Our South Coast Holiday

We really had a nice time at the South Coast! Spent some time at different malls, several beaches etc. I bought a lot of Indian spices that will be nice for my curries. The to main attractions were uShaka Marine World in Durban and Croc World just a few kilometers from where we stayed.

I will not upload any pictures to this blog post because they are already on the following sites:

http://www.panoramio.com/user/579549

http://community.webshots.com/user/tommy_javerfalk

Enjoy!

Escape to Chimp Eden

I am a bit late with my blogging... I wanted to blog about our wonderful holiday at the South Coast of Natal, and I will still do that, but...!!!

Today we had a wonderful experience at the Chimp Eden, which is located only 10 km from our home. We booked a tour yesterday and was lucky because the director, Eugene Cussons, would be our tour guide. We is now well known all over the world due to the Animal Planet programs about his rehabilitation efforts for neglected and abused chimps. The program has been seen by more than 1 billion people!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_Chimp_Eden

We were also a small group of visitors and had a lot of opportunities to talk to him and ask questions. He actually showed how to communicate with the chimps, and I had a nice contact with young chimp who wanted to play with me! He followed me on his side of the fence, and as soon as I stopped he stopped too, and we had eye-contact. I made the sounds Eugene taught us, inviting to playful activity, and it really worked! Absolutely amazing....

Eugene at the left, and Ivan and Estian to the right.

Eugene and Leona

Eugene telling the how he started this project.

Some close-ups of one of the Chimps...

It was an awesome experience!!!!

A Crazy Christmas Eve...

I really have to try to get a Christmas feeling, but it is difficult... It's very hot here, around +35. In the evening of 22 December our geyser burst... 150 liters of boiling water flushing out, but luckily there is a drain pipe diverting it to the outside, so we didn't have any water damage. And today we had a new geyser installed. Christmas Eve is not a public holiday here, everybody is working normal hours. So we were actually very lucky!

In the late morning I went downtown to buy Christmas gifts for Monday's, the gardener, kids. The whole town is crazy... Traffic is very wild, and the queues in the shops are very long. Bought some chips, sweets but mostly useful thing for their school work, like pens, scissors, rulers etc. etc.

Both Ivan and Estian are here now, and we have decided to have Hot Buffalo Chicken Wings for supper tonight. Not a typical Christmas dish, but we all love it, so why not?

Severe Storms...

In the last 10 days there has been three severe storms affecting Nelspruit. Since we were away on holiday to the South Coast, we didn't experience the first two storms, but the third was two night ago, and it was bad... A lot of destruction in our garden... Some broad leaf plants having the leaves perforated by the big hail. But now it is nice weather, +34 at this moment...

Th very cute little boy of our neighbors picked up some of the hails, put it into their freezer and came over to show us. They are really golf ball sized!!! A lot of cars got heavily dented...

Holiday at the South Coast

We have now been at Illovo Beach for five days. We are staying in a flat owned by one of our friends who stay in the same street as us in Nelspruit. Illovo beach is located about 40km south of Durban. The weather has been nice and warm, but with some rain every day. We are enjoying it very much! We have been to several beaches and when it has been raining we have been to a few very nice shopping centers/malls. Two days ago we visited Leona's sister and her husband who stay further south. We will be here for another four days before we go home.



The Warner Beach is a quiet beach.




Sitting on the rocks and enjoying the waves is very relaxing!







This sand sculpture we saw at the beach in Amanzimtoti, which is a much more busy beach with lots of younger people, surfers etc.



We left the beach around lunch time when it started to rain a bit. We went back to our flat and relaxed, but then, after 6pm the sky cleared up and we went for a walk just before sunset.





The South Coast is a LOVELYplace!!!