April 21st

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Happy Birthday to her Majesty!

As we disembarked there was a small group singing and dancing on the quayside. It felt great to be back in South Africa.

There was no cruise terminal, and we walked down the quayside to the port entrance gate waiting to be met by Brian’s cousin Hilary. Although there were taxi drivers there offering tours, it was not the same frantic melee that we had seen in other ports, and they took no thank you for an answer without continuing to pester us.

When Hilary did arrive it was easy for her to park and find us. Certainly Port Elizabeth is a very easy port to make private arrangements to meet up with private arrangements.

Although we had both been to Port Elizabeth previously we had never really explored the area. Hilary gave us a tour of the sea front and city. It was a surprisingly beautiful city, with a magnificent coastline.

We met up with her husband Ian and daughter for lunch, and then spent the afternoon in the Kragga Kamma private game reserve. I was over the moon to be back among the animals again, although I would not go as far as saying I was back in the bush, it was a wee bit suburban. Still a zebra is a zebra, and a giraffe is a giraffe,

and Brian even spotted one of their elusive cheetahs (our guide missed it), so I was one very happy Safarigal.

Like many similar establishments you can buy property on the reserve and build you own private little lodge there. I checked out their web site, and there are still several sites available – selling for about 500,000 rand and up – that’s about $40,000. Hmmmmmm, tempting. However, I would rather live on the border with Kruger National Park, much more like being in the bush! I sat during the game drive dreaming of a little thatched rondavel house in the bush in the game park, surrounded by elephants and lions, but had to face reality again, and head back in to town.

After tea at Hilary’s beautiful Victorian house, we went back to the ship. On the quayside by the gangway we were greeted with a glass of champagne. Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth!!! We toasted the queen before attempting to go back on board. There was a minor problem. Somehow, sometime during the day my cruise card had gone missing. Some people leave their heart in San Francisco; I think I left my card in Kragga Kamma.

Luckily because of the champagne festivities there were several offices at the gangway and they seemed to know who I was, so they told the security officer to let me go on board, and the Pursers desk issued another card for me. Whew!

As it was dark by then, we decided to skip the sail away and get ready for dinner. However, when I got into the lift there were several people clutching little Union Jacks. Apparently the sail away wasn’t the usual Synergy affair, but a “Great British Sail Away” complete with flag waving and all of my totally favorite sail away music. Alas, there they are putting on my kind of a sail away and I am doing battle with the hair dryer in the cabin instead ☹. Oh well, such is life. Lesson learned – read the Daily Programme and don’t make assumptions.