Pettenberg Bay 17th-19th Sep

Plett is a much nicer place than Port Elizabeth. Its a touristy town at the end of a river with miles of beach on either side. The baz bus dropped me off at ALbergo backpackers and after getting settled I booked myself onto onto the Sea Kayaking that afternoon.

So at 2:30 I headed down to the beach which was about a 20 minute walk away down a steep hill (why are these places never on the beach!). At 3 o'clock I met my instructor Lance who promptly told me that he was going to have to cancel because it was too windy. Looking out at the surf we would have to go through I was kind of thankfull it was cancelled. Yet again the weather was my undoing. He asked if I could reshedule for tomorrow - but not in the morning because he had to go to the ciroprator. He then said that he could arrange other things instead and asked if I would like to do bungee jumping. I thought "well its no wonder you need a ciroprator if you go about throwing yourself off 200m high bridges attached to knicker elastic!". I trudged dejectedly back up to the hostel then cheered up when I realised that I had saved 250 rand and was therefore well within my budget for the day. This meant that i could drink copious amounts of alcohol and without any guilt!

The Albergo is a nice friendly backpackers which has a bring your own braai each night. I spent that night chatting and drinking to all the other backpackers while burning a couple of hamburgers I had npurchased earlier. The place was mainly filled with German couples aswell as 2 English girls from Southhampton and 2 English surfers who I shared the dorm with. We all drank ourselves sensless while playing games of pool in the backpackers bar.

The next day I decided to go and do a walk on Robbenberg nature reserve which had been recommended to me by the two Southhampton girls. I had to get a taxi out to the place which was a long peninsula with a cliff walk. I arrived to be met by a force 9 gale. I had asked the taxi driver on the way if this was typical weather for this time of year. He said he had never seen winds like this before (the Ray Finn jinx has arrived). The walk was great for the first half. I was on the sheltered side of the cliffs so the wind was quite calm. - it was a really nice walk to the point and all along the way you could peer down and see fur seals splashing around in the water. At the end of the peninsula you could actually get down to the shoreline where I tried, unsuccessfully, to get photos of some seals porpoising just 30 yards away from me. I think they were toying with me because every time I tried to take a shot they disappeared under the waves and as soon as I dropped the camera from my eye they reappeared. I figured thay must be female!

The walk back was slightly longer than I anticipated. I decided that I would walk back to Plettenberg along the beach. Wrong move - the beach must have been about 3 miles long and every step was like walking on sand (which it was!). 6 hours after I started out on the walk I arrived exhausted back at the hostel. This obviously called for some major drinking to get over such an ordeal.

I met up again with the 2 Southhampton girls who were now joined by 2 Irish girls and 2 guys who had arrived that day and were sleeping in the same dorm.

Naturally I did the usual thing when being introduced to Irish people:

Where are you from?
Dublin
Oh really do you know such and such!
No.

And where are you from
Port Arlington.
Really, do you know Kevin Hogan?
No - but I know his dad!

Its a small country (but I wouldn't want to carpet it!)

They have a game called 6 steps to Kevin Bacon (look it up the internet) where you try to trace knowing people through to Kevin Bacon. Maybe they should do it for Kevin Hogan:

Local Priest > Bishop > Pope > President of Guyana > Kevin Hogan. Easy!

Anyway, where was I!. We all went out on the tear going to some bars round the corner. After several beers and even more yega bombs and springboks we were all fairly well tanked up. The two girls and guys paired off with each other. Me and the two Irish girls (both teachers so complete drunkards! just talked and drank and danced.

At the end of the night the two English couples had disappeared back to the hostel. One of Irish girls commented that she hoped they weren't shagging in their dorm.

They needn't have worried - cause when we got back I heard one of the couples humping away in the shower beside my dorm! They had the water running to try to drown out the noise but it really didn't do the job. I was trying to figure out which couple it was but its hard to tell who somebody is from grunts, moans and the occassional head bang on the shower door!

This morning the only thing to point to what happened the night before was a bra hanging up on one of the hangers. I only hope they didn't do it on the sink as well - I've to brush my teeth in it now.

Next stop Wilderness.


Fur Seal - Robbenberg Peninsula. I also seen Right whales when walking back along the beach.