A very big blog post...

Good afternoon from a sunny South Africa! Its been a busy few weeks for us three travelling up and down the coast of South Africa so I'm going to split the blog up into weeks 14, 15 and 16 (this is what happens when I forget what day it is and skip another Sunday blog update).

Week 14 and 15 (10th - 23rd of December)

This was the real start to our Christmas leave and as we were still on base at OB we did lots of swimming. We had hoped to drive to Coffee Bay on the Friday 14th but there was an issue with the tyre on the car we hired meaning we got it much later than we had planned. We agreed to start the 10 (ish) hour drive the next morning so our Friday ended up being a trip into Sedgefield for pizza then to the beach for the rest of the day. The stretch of beach we went to was really nice and although we couldn't swim in the 'actual' sea as the waves were way too strong, we got to swim in the mouth of the estuary (between the lifeguard flags of course). Again, the sea here is much much warmer than it would be back in Scotland this time of year...

It took us the whole of Saturday to drive to Coffee Bay but we did see much more of South Africa - driving through countryside, small towns, bigger towns, the edge of Port Elizabeth and through nature reserves. The scenery as we drove through the rest of the garden route and into the Eastern Cape was spectacular! What was not spectacular however was the last stretch of road leading down to Coffee Bay. The mix of fog and an unbelievably high number of potholes made for some tense driving!

We stayed at Coffee Shack Backpackers which is located right next to the beach for the four nights we were away. It's such a lovely backpackers and everyone was super friendly. On Sunday afternoon we went for a surfing lesson and loved it so much we went back the next morning (at 7.30am!! We're committed to the surf life). In fact we loved surfing so much we went everyday while we were there! I didn't expect to find surfing easy so I was pleasantly surprised when I manged to get it - I even got to upgrade my beginners board to a hard board. While we were there we crossed paths with other PT volunteers making their way to Cape Town so it was nice to see them all again.

We headed back to Sedgefield on the 19th then it was Scott's birthday on the 20th. We spent the rest of the week staying out the sun and watching some more Game of Thrones from the DVD rental store in town. On Sunday night we got a lift into town and had dinner before trying to get our bus to Cape Town! The bus company we booked with is notorious for driving right past you at the bus stop so when we saw multiple buses drive past, I made a few phone calls to try and see what bus we'd be getting on. Thankfully one finally stopped for us just before 11.30pm (only half an hour late which is not late at all in SA terms) so we got on and settled down for a night time bus journey to CT.

Week 16 (24th - 30th December)

Unfortunately I didn't really sleep on the bus so when we arrive in Cape Town just before 8am we couldn't wait to get to our Airbnb so we could sleep. Christmas day was a strange one. Being ridiculously sunny all day and with the temperature being around 24°C, it was much different to the Christmas climate I'm use to. As most of the other SA volunteers are here we ate a Christmas dinner together. Credit to Josh and John for masterminding it all and for their excellent cooking. As we have a oven in our apartment we helped out by cooking some of the food. Afterwards, we (SA, Botswana and Zambia volunteers) all went down to the Victoria and Albert waterfront to have drinks. Me, Talitha and Andrew also went on the big wheel after being offered 50% off...on the child tickets. What a bargain!!

On Thursday we went to Robben Island to have a tour of the island and prison. Our guide Wendy was amazing and it was incredible to hear all about the island. We were shown around the prison by an ex political prisoner who was held in the Robben Island prison. It was very interesting to hear the stories he shared with us. We also got to see Nelson Mandela's cell. It's quite surreal to think he spent 18 of his 27 years in imprisonment in that tiny cell. If anyone hasn't read 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Mandela you really should! And if reading isn't your thing the film 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom' is a must!!

South Africa is know for its wine so of course we've done a bit of wine tasting. We went to Vergenoegd wine estate which was really lovely...although I didn't find the wine lovely at all. We also climbed Table Mountain with some of the Zambia volunteers, which is another must for anyone visiting Cape Town. The views from the top were spectacular (it is 1085m high!) and before the clouds came rolling in we could see all the way to Cape Point which has its own special biodiversity especially in the sea as the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet and mix. The clouds at the top of table mountain are really quite cool as they're known as the 'tablecloth' and can be present even when the rest of the sky is clear and blue. This is because of a south-easterly wind blowing up the mountain slopes. It then meets colder air at higher altitude, leading to condensation forming and a thick mist soon coats the top-most regions of the mountain. As the cloud cover pours over the side of the mountain, the process is reversed. Clouds encounter warmer air layers lower down, where the moisture evaporates, making the clouds disappear. Who knew clouds could be so fasanating!

So there's lots of pictures to go with this blog post so in order of appearance...

The first two are of the beach in Sedgefield. The next four are of our time in Coffee Bay. There was many rural villages we passed on our way and Coffee Shack does a lot of work helping kids from these local communities get through school and into further education or employment. Rusty (the dog) belongs to Coffee Shack but like most dogs in the area is free to roam so he decided to come along with us when we went to explore the rocks and hills - he was an excellent your guide and knew the way like the back of his paw. The beach you can see in the photo is where we did our surfing! The rest of the photos are from our first week in Cape Town. The photos show the view of Long Street (Cape Towns 'party street') from our window, our Christmas dinner, me and Talitha being kids in the local park, Robben Island and Mandela's cell, wine tasting, a view of table mountain and finally table mountain itself.

Enjoy the photos and hopefully I won't go three weeks without another blog update!

Rachel :)

Week 13

Good evening from a warm South Africa! Thursday marked me being in SA for three months, which is totally crazy as I feel like I've been hear ages yet I know I've got over 8 months left.

Monday saw the staff braai to mark the ending of another year at OB. We also had a secret santa! I had picked out Scott's name from the hat so I gave him a super cool (eco friendly!!) camping cutlery/plate kit. Wrapped up in wrapping paper stuck together with blue tac. I was given a book by Trevor Noah (a famous South African) titled 'Born a Crime'. It's definitely worth the read if you come across it!

The rest of the week was spent doing odd jobs around base including safety checks. Us three volunteers also helped out the landowner (a British guy named Tom) to unpack and decorate a house he built just up the road from us. As a thank you, he and the interior designer took us out for drinks at pilli pilli (the coolest beach bar around).

On Thursday five of us headed out to do some community service near the abseil site here. We spent a few hours pulling out invasive plants that take so much water from other plants. While we were up at the abseil site we went to check that the student path was still usable after all the heavy rain and wind last week. It was my first time up at the abseil site and the view was amazing - I hope I get the chance to abseil it soon! After following the trail down from the base of the abseil we came out at the river and after a brief encounter with a baby boomslang snake, me, Scott and Talitha decided to go for a dip. The water was the perfect temperature for an afternoon swim and there was even a small waterfall to sit under. A perfect last day at work for 2018.

Even though we're now on leave (stay tuned for next week's blog and the start of our road trip!) there is still a final course currently happening here at OB. The course running is for a group of teenagers from DSD (department of social development). OB runs several DSD courses throughout the year, with roughly ten participants each course. These courses can be mentally and sometimes emotionally challenging for instructors as the participants are all young offenders and can cause a bit of trouble while here on course. Each person has different backgrounds on these courses, it could be that they stole something from a shop or something more serious such as stabbing someone. As these young people have criminal backgrounds, us volunteers aren't allowed to support the course as it's just too dangerous for us. So its only really male instructors that support the DSD groups.

In some other news around base, there has been load shedding going on so we've been having power cuts randomly happen throughout the week. I've seen so many frogs the past week, we got a bigger, better and brighter SA flag for the flagpole and as to date, my advent calendar hasn't melted yet!

The photos I've included this week are of the view from the abseil site and the river at the bottom where we swam. There's also one of the Christmas chocolates someone hung outside our (and everyone else's) door early Thursday morning and another of Talitha and her drawing she did of one of the instructors. Then also some random photos from the past few days.

Rachel :)

Rain, more rain and a bit of sun

Good evening from a somewhat cloudy South Africa!

This week has been super busy as on Monday 93 grade eights arrived from Cape Town for a five day course. What would of been a fantastic programme filled with abseiling, canoeing, kayaking, hiking and camping out at different campsites each night, came to an abrupt stop due to the weather. On Tuesday morning the rain clouds rolled in and although it started of as patches of drizzle throughout the morning, by lunchtime it was pouring it down. The combination of the heavy rain and wind made canoeing, kayaking and abseiling unsafe for us to do and the campsites that the groups were hiking to were all underwater. Some groups (including the one I was supporting) headed out on the water early in hope to avoid the heavy rain, which did work for a bit but then it started to really rain on us. That afternoon all the groups got brought back to base to camp and to wait out the rain in hope of better weather.

Unfortunately the next morning proved no different with the heavy rain continuing leaving the instructors to come up with games or activities they could do in whatever dry space they could find for their group. That afternoon there was a reshuffle of the programme so that the groups could do activities on base so they could camp here. Luckily for everyone, the weather (and peoples moods) cleared up and by Thursday it was back to the sunny South Africa we love for courses. On base the groups did the trapeze, rafting and raft building along with group dynamics and initiatives. It was great to be out supporting the water activities again! As the weather had drastically improved some groups got to hike out to other campsites that they should of stayed at earlier in the week. Despite the weather this was a really good course to be part of. Each group was completely different and it was great to interact with them all and get to know some of the groups better. Saturday morning we all went out to one of the campsites on the other side of the estuary where all the canoes had been left when the groups were picked up and taken back to base due to the weather. This meant we had a nice canoe back to base - definitely 100% better than the canoe there on Tuesday morning - before going on leave for the rest of the weekend.

In some other news around base, I got the cold (blaming the canoeing in the rain earlier in the week). I lost the cold without passing it on to anyone. The electricity is continuing to be patchy and cuts out whenever it feels like it. Me and Talitha have still stuck to our 'swimming at least once a week' rule, there was a massive spider above our door and finally... We bought advent calendars and put up Christmas decorations!!!

Enjoy the photos,

Rachel

Walking with elephants

Good evening from a cloudy but somehow still ridiculously warm (ish) South Africa.

This week has been jam-packed for the three of us and it started with a trip to George to go to the cinema to see the new 'Fantastic Beasts' film. We also did a bit of shopping and I've managed to find a present for the secret santa that all the OB staff do each year.

Tuesday saw us and a few of the other staff canoe for just over two hours to one of the campsites that OB use. It was great to get out in the canoes for the first time since being here, although the waves and wind were super strong making it hard work to go anywhere but the wrong direction. Charmoné took some pictures of us while we canoed so I've put them in here.

The rain on Tuesday night was so heavy I thought I was back in Scotland and having it's winter weather! A few rooms in the ghetto flooded along with the dining room, DP room and a few other places. The water level at the water front has risen quite a bit and we went swimming yesterday and the water doesn't taste salty at all now.

The best part of this week (and now I'm thinking about it, possibly the saddest) was definitely Friday. We hired a car and went on a road trip to the Knysna Elephant Sanctuary. The reason why this was the highlight of my week was because we were able to feed the elephants (something I'll never forget!) and walk alongside them! It was so amazing to be able to get so close to the elephants with nothing between us and observe them go about their morning. The reason why this was also the saddest part was because nearly all of the elephants were there for one reason - poaching. Here's a bit about the park from their website:

'The Knysna Elephant Park (est. 1994) was the first facility in South Africa to house and care for orphaned African elephants. Over the last twenty years, the park has cared for and raised more than forty elephants. These animals include relocated animals, orphaned calves, elephants rescued from culls and ex-circus animals. Some have become part of the resident herd, others have moved onto other reserves and facilities in the Western and Eastern Cape, depending on their personalities, bonds with other animals and welfare needs.'

One of the photos is of me and an elephant named Sally. She was one of the first two elephants at the park and she was born with one tusk. We were told that this was due to genetics as a result of poaching over a long period of time. As the strong genes for tusks are eliminated from the selection elephants are now being born without both tusks. In the wild this can make survival challenging as tusks are used for a range of things including scraping bark of trees so they can eat it during periods where food is limited. The WWF estimate that around 20,000 African elephants are being killed each year for their ivory - that's an average of 55 a day. Reading up and hearing about the elephant populations across Africa (and Asia too) and the poaching of them, along with other animals, has shown how important conservation work across the world is but also the importance of having governments and organisations that stand against poaching and take measures to prevent and discourage it.

In some other news around base - we got our electricity back, I had a kudu steak when we went out for dinner and I got some mail including my new glasses that arrived the morning I left for the airport. The moon has also been super cool the past few nights and I've managed to take some pretty clear photos of it!

Enjoy the photos :)

Rachel

Week 9 and 10

Hello from a warm (ish) South Africa! It's been a very busy two weeks here since my last blog post and I have so much to share in this one. I'm going to break this blog up into the two weeks it covers as I actually already wrote the blog for two weeks ago but never managed to get it posted, so I've done a copy and paste job into this post. Grab a cup of tea because I fear this might turn into a book!

Week 9 (5th-11th November) - Project Trust Visit

Good afternoon from a sunny South Africa!

Last week was very busy here at Willow Point. We started the week with the monthly safety checks on all the equipment and I've included photos of Scott and Talitha safety checking the Jacobs Ladder. I asked Talitha to describe the Jacobs Ladder for my blog post - "I found out that I have no upper body strength...It was freaking fun."

On Wednesday night Peter and Hannah from Project Trust arrived for our country coordinator visit. It was really lovely to see them again and show them around OB, especially Hannah who has never been here before. Thursday night they took us out for dinner so we chose to go to Pomodoro - an Italian restaurant in Wilderness. The pizza was amazing.

Friday night saw all the board members of OBSA arriving for the AGM. We had a massive braai that night and it was super cool to listen to all the stories different board members had to tell and to find out more about them. We set up the trapeze the next day so the board could see it and for the new members to jump it, so we also got the opportunity to jump it too.

We've been swimming quite a lot this week too as it has been quite warm. The water seems to be getting warmer each time we swim which is always good. Lately, we've been climbing onto the whaler and jumping and doing flips off it. We tend not to swim too close to the other boat cause if we do the birds on it start diving down at us...though they seem to only go for certain people.

In some other news around base, the electricity in the ghetto is still off so I'm making my way through my torch battery pile and while we washed our clothes on Sunday morning, we spotted two antelope like animals walking down the road. And we also got let loose with machete style tools to chop branches down on the road.

Enjoy the pictures :)

Rachel

Reading that back today it seems like it all happened ages ago not just two weeks ago. I'm going to put all the pictures at the end in order of when they happened but until then here is the blog post for this week...

Week 10 - A Week In The Mountains.

As the title above suggests we spent this week living in the mountains. On Tuesday all the OB staff made the journey to Citrusdal, which is a town around two hours north of Cape Town. This is where we'd spend the next 5 days exploring the mountains in search of possible campsites, rock climbs, abseiling sites and hiking routes. 

We stayed at the community centre at the base of the mountains on the first night. There was a dam right next to it so some of us went for a swim which turned into us all sliding down the side of it into the water (it was a man made one so there was plastic all round the edges making it perfect for sliding down). Wednesday and Thursday were spent hiking in the mountains. We found two good areas for an abseil and a rock climb which was really good. The weather was very hot during the day and I'd say it would of been above 33°C each day. Even during the night it didn't get that cold which was good as we camped out for two nights. While we hiked we also went to see bushmen paintings on one of the rocks. This was incredible to see as not only is it amazing to think that people lived in the cave/rock structure they were painted on, so high up on the side of the mountain  but also that hardly anyone has seen them before. There was paintings of animals, people and even a house like structure. I've included various photos from the days exploring for you to see.

We arrived back in Sedgefield yesterday afternoon and now we have a bit of leave before courses start up again, so we've planned a few day trips for this week.

Enjoy the photos :)

Rachel