Fire in Albany Road

Albany road seems to be an interesting road, recently we featured floods there, from a burst pipe...

Yesterday, as I often do when I am wandering around the house, I looked up to check the view through the front window, and there wasn't one! I checked the side window to see if a mist was coming in but it was bright and clear... so I realised I was looking at a fire in the valley.


Luckily the fire department were already there....

And the smoke was soon joined by clouds of steam as they hosed down the surrounding vegetation.

The Old Fire Station

Another of the "Kloofs" in PE which carries a major arterial road used to be called Coopers Kloof, until Albany Road was built through it. Construction began in 1865. This building is Port Elizabeth's Old Fire Station, built in 1930, which has been replaced by a modern new facility in Summerstrand. It is now used as an office complex.
Behind it, you can see the cliff face that formed part of the river valley. Above it is the Old Erica School which we showed you recently, and on the edge of the cliff to the right of the school and round tower is the viewpoint from which this photo of the bay was taken.


Sorry to ONCE AGAIN flout the rules and post more than one photo, but I thought this old watercolour, done in the ninteenth Century, would interest you, this is looking down Cooper's Kloof to the sea, so the firestation was built a bit further down towards the sea on the right, beyond this old cottage.

Looking for baddies!

I was visiting a friend yesterday, whose house overlooks the same valley that is featured in our first post. They have spectacular views right across the bay. On a clear day the unspoilt dunes on the other side show clearly. Suddenly the view from the window was filled by a helicopter, hovering outside. We went to check out what was happening... and it was the Police, hunting for a criminal hiding in the bushes to the left of Albany Road, and showing the dog unit where to go. (To see more photos of the incident, you can go to Sue's blog.)