St Johns Methodist Church

Central is the oldest part of Port Elizabeth and in the old days was known as The Hill. There are many historic buildings around Central, but some of the most beautiful old buildings are the stone churches of which there are many littered throughout the area. This one is the St Johns Methodist Church.

St Albans Farmers Market

Every Saturday there is a Farmers Market at the Van Stadens Dutch Reformed Church in St Albans west of Port Elizabeth. You will find everything from fresh vegetables to home made biscuits and knitted toys. The most popular stall must be the one selling farm breakfasts. Bacon, egg, sausage, onions and toast for R20. A real bargain. If you don't feel like bacon and eggs, try the sosatie rolls at the stall next door. Yum!

Despatch Brickworks Chimney

The brick chimney was built in 1882 and was once part of a flourishing brick works. Bricks were "dispatched" or rather "despatched" from here along a railway siding (later known as "Hitler's Halt") to Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth. Many of the older buildings in PE and Uitenhage were built with these bricks. When a town was developed in 1942, the name Despatch was chosen. Despatch became a municipality in 1945 and as everybody knows, today forms part of the Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan municipality. Sadly the brick business in Despatch is now a remnant of the past. The brick chimney can still be viewed standing tall and serene in a field on the outskirts of town alongside the railway line. Ask anybody in town if you can't find it. They will point you in the right way.

Sea Rescue

The National Sea Rescue Institute is for South Africa what the Coast Guard is for the USA. The difference? The NSRI is purely a volunteer organisation. Port Elizabeth is services by Station 6 which is situated in the Port Elizabeth Harbour. I feel the the volunteers of the NSRI are amazing guys and gals. They are divided into crews and each crew is on duty for a week in a month. This means that they are on standby 24 hours a day and will drop anything when the call for help comes through. They also give up their whole weekend during the duty week to man the station and do whatever is needed there as well as essential training.

Here one of the crews are busy with a training session at Bird Rock just off the beachfront with one of the Defence Force helicopters.

Victoria Park

Victoria Park is situated in lower Walmer close to South End and is one of the "lesser known" big parks around Port Elizabeth. I say lesser known because I can bet that most people living in the city has never been there. I went there for the first time myself not too long ago and really enjoyed the park. Its big and open so the chance that there are unsavory characters hanging around is very small and if they are you will see them coming a long way. There are big grassy areas and a couple of ponds with water lilies on them. Every year there are a couple of concerts in the part, most notably the Eastern Cape philharmonic orchestra annual concert in the park.

Donkin Reserve view

The view from the Donkin Reserve looking towards the Port Elizabeth harbour. The building in the left bottom is the Opera House. There are three towers visible. From left to right they are the City Hall, the Old Post Office and St Augustine's Catholic Cathedral. The building with the little pointy bits along its edge is Plein Huis.

Container ships

A couple of container ships lying at berth in the Port Elizabeth harbour. The PE harbour was built in the 1930's and is the 5th largest harbour in South Africa after Durban, Cape Town, Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay. The new industrial harbour at Coega will take over certain functions that is currently being done in the Port Elizabeth harbour, but it won't replace it. One of the things it will be able to do is to take ships that are a lot bigger than what the PE harbour can currently accommodate.

Old Railway Museum

Built on Market Street in Uitenhage in the year of the opening of the railway from Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage's Old Railway Museum is reputed to be one of the oldest railway stations in the country. The museum is quite quaint and has two vintage locomotives, a variety of coaches and lots of period furniture and equipment. The whole museum captures the atmosphere of the early days of steam with the building housing a residence, waiting room and tea room in addition to the station office. You can also learn more about the part Jack the baboon played in the early railway days in Uitenhage. The museum is slightly run down due to lack of funds and staff, but is worth a visit by railway enthusiasts.

Spar Ladies Race

This morning the Spar Ladies Race took place on the beachfront. It consist of 5km and 10km races. The Port Elizabeth leg of the race is one of the biggest in the country with nearly 10 000 entries. Most of the participants take part in the 5km which is mostly a fun walk with big and small as well as young and old taking part while the 10km is a much more serious race with some of the best runners in the country taking part. The race is only open to ladies, so men wanting to take part has to dress up in drag. For more pics, visit The Firefly Photo Files.

Some Spring got left behind

I saw these little pink flowers growing on the grass on the sea side of Marine Drive across the road from the Marine Hotel the other morning. They were only on this one patch bordered by the little palm trees and it kind of looked like Spring got stuck in between the trees and never left.