too excited about the ride folks.

• Royal Yacht Britannia. The Royal Yacht Britannia is in Leith at the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centreabout 20-30 minutes bus ride away from the city centre. The tour is basically self-guided with these super huge walkie talkie type things that you have to put up to your ear. If you’re into this sort of thing I would definitely recommend going in the quieter periods so that you have time to listen to your guided tour and the space to wander around and look at whatever you want. It was surprisingly more interesting than I thought it would be but yet another example of how different the life of a royal is from mine. 😛

• Mus£um on the Mound. This free museum is basically about Money. Get to see money through the ages, designer money, a few interactive exhibitions (such as a opening a safe and printing out your own insurance certificate) and most importantly see what £1 million looks like in £20 notes. Nice one.

• National Gallery of Scotland. I’m sure that true art lovers will find some amazing treasures in this gallery but I have to admit our visit was a fleeting one to see a few highlights such as works by Cézanne, Constable though my favourite piece was this massive breathtaking picture of Niagara Falls by I think it was Frederic Edwin Church?

• Royal Scottish Academy. This is actually connected to the National Gallery of Scotland and we came mainly to see the Andy Warhol exhibition which was a lot of fun. I love all his work though my favourite room was the room of silver balloons which was his Silver Cloud installation.

• Royal Museum. Mainly visited this museum to see Dolly the Sheep but Sandra and I found the kids interactive section the most fun. Here we got to race an F1 car, test our reflexes, and check out our stylin’ in spacesuits. I love this kind of stuff even if it was all mainly targeted at 3-10 year olds! We also had lunch at The Tower Restaurant near the roof top (see below) but the roof itself has good views over Edinburgh if you don’t fancy a meal.

Not all of the attractions in Edinburgh are indoors. There are a number of vantage points about town where you can get nice views and two of them are Calton Hill which is nice and close to the city centre and Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s Seat is a giant peak that can’t be failed to be seen anywhere you are in Edinburgh. Sandra and I took the two peaks in a long afternoon walk but we probably made our walk up Arthur’s Seat a lot tougher on ourselves because 1. Sandra had on trainers only and 2. we had a strict time limit on getting up there so we couldn’t afford to relax and take our time. We made it to the top though which I was happy about. We also ended up walking around a lot exploring the Royal Mile (we didn’t go into Edinburgh Castle as such though we were there to see the Military Tattoo) and laying around in Princes Street Gardens.

The Food The Food The Food

I’ve just realised that for the first few paragraphs of this blog entry I’ve talked about the food in Edinburgh but since then haven’t actually said much about where we’ve been. As we’ve not had the luxury in the evenings to sit down and have proper relaxed 3-course meals I think we’ve done pretty well to hit some of the highlights including:

• Mussel Inn. Specialising in mussels, oysters and scallops this was the first proper restaurant we headed to an we weren’t disappointed withour scallop starters and 1kg pots of mussels for mains. Yummy. Lines out the door during Festival season as no bookings are taken. However turnover was pretty quick and we luckily didn’t have to wait too long.

• The Tower. Located in the Royal Museum, as mentioned above, the Tower offers Scottish cuisine at an altitude. Nice views to the Castle in one direction the restaurant itself is nicely appointed with service very friendly. Food was pretty nice and my set meal for lunch was good value for money.

• Oloroso is located right in the centre of town and has unparalled views from its roof top terrace tables. The place is cool and chic. Unfortunately for all the good that has been written about this place the service we received on our particular visit was appalling. Although relatively friendly the service (when we actually got some attention) was very slow and at times our table seemed to have been completely forgotten about. Food was so so for the price.

• Frankenstein’s was our funny find for the weekend. A very funky bar stretched across three floors we visited on the Saturday night and then when we went back for quick bite to eat on the Sunday night they’d run out of food! Festival run out! Our waiter/bar man was very friendly and accommodating though and found combinations on the menu we could eat. The food isn’t high quality but the atmosphere and fun is.

Edinburgh is a city I would definitely visit again!

No one whose ever gone to Edinburgh has ever said a bad word about the place and now that I’ve been there I can finally see why. Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, is at times modern and ancient and at all times a beautiful city with plenty to entertain during the day and night, and not to mention there being plenty of places for good food.

Sandra and I chose to visit at what must be one of the busiest times for Edinburgh – festival period! With both the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe Festival, and a whole host of other festivals such as the Military Tattoo, Book Festivals, going on this weekend it was definitely that – busy busy busy!

Although it was very busy, going at this time of year actually worked out fairly well for us – with Tourist Edinburgh (as I like to call the usual sights and attractions) occupying us during the day and Festival Edinburgh entertaining us at night. The only draw back to this heavy schedule was finding the time to fit in all the fine foods, especially with me pigging out on Full Scottish breakfast every morning …

Reykjavik, Iceland is one of those relatively new hot destinations following on the tail of such Eastern European cities as Prague, Tallin and Sofia only at probably ten times the cost! With a population of just over 100,000 Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, is the hub of Iceland and despite how relatively small it is, surprisingly caters extremely well for all the tourists.

Sandra and I booked our holiday to Reykjavik almost ten months ago to take advantage of super-cheap flights so this extended long weekend holiday was certainly a long time coming and the wait was well worth it.

The Experience

A feature of Reykjavik is its walkability with many streets to explore and most sights and attractions inevitably within walkings distance of your accommodation. Although there is a public transport system (the bus) it tends to be kind of expensive and unless you live way on the outskirts of the city you are unlikely to need it.

As a city Reykjavik doesn’t have all that many attractions – its more of a wander around and absorb the city kind of place. The key SEE attractions are:

• Tjörnin. The giant pond in central Reykjavik which is always filled by all manner of birds. It makes a beautiful setting as a backdrop and also lies alongside the city’s Town Hall.

• Hallgrímskirkja (Hallgrim’s Church). This church is the tallest building in Reykjavík and offers great views over the City.

• Faxafloi is a small square in front of the Tourist Centre which is the heart of the City. This seems to be the local hang out and is surrounded by quite a few restaurants and bars. The funniest aspect are the drive by’s that people made around the squares in their cars.

• There is also another square which is located out the front of the Althingi (Parliament) but this is green square and is great for a lie down in the sun.

• Laugavegur Street is the main shopping street and is lined with loads of interesting stores plus is host to the main nightlife of the City with coffee bars and restaurants turning into night clubs after midnight on Fridays and Saturdays like Cinderalla in reverse.

There are also a whole host of museums and galleries to visit if that’s your kind of thing. We spent a lot of our time on tours and day trips and so didn’t get to see such attractions as Nauthólsvík (a geothermically heated beach) and Perlan (a glass dome resting on five water tanks) but I’m sure these are also good attractions in their own right.

The best feature of Reykjavik is the availability of things to DO. We took advantage of this by taking the following tours:

Golden Circle Super Jeep

Let me just start by saying that although this tour was a bit more expensive than a bus tour it was definitely the better option to take because we got to really bond with the people on our tour. Our Super Jeep was a giant vehicle and it certainly got its fair share of admiration during the day. It could hold a maximum of 12-14 people (depending on how cozy people were willing to get) and Sandra and I were lucky enough to end up on a tour with some very cool people – 3 boys from Chicago (Berg, Dom and Charlie), Michelle from DC and 2 lads from the UK (Shane and Mark) and we had a kickin’ time right from the get go. Coincidentally there was another Super Jeep that was also doing the same tour with us (and in fact our tour guide was on that Jeep and broadcasting his speech to our Jeep via the radio) and although I’m sure they were nice people in no way were they as cool as the people in our Jeep. LOL.

The Golden Circle, as I’ve now discovered, is a popular tourist route in South Iceland (thanks wikipedia) that takes in the following trio of sights:

• Þingvellir National Park. Historically significant as the sight of Iceland’s first parliament but more interestingly for us the location of the where the rift between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates exist. Apparently these plates move about 2cm annually. Seeing them in person the mind boggles to think that such land/rock masses can move in such a way. It was a little freakish walking between the plates that’s for sure!

• Gullfoss. Officially this should have been our third stop of the day but due to some mis-communication with our driver, who had actually stopped only to let out the tires and allows us a restroom pitsop, we ended up doing some exploring of our own to find this amazing waterfall. A great photo stop and lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

• Our penultimate stop was to the Haukadular valley which contained the geyser that all geysers are apparently named for – Geysir. Officially Geysir (sometimes known as The Great Geysir) is an infrequent erupter so we turned our eyes instead to the Strokker geyser which was only a few feet away. Even though it erupted (up to a height of what was about 15-25 metres) only ever 5-7 minutes I could easily have sat there and watched it all day. Absolutely fascinating and although some people reported the smell to be a bit eggy I didn’t really notice it myself.

• Our final stop was the Kerið volcano crater. Interesting but we were there for only about 5 minutes to take some group photos.

In the midst of all this we also took a detour to do some snowmobiling (!!) on the second largest glacier (Langjokull) in Iceland. Now I’ve been ATVing before but it didn’t prepare me at all for the snowmobiling which at all times felt much faster and much more dangerous than my adventure in the red rock desert of Las Vegas. However it was equally fun and beautiful in a whole other way. Sandra volunteered me to drive our snowmobile first (yikes!) so I was afraid I was going to embarrass us by tipping us over at the first turn but thankfully I didn’t. I did probably take less risk than I ordinarily would have conscious as I was that Sandra was behind me gripping on for her dear life! It was totally amazing to make the trek over the ice. My drive was over all too soon.

Being a passenger on the snowmobile was a completely different experience. I know that Sandra said she struggled to hold on so I adopted the tactic of holding on with one arm like I was riding a mechanical bull (and it felt like that as well – I don’t know how many times I nearly came off!) and using my other arm for shooting video and still footage of the experience. It was a lot of fun!

Take a walk on the Ice Side

The following day saw Sandra, Berg, Dom and I tackling a walk on the Sólheimajökull glacier tongue which comes off the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, the fourth biggest in Iceland. It was quite a drive out from Reyjavik but definitely worth the adventure. Its always more fun to go on tours where they supply you with equipment so you feel like you’re really going on a real adventure and the crampons and ice axe certainly made us feel the part. Although at first I felt a bit leery of my crampons I learned by the end of the walk that you just had to trust your equipment. There were lots of ridges and ice cones and deep crevasses to explore and our tour guide certainly seemed to know his stuff.

Although we didn’t actually go into any of the crevasses themselves we did do a little ice-climbing. Not everyone in the group indulged but instead was vastly entertained by those that did. The wall was only actually about 15-20 metres high but darn it was a good work out! The one rule I learnt was that make sure you have a good grip on the wall with your crampons! I think I must have slipped about two or three times near the top of the wall before I finally got a good jab in with my crampons.

My ice-climbing on the glacier:

On the way back to Reykjavik we also made some stops at two distinct and picturesque waterfalls, Skógafoss and Seljalandsfoss. Skógafoss is one of the biggest in Iceland and the hike to the top was an absolute killer. I could see why Sandra had the good sense to turn back at the bottom! Apparently you can see a double rainbow on sunny days but although I looked I didn’t find it. The views from the top were amazing however. Seljalandsfoss is another popular waterfall and had the added attraction of having a path that took you behind it. Very cool.

Whale Watching

Out of Reyjavik there are a couple of whale watching companies that do tours morning and afternoon. On our first day, and admittedly the most beautiful and sunny day of our stay, Sandra and I opted to take an afternoon tour to see some whales (we later found out that Michelle was on the boat with us.) Disappointingly yet again I didn’t see any whales but I think I’m getting ever so close to seeing some – this time around I at least to got two see two spouts of water! I’ll get them one day!

Viking Horse Riding

One our tour guides talked about how easy it is to fall in love with the Icelandic horse and seeing them dotted all over the landscape I could see why. The horses, though pony-sized, are extremely strong and have the stockiness that I love seeing in animals. I couldn’t leave Iceland without taking a ride on them so for a couple of hours Sandra and I rode them over some strange area about 30 minutes drive from Reykjavik. My horse was clearly hungry because when it wasn’t trying to surge past all the other horses in the line it was trying to head off to the side to chomp on the vegetation! Still, it was a lot of fun and surprisingly I felt little pain from the ride.

The Rest of It

Now there are two things that really define Iceland and both must be experienced: The Night Life and The Blue Lagoon.

Reykjavik is a very expensive place and therefore you’ll find that most people, locals and visitors alike, stay at home or in their apartments consuming, in rather large quantities, their store bought alcohol before they head out to the clubs (normally after midnight at the earliest.) This is to avoid paying the upward of £7-£8 for a bottle of beer in the bars/clubs! I’m not sure what its like in winter in terms of the social scene but with 24 hours sunlight in summer its hard not to realise just how late it is when you’re out and about. The American lads were nice enough to invite us back to their apartment for pre-going out drinks to get well and fully lubricated before heading out. Bear in mind that the night life is fairly limited to Fridays and Saturdays so its fair to say that the Icelandic people really party hard. I must admit though that due to a combination of a hectic schedule leading up to our trip to Iceland and all our tours I was almost too tired to really enjoy it all. Almost. It was fun whilst it lasted.

Finally, Sandra and I thought we’d save a visit to The Blue Lagoon until our last night to ensure that when we headed back to London we were as relaxed as we could be. It truly was other-worldly! The water is apparently very rich in minerals which great for people who suffer from skin diseases and also otherwise good for your skin. And its nice and toasty warm though I was hoping that it would be much warmer than it was. There a lot of facilities there including massage therapy, mask therapy etc. but I like the fact there was also a steam room and sauna. Beautiful. Truly relaxing. Re-energising. The only down side was the fact that the water was more green than blue but hey you can’t do much about nature and we did see some blue water on the outside of the facilities.

The Food

I have to have a little blurb on the food because I have to say food in Iceland is great and in particular we had three really good (if expensive and slightly salty!) meals:

Lobster Feast
	Lobster Bisque	Trio of Lobsters	Ice Cream Dessert
Puffin Feast
	Marinated Puffin Starter	Grilled Puffin	Orange Sorbet and Mocha Creme Brulee

It was all really good quality seafood/birdfood (ha ha) and very tasty. A nod too the service given by the waiters and waitresses – considering you don’t need to tip in Iceland they were extremely efficient and friendly.

Oh and of course, lets not forget eating from the legendary Baejarins Beztu Pylsur (Best Hot Dogs) stand in Reykjavik … mmmm…. and tasting whale … not so mmmm ….

Some of our Icelandic adventures captured on video:

And if you still haven’t seen enough there are photos here.

Milan, Lombardy, one of the larger cities in Italy, is no doubt one of the fashion capitals in the world. It was almost intimidating walking around the streets as practically everyone, including the homeless on the street, was dressed very well!

The city itself, outside of the designer label shops, the Duomo, the Castello Sforzesco and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, didn’t seem to hold too many attractions and in fact we ended up spending only about half a day exploring the city! On our other two days we explored Lake Como and Bergamo – two beatiful areas worthy of a day trip from Milan (especially if the weather is glorious.)

Photos posted here.

The Experience

As I mentioned in the introduction Milan, for me anyway, wasn’t all that interesting as a city in terms of attractions. The bigger ticket items are the Duomo (which is quite beautiful and drew all the crowds), the Last Supper (which we unfortunately didn’t get to see even though I’d tried to book tickets at least a month before hand) and Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II was magnificent and seemed a very popular place to just hang out in the numerous cafes that lined the halls.

On the Friday night we were surprised to see that the square where the Duomo sits was actually hosting the Festival Bar 2007 so the square was heaving and full of energy. I don’t know who were performing but I was too tired to stick around to enjoy it for too long!

The surprising thing about Milan is the amount of graffiti that dirty all the buildings, sidewalks and streets. I don’t remember there being too much rubbish around but I don’t think I would have noticed it because of the graffiti! Having said that there were some enterprising art including these little penguin bollards.

The other areas we explored included the Naviglio Grande which is a canal in Milan. This is kind of like Little Venice in Paddington and there are bars and restaurants lining the canal. Pretty good for nightlife and EXCELLENT if you want to take advantage of the Italian Happy Hour which involves basically cheap drinks and free nibblies. A great way to fill up and save on the costs of dinner if you’re of the mind.

Food-wise I was expecting quite a bit from Milan. I hated the fact that you were forced to pay a cover charge in restaurants supposedly paying for breadsticks and breads that you didn’t necessarily want and that you always had to pay for bottled water. Its a principle thing. The taste of the food was fairly good if not too memorable but I’m not used to main dishes coming only as is (that is with no salad/veges or other unless ordered.) The gelati was stunning and without going into exactly how many I ate over the weekend its fair to say that I sampled quite a few flavours!

We also took the following day trips when we were in Milan:

• Visiting Lake Como. I wasn’t expecting the weather to behave very well over this weekend and BBC had forecast thunderstorms all weekend. Our first day in Milan was supposed to be the best (though it ended up being the worst!) of the weekend so I planned that we’d go check out the Lakes. The Lakes are a very beautiful part of Lombardy and are an easy train ride from Milan. I wish I’d had more time to explore the Lake fully and indulge in some of the activities you could partake in (hiking, sailing, windsurfing for example) but had to settle for a quick visit and a cruise on the lakes to Bellagio. The cruise could have been beautiful but halfway through the journey we seemed to go into this wierd storm where we were being battered by rain and visibility was nil. The crew had to actually stop the boat in the middle of the lake just to let the storm pass us over! It was surreal. Back at Como you can catch a furnicular to get some views back down to the Lakes. The view wasn’t the greatest but its something to do if you have time in between eating gelati. Even though the weather was rubbish I could still appreciate how beautiful Lake Como was.

• Bergamo and Lecco. My tip for visiting Bergamo is make sure you catch the right train! We ended up taking the long cut to Bergamo and this added about 2 hours to our journey (though we did end up squeezing in a visit to Lecco as a result and it gave me time to sun myself at the station (as we waited for the correct train) on what became a gorgeous day. Bergamo actually has two centres: “Città alta” (upper city) and the “Città bassa” (lower city). From the train you can take a bus then furnicular up from the lower to the upper city but the walk through the main street is easy and interesting and only takes about 20 minutes. If you took it really easy you could try and stretch the sights of Bergamo in a day but really it can be done as a half day trip. The fun is in exploring the little streets of Città alta and taking another furnicular up to San Vigilio, a small hilltop settlement which is nice for a stroll.

Overall, I found Milan slightly underwhelming from a tourist perspective but I did find it enjoyable just walking around the streets and exploring. I could see that its probably a very livable city and of course there is no faulting the fashion and donne belle. 🙂

I’d tried to do some research on Doha before coming out on this trip and honestly there wasn’t a whole lot to be found so we weren’t really sure what to expect when we got to Doha. Turns out Doha is a Dubai-wannabe. It is trying to compete pretty hard with Dubai for the tourist dollar and certainly the rate of construction is equal to if not superior to what is going on across the water but it is quite a bit behind in terms of a developed tourist trade. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but honestly it did make for a bit of an unexciting visit. On the other hand we managed to catch up on some lost sleep which was rather necessary especially for Jules who’d had to do that mammoth drive from Plett to Cape Town Airport the day/night before.

One of the quirkier aspects of our trip was what the locals seemed to think was interesting to the tourist – there seemed to be a big emphasis on the man-built thing such as shopping centres and the stadium where the Asian Games were hosted. I did like this giant shopping trolley though – look how small I am in comparison!

Photos are here.

The Experience

As we didn’t really have too much information at hand the first thing we did was to arrange a couple of tours which where the first indications that Doha hasn’t quite got their tourist system going well just yet:
– A city tour and
– A safari/sand dune tour.

Our city tour was actually a private one and although the guy was friendly we had severe communication issues – his English was okay but when we started to ask some probing questions about the culture etc. it definitely got confusing for everyone. After a while it was just easier to let our questions slide. I’m not sure if it’s the Doha thing or our particular tour guide but check out some of the sights he took us to (and in order of stops):
– Main stadium of the Asian Games
– A shopping centre (and then we hiked over to the shopping centre next door to get a photo of the giant trolley). Admittedly it was a nice shopping centre including a “sky” ceiling but in the middle of a tour? Very strange.
– The cattle and camel souk
– The Al-Corniche which strangely enough he would drive part of it, stop, then drive on and stop. Admittedly it is a very long promenade (as we later discovered that evening!)
– The national museum which was shut. Most things shut at around 12-4pm.

And that was our “City Tour”.

After a quick lunch at an Indian/Chinese place that served such delicacies as Chicken Lollipop and Chicken 65 (don’t ask me what they were as I didn’t try them) it was time for our desert safari. Okay the sand dunes weren’t huge but our driver wasn’t exactly adventurous either. When we asked for a bit of adventure it merely involved going down, an admittedly, steep dune but very slowly. It was so second class to the equivalent Dubai experience. The path we travelled was like a normal motorway almost. The saddening thing was to see all the litter in the dunes. Such a beautiful natural heritage destroyed by man’s rubbish.

For the rest of our time in Doha we just did our own thing including:

– Visiting the souks at night. There was much more activity at this time of day and we got to check out the falcons. There was one guy who was very friendly about it. I just wanted to take a photo but he was like come in come in, come sit next to the falcon, touch the falcons, get a photo with the falcons. It was feeding time as well so it was kind of weird to have these birds literally tearing these chicken bones up in front of us.
– Walking along the Al-Corniche. We didn’t realise it but it must have been about 7 kms one way from where we started near the Old City all the way to the Sheraton in the City Centre. There were lots of people out and about and strangely enough when we were coming back (around 11pm), considering it was a Sunday night, it was still quite busy with lots of little kids around as well.
– Making the mistake of trying to look for a local cinema with a dodgy map in the heat of the day. Finally clueing in on the fact that taxis were oh so cheap. As a result we ended up going into the City Centre to one of their giant malls (which also contained an ice rink!) and watching a movie plus doing some ice-sliding! What a concept. The guy at the slide was so funny – I guess he liked talking to tourists and he kept saying “one more time”. It was a lot of fun but I was totally soaked after the event. Here’s some footage – he really wanted to make sure we had some memories:

It was kind of ironic that our last hours in Doha were spent in a shopping mall Making It Mucho at Applebees …

After our morning game drive, and when I say morning I mean 5am morning(!), I eagerly called up Plett Skydiving to check out the conditions for a sky dive. I couldn’t believe it – it was on! We were supposed to be driving back to Cape Town (a good 9-10 hours from Shamwari) to get some rest before catching an early plane to Doha the next day but Jules was nice enough to let me try and fit in a sky dive before departing the beautiful country that is South Africa. It was a blessedly gorgeous day but it failed to occur to me that it was Friday the 13th until one of the skydiving dudes pointed it out to me! Thanks buddy!

Even though we go to the sky dive place fairly early in the afternoon it wasn’t until closer to sunset that I dove. It was pretty cool though as I got to know the little group of skydivers who either work as skydivers or simply hang around just cause its there thing. Its like this funny little community and they were all so friendly and helpful and full of advice.

Flying up to 10,000 feet in this little baby plance was just amazing with a beautiful beautiful sunset. The plane was packed to capacity as well which added to the fun. I opted for a tandem sky dive because no way was I going to trust myself to be able to pull the cord at the right time! It was just a shame I couldn’t convince Jules to come up with me. Jumping out of the plane was a bit hairy because I had to step out onto a ledge without holding on to anything. Technically I was connected to my instructor but I thought with my weight I’d pull him out with me before he was ready! It didn’t happen though thank goodness.

Its hard to explain how it felt coming out the plane. Awesome. Extraordinary. Magnificent. Standout. Sick. Over too quickly!!!

At 10,000 you get about 35 seconds of free fall but it went by just like that and even once our canopy had gone up it still felt like we were dropping very quickly and it was over before I knew it.

Unfortunately due to condensation the freefall part of the jump was obscured but here is most of my video anyway (I guess this means I’ll just have to jump again 🙂 ):

So its probably not a good sign that every South African we’ve spoken to during this holiday does not have the best things or anything really to say about Port Elizabeth. Just as well we were only using it as a break in our trip before heading out for an overnight stay at the Shamwari Game Reserve. It was more than enough to spend a couple of hours in Port Elizabeth although it does have a nice sort of walkway by the beach and “The Boardwalk” which is a mish mash of shops, a fair and a casino! Wasn’t game quite game enough to try and get into the casino with my flip flops and long shorts.

The game reserve wasn’t actually too long out of Port Elizabeth but seemed to take a long time as we were once again taken onto some unpaved roads. We arrived just in time for a three course lunch (well, we weren’t sure it if was supposed to be but we made it a three courser!) and with enough time to take a bit of a siesta before our afternoon drive.

I didn’t realise it at the time we booked but Shamwari was actually quite the luxury reserve. I mean many celebrities have come out to Shamwari including one Tiger Woods and he even stayed at our lodge! There are six lodges spread out across the reserve but Bayethe sounded the most interesting as you are basically staying in an ultra luxurious tent. This was definitely the most expensive bit of our trip and in all probability was almost equal to the cost of the rest of our trip! It was money well spent though because next to the luxury accommodation we were also served beautiful high quality food and the cost included two game drives and as much drink as you wanted.

Our tent was beautiful and had a lot of novelty factor. For example, although you could take a bath inside it was much more fun washing yourself in the outdoor shower! I was a bit nervous at first that there would be prying eyes – either our next door neighbours or maybe a giraffe or gazelle or even a rhino – but after a while I stopped worrying and enjoyed being in the outdoors. Even though it was freezing out the shower had to be experienced! We also had our own little plunge pool which we unfortunately didn’t even try because it was definitely too cold for that.

Everyone knows that I like the cold but it even got to me so I had to make an emergency fleece buy. I was soooo glad I did because in the trucks, which are fairly open, the wind was ice-cold and even the ponchos and blankets did little to block it out so if your guide says to wear something warm make sure to listen to him/her.

So, you go out in groups of six (max) for game drives. We had a really nice guide, Mzi, and he certainly had a lot of stories to tell. He was also fairly good at trying to get around to see all the animals because he was conscious that Jules and I were only staying for one night (most people stay for two so they get four game drives.) I also liked the fact he was very humble and so funny. He played a very good straight man. Our fellow gamers were also really quite friendly and sharing so I think that made our experience quite a good one.

Of the Big 5 we missed out on the Leopard and Buffalo. On the other hand we did get to see both black and white Rhinos (not a very common occurrence) alongside with the Elephant and Lions. Of course we saw plenty of other wildlife including giraffes, zebras, warthog, antelope, boks etc. The baby versions were the highlights – they were so cute. Its nice to see the animals in a relatively natural habitat despite all our little trucks zooming all about the place.

The experience at Shamwari was simply amazing although at times I felt a bit like an imposter in such luxurious surrounds!

After seeing that the weather hadn’t really improved and therefore finding out that the skydive was off we re-shuffled our plans yet again to see what we could managed in lieu. We had a bit of a random start to the day trying to find this little tour office in Knysna so I could see some of the famous Kynsna seahorses. We finally found it in a very isolated section of the Lagoon and combined with the raging storm and gusting winds our visit there had a touch of creepiness to it. Disappointingly no seahorses though.

• Monkeyland. As we only had time for lunch at Monkeyland yesterday we thought that we would take advantage of some free time to do one of the tours around the forest. The tour was okay if a little on the tame side after all the things we’ve already done. Also once again we found that if you weren’t in a family it was hard to get in a good position for things – especially when people were obsessed with taking photos and video footage of all the monkeys. I know that I take lots of photos and video footage myself but I really have to question what all these people were going to do with hours of footage of monkeys in the forest.

• Storms River Suspension Bridge. At the mouth of Storms River the Suspension Bridge offers some great views of the rocks and crashing waves. We only had a short time there so didn’t get the chance to get up to the lookout point. It would have been nice to have more time to explore but as we’d booked a canopy tour a bit of a drive away we had to sort of rush to the bridge, rush back, rush through lunch and then rush to the canopy tour.

• Tsitsikamma Canopy Tour. The Tsitsikamma Canopy Tour was a lot of fun. Sliding from tree to tree through the canopy of the Tsitsikamma Forest is a new way of learning about the nature around you. We were about 30 metres above the canopy floor so it was fairly high up. Each of the slides were surprisingly very quick but you soon got the hang of the braking system (your hands!) I was impressed by the ingenious method of not using one single nail to hold up any of the cabling or platforms on the canopy tour so that the trees remained fairly unharmed. The tour was pretty exhilarating and no matter which platform I was on (whether it was the first or the 15th) stepping off the platform still caused my stomach to drop.

Here is some video of the canopy tour:

Today was the day, or so I had hoped, to do my first ever sky dive. Unfortunately despite the beautiful weather we’d had up until this point some sort of cold front that brought with it mist and the threat of a fairly big storm popped out of nowhere to ruin any chances of a jump. Jules was very accommodating so, after re-scheduling tentatively for the following day, we decided to head out to Bloukrans Bridge so that I could do my first every bungee jump. The rest of the day sort of just fell into place with a lunch at Monkeyland and a visit with the elephants in the afternoon followed by a relaxing cruise on a catamaran.

• Bloukrans Bridge. As far as I know the bungee jump off Bloukrans Bridge at 216 metres is the highest commercial bungee jump in the world. According to the Guinesss Book of World Records that is. Though I wasn’t exactly nervous about the jump I certainly felt more apprehensive about it than the sky dive which I was still hoping to do. Unfortunately I couldn’t get Jules out on the platform with me but I quickly made friends with my fellow jumpers. There are a number of options at Bloukrans Bridge – you can walk out to the jump site, do the zip line or do the bungee jump or do all of them. In our group a good half walked out to the jump site only so I don’t know how they felt when we were all jumping off one by one. I would have certainly felt left out! At the jump site the music is pumped up and was certainly a factor in getting the adrenalin going. The first nervous moment was when we had to step up to the edge of the platform but as our lower legs were tied it was a case of hopping over. Although you’re supported by two of the guys to ensure you don’t accidentally hop over it still felt like it was a risk. The jump itself was easy and simply amazing. It is a very definitely free fall and surprisingly the whip back wasn’t even that harsh. The jump is so high you practically do to falls! Simply breathtaking. The second nervous moment was when I was hanging there waiting to be dragged back up. Although I knew better I couldn’t help but think that I might slip out of my bindings and go crashing into the forest below. I so wanted to do it again! Jumping off backwards this time! No time unfortunately … Below is a video of my jump

• Lunch at Monkeyland. Basically a space for monkeys to freely roam our visit to Monkeyland today was brief but definitely not unmemorable. It was worth mentioning simply for the fact that one of the crazy monkeys tried to grab my chicken sandwich. Personally I don’t blame the monkey cause the sandwich was REALLY good but still! He gave a really good tug and I nearly lost it.

• The Elephant Sanctuary. Aside from the fact that our host looked just like Denzel Washington the Elephant Sanctuary was special as it gave us the chance to interact with the gentle giants of the forest. Home to six African elephants the Sanctuary is attempting to do something no one else has done – re-integrate “domesticated” elephants into the wild. In the mean time tourists get the chance to touch, feed, walk trunk-in-hand and even ride the elephants. Definitely a unique experience.

• Sunset cruise on catamaran. Ironically the “bad” weather that stopped me doing my skyjump actually proved to be a bonus for our catamaran cruise because although the sky wasn’t the beautiful blue that we’d been used to the storm apparently caused to ocean to be quite calm so not only were we able to putter around the Knysna Lagoon we were able to head out to sea for a bit. Along the way we, or Jules, enjoyed a nice bit of wine a delicious seafood/anti-pasta platter.