Port Elizabeth and St. Francis Bay

Time is passing much too quickly, we only have just over a week left on this beautiful continent and although we’re reluctant to leave we’re also very excited about Asia and seeing our ‘babies’ for Christmas. The weather may be a little different this year than last.

After leaving East London we travelled for about an hour and a half through more beautiful and varied countryside to a little town on an estuary called Port Alfred. We stopped here for a quick and tasty lunch at My Pond hotel and a walk on the riverside before continuing our journey.We arrived near Port Elizabeth at about 5pm to Le Bleu guesthouse and our first decorated accommodation since arriving in South Africa.The tree wasn’t quite what we would have chosen but it was exciting to have some acknowledgement of the festive season’s rapid approach.

Our last couple of days of travelling had caused Rob and I to be more sedentary than usual. Without going in to too much detail this always has a slightly negative effect on Rob’s digestive system. After listening to his woes concerning this (I’m a captive audience in the car) I made a plan to help relieve his problem (and me having to hear about it). The plan was simple, plenty of fluids, chocolate raisins (always work for me) and a run in the morning before the next leg of our journey.

I am pleased to say that my plan worked perfectly. By 8am the next morning Rob had experienced success and was enjoying Jon-Pierre’s best breakfast. We had managed a lovely run along the estuary and having done no real, sustained, aerobic activity since my broken rib I was very proud of having run for 31 minutes without stopping.

We left our guesthouse with Rob feeling much lighter and thankfully, with a new topic of conversation.

Our next stop was to be Andelomi Lodge in Tsitsikamma. We had booked two nights here as the one nighters were starting to become exhausting and we wanted a full day to explore the national park. To break up our journey we decided to have a stop and walk at St. Francis Bay and Cape St. Francis.

St. Francis Bay was a beautiful sandy beach but it was the cape with its big rocks and massive waves that totally captivated us. We ended up spending much too long exploring the many rock pools and watching the waves before returning to the car and our onward journey.