It’s Sunday and I’m home now after a reasonable trip back from SA. It’s cold here and I’m waiting for Jane to return from Sharm El Sheikh where she’s been having fun with the tropical fish, Joyce and Enid. Have I got the punctuation right there I wonder?
Whilst I wait I have a chance to post my last walk in South Africa. After we returned from the Dolphin Trail we stayed one night at Laura’s house and then we packed up to go down to William’s family beach house at Cannons Rock further along the coast in the Eastern Province. Before we went, I had the chance to go and visit Laura’s workplace and I have to say it was very impressive. As I’ve already said, Laura runs one of Port Elizabeth’s only recycling collection services and she does this with her partner, Louise. Poor Louise had been left holding the fort whilst I dragged Laura off on holiday and it was clearly quite stressful.
The place is full of waste materials – as you might imagine. Paper, cardboard, glass bottles and jars, plastic, cans and goodness knows what else. I had a desperate urge to ‘tidy the place up’ (a bit like I did in India) but I think you’d be fighting a losing battle on that one! Greencycle employs 14 workers in total, some of whom come from the next door Walmer ‘Location’ (or township). We’d talked a lot about the workers and it was nice now to put some names to faces. I helped sort some jam jars for the jam makers- not as easy as it sounds as apparently jam makers are incredibly picky and jars have to be sorted by number, brand and size. Nightmare memory game. Next I had a go at shredding the confidential waste. I went into the room where the girls, doing this particular work, were all busy. Rebecca showed me the ropes on the shredding machine and I was soon away. I think I preferred this work to jam jar sorting! All too soon though it was time to leave.
Having spent some time in the warehouse and office I realised just what a complicated business this is that Laura runs. It’s giving good employment to people locally and it’s obviously extremely hard work keeping on top of it all. I might call her ‘The Womble’ but as I said before I am very proud that she puts all this effort into something she passionately believes in and creates employment at the same time. William also showed me his current property development where he also creates employment for the builders, electricians etc. None of this running your own business though is easy especially here.
Anyway, sorry, got a bit side-tracked there…walking…yes.. so then we drove down to the beach via Addo Elephant Park and I’ve already shared my photos with you from there. Cannons Rock itself is a small village of what seems to be just one long beachfront road. There are houses on either side and nothing much else. William’s house is right on the beach and his parents bought it in 1989 for just 24k rand. It can sleep 14 people and although it needs some work, it is a perfect beach house and estimated now to be worth 2M rand plus.
We (Laura, Megan and William) set off for our walk from here on Friday morning with the aim of walking down to the cannons at the far end of the lane. Then we planned to come back via the beach. However, when we woke up today, William told us the news that very sadly Nelson Mandela had passed away the evening before. We watched a little bit of the coverage on television and were therefore a bit late leaving on our walk and the weather was starting to look suitably somber and grey.
As we walked down the road we admired some of the giant, newer houses and I have to say there was no sign here that a major world event had taken place so close to where we were. Sky News had been taken over by it but here in this corner of the Eastern Province it was as if nothing had happened. I think that everyone was sad but they knew he was very ill and very old so I suppose that it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Megan, on the other hand, had been down to the beach to pay her thanks to ‘Madiba’ writing her message to him in the sand.
As we reached one of the 3 landmarks in the village- the campsite shop- it started to mizzle. We had a look in the shop (v poor retail experience) and then carried on. As we left the rain started to come down properly. I wasn’t exactly dressed for this as it was now rather cold and wet and I was wearing ridiculous shorts and a t shirt. I suggested we should give up and turn back and no one argued! We even had to shelter back at the campsite for a while. Then back at home we settled in for a quiet day and night of playing games and William cooked up an excellent Braai including some very tasty kudu sausages. We also sat and watched the whales playing about splashing and waving to us just in front of our house. Awesome.
The next day the sun was out again and Laura got us all up earlier to have another go at the walk. Off we went again and this time it was gorgeously hot and sunny. It all looked even more lovely as we walked down the lane. The other two landmarks in the village are the tennis courts and the cannons. That’s it. I found it quite strange that there isn’t a selection of little cafes and gifty shops but maybe it’s just a bit too exclusive as William said the people just don’t want it.
Megan led the way today and we soon found ourselves at the halfway mark of the cannons. These are believed to be from some old portuguese shipwrecks. Then we went down onto the beach and headed back. This had to be one of the most stunning beaches I’ve ever seen. It is vast, empty and beautiful with rocks, pools, dunes and sandy bits for swimming (mind the sharks). There was hardly anyone else on this beach and it is the start of the summer holidays. Amazing.
It was hard work walking along by the waves but we stuck to our task and stayed on the beach until we found our way all the way back to William’s house. As we plodded through the sand William told me about some of the houses and their owners as well as some of the history behind the farms around here.
The total walk was 3.1 miles today and it was good to have a second chance at this walk. As soon as we’d finished we had to pack up and leave for PE. Then the guys dropped me at the airport and we said our farewells. I’d had a fantastic trip and I was sad to leave -it all seems a bit surreal now.
Finally today, I liked this quote from Nelson Mandela that I saw in the papers here, as it makes me realise just how lucky I am to have been able to do all the walks I’ve done this year.
“I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in sunshine a free man.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Walky Talky 