Travelling to Port Elizabeth(PE)

After we picked up our car from Avis Car Rentals we started are drive to Port Elizabeth and on the way stopping off at some small villages/towns, after about half an hour to an hour of driving on the Highway and passing massive slum areas we stopped at the Cheetah Sanctuary. At the Sanctuary there were many different animals aside from the more focused on Cheetah, such as the Meerkat, the Jackal, the Serval and one or two more that I cannot recall. When we first reached the Cheetah enclosure entrance we had to put our shoes in soap water because of the Cheetahs very strong sense of smell and the soles of our shoes could disturb them., after we sanitised our hands and feet we entered the enclosure and got some good photos and some interesting facts like that a fully grown cheetah has over two thousand spots(2000).

Here is a photo we took of the mountains when we were driving through the wine lands.

In a small town called Stellenbosch we had lunch and went for a wander and found some interesting things along the way like the ye olde shop where they sold things that were around ages ago.

I also sat on a concrete seat that if you looked at it from a certain angle it said sit.

On the way to the small village we stopped off at a small village called Franschoek which has famous chocolate shops and it supplies the clean mountain water in bottles for the majority of  this part of South Africa.

When we finally reached Swellendam (Our small village for the night) we were greeted by the owners and their husky dog called shadow that ran up to the car and when I opened the door followed me and became my new found friend.

The next morning we went to an Ostrich farm in a place called Ooudtshoorn, I found it really sad because you had the option to ride an Ostrich around in this pen which at first sounded okay, but when the first person went he thought he was having a great time but to make the Ostrich run they scared him and hit him with a stick which made me very sad. What makes it even worse is that they kill their own ostriches and put them on the menu as an optional filling for a wrap, I wasn't going to support or encourage them so I didn't order it. If they didn't chase them it wouldn't matter because they are not endangered and they are breeding them but you do not embarrass an animal if you are going to kill it that is just really sad and disappointing.

 All Ostriches have to sit on her 20 eggs all day every day until they are ready to hatch.

Here I am standing on four Ostrich eggs.

The Ostrich below hasn't been scared or hurt and cannot feel much of a weight difference because of the way I was sitting so I was kind of okay about doing this - but not entirely. 

Here are some of the Baboons that like to run across the road when we were on our drive along the Garden Route.

Here is me riding and feeding an Elephant in the Elephant Orphanage in Knysna.

Then at night we got to sleep with them.

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At night we could just stay and watch them just slowly drifting off into peaceful sleep which I have to say was pretty awesome.  During the night when an Elephant was sleeping the one in the enclosure opposite picked up a log and started poking him with it.

I enjoyed all the places we stayed at and I hope to return to all of these places when I'm older.


Joseph Hewson