Port Elizabeth

So today is the day that I leave Kwantu and begin the next leg of my journey along the garden route along with Annie and Morgan. Before I left, I managed to meet up with a girl called Lauren who only arrived yesterday but I had been speaking to online before she arrived, it was a shame we didn’t spend longer together as she seemed so nice; thankfully she doesn’t live too far from me so maybe we might get the opportunity to meet up once I am home. I became quite emotional when leaving which surprised me, but I guess I have made this my home, also the people here have been a type of family and support system for the last 2 weeks. I was all packed and ready to go before I headed to breakfast so that I had longer to say my goodbyes this morning. They all got on the trucks ready to drive off for their morning activity and honestly, I was surprised by the number of people who came over and said goodbye to me, even a couple of the Australians saying it will be good to meet up with me when I reach Australia. I am going to miss my Kwantu family but time for the next part of my adventure to begin now I guess.

We left the reserve at 10am and headed along to our first stop which was Port Elizabeth; the journey went by quite quick especially as I just spent it gazing out at the beautiful African landscape listening to my music. We arrived at El Beit Lodge to drop our luggage off in our rooms before going out to explore and it was a bit of a shock to the system if I am honest, as compared to Kwantu it is dark, old fashioned, a bit dirty as well as ant infested. I truly have been spoiled in Kwantu to start off my journey. The three of us then got back in the van with Jeff and he gave us a lift down along the seafront to our first activity which was a visit to the Oceanarium. It was really small even though it is one of Port Elizabeth’s greatest attractions. The first animal that we saw was the cape fur seal which were talkative, and one even seemed to be giving us the evils as we disturbed his sunbathing. We then also saw penguins, fish, tortoise, turtles, crocodiles, various snakes and finally lizards. The Oceanarium also had a museum which contained dinosaur fossils, lots of stuffed animals and whale and dolphin comparison charts. What did surprise me though was that a lot of the information in the museum was to do with English things with lots of it already being displayed back home in English museums. We managed to get around the Oceanarium at a slow pace still within the hour as it was just so small but equally it did only cost around £2 for entry although we had already paid for it when booking the Garden route.

Once we finished in there we decided to head off and find somewhere to grab some lunch as by this point, we were all hungry, so we found a little restaurant called 'Ocean Basket' along the seafront and all of us had some sushi to see us through until dinner time before we continued to explore. We came across what

is called the Broadway which mainly consists of restaurants, a few shops as well as a giant casino. We walked around although nothing really took our fancy even though this is all everyone seems to talk about when they mention Port Elizabeth, so I am not sure why we didn’t feel the same way. The weather today was so beautiful, clear blue skies and around the mid-twenties, so we decided it would be nice to walk along the beach and let our feet go in the sea to cool off a little bit which felt so lovely and almost movie like against the stunning scenery. By the time we walked around 30 minutes we were gasping for a drink so stopped at a place called 'Something Good' for a smoothie and homemade lemonade to quench our thirst although the service was so slow but again, I guess this is African time. After feeling refreshed, we began the walk back to our accommodation as by now we were all feeling rather tired and our feet were hurting from all the walking we had done today in our sandals, so we just fancied sitting round the pool and settling down for the night. The pool was freezing and the floor of it was rather dirty so we all just sat on the edge with our feet in the pool whilst we listened to some music and spoke more about the coming week whilst watching the sun go down although it was

nowhere near as incredible as Kwantu.

We decided rather than going back out we would all order in a takeaway tonight just to save us messing about and meaning we can all shower early. so we opted for Nando’s which although was nice did not taste the same as back in England, but I can’t really complain as it was still so good to just not have to leave the hostel plus to have a different meal rather than just casserole every night. Whilst waiting for it to be delivered I jumped in the shower which was lovely and such a nice pressure although it did feel weird unpacking my stuff just to pack it again straight away, I can already tell living out of a backpack is going to get on my nerves and it has only been one day!

So that basically leads us to the end of my first day on the Garden route although we have just had a surprise message that we are having one more girl join us called Jessie who is currently on her way from Kwantu. She only arrived there yesterday so I guess she will just return to Kwantu afterwards to do the volunteering programme but either way when I spoke to her earlier, she seemed like a nice girl.

Tomorrow’s destination, Jeffreys Bay!