How not to dress like an Indian

This week is the last week of lectures, and also the busiest time for students frantically trying to finish and hand in all outstanding work. In the midst of all this, some friends and I got together and declared today "Indian Day" because two of us are indian. We ate curry and samoosas, burned incense and listened to music in a language we could not understand but sang along to anyway. Our interpretations of indian clothes was a little silly but hey, sometimes doing something silly is the most fun.

Hannah

Darsha

Cath

And meeee!

Sunrise at the Monument

#3 of my Anti-Bucket List - check!

This month I celebrated my 21st birthday, and managed to get down to checking some things off my anti-bucket list. On the morning of my birthday we drove to the Monument to watch the sun rise and enjoyed a champagne breakfast. It was an incredibly beautiful morning and being able to spend it with some of my best friends made it all the more special. I've always wanted to enjoy something as simple as a sun rise and it really was worth waking up at 4:30am.

Knysna

When a long weekend arrives, one cannot simply waste it working. And so with this in my mind I took a trip to Knysna this past weekend with two of my friends from university. I can now tick off 'go on a road trip' from my anti-bucket list.

Knysna is a stunning town in South Africa and it is conveniently close to where I study. The weekend began with a surprise party for Shivani's 21st at Tapas, and ended with a trip to the Garden Route Wolf Sanctuary where actual wolves roamed (this made me very happy!) In between, we squeezed in as much of the pretty sights of Knysna as we could, most of which involved water, whether it was the Knysna Heads, two cliffs facing each other at the entrance to the lagoon (seen in the photo above) or Leisure Isle or Thesen Island or the Red Bridge overlooking the Knysna River.

The beautiful birthday girl

Kelina and Shivani after a few cocktails

Birthday shots!

Shiv and I at the Knysna Heads viewpoint

Overlooking Leisure Isle

Missioning to find the prettiest shells

The Knysna Waterfront

Some of the boats lined up

Adding popcorn to my coffee ice-cream was a genius idea

The Red Bridge, an out of use iron bridge overlooking the Knysna river

They're actually quite normal, I promise

Admiring the sunset at the Red Bridge

One of the wolves at the sanctuary

Quick travels in the Eastern Cape

After finishing exams last week > insert HUGE sigh of relief< I was finally able to take a break. In between finally watching The Great Gatsby and Spud 2, I went to some of the touristy places nearby (anything to get away from the place I associate with studying). First stop: Hogsback.

These are the three waterfalls that we saw. The top left one was the smallest, but possibly the most beautiful to me. I liked that it didn't need to be large, loud and fierce to display its beauty. That's kinda how I feel about people too. The waterfall on the right is named the Madonna and Child waterfall for its resemblance to the painting (which needs a lot of imagination as I didn't see it). Hogsback is famed for its mountains, forests, hiking trails and being the inspiration for the setting of Tolkien's The Hobbit.

A labyrinth that drove me a little crazy after all that walking around in circles

The sun shining through the tangled tree branches above us; and the leaves that have fallen below.

The variety of trees alongside the pathway to the forest; and the forest itself.

The pathway through the forest was a bit scary at times, especially when the decks like the one above had boards broken or were slanted steeply to one side. I ignored the comfortable walking shoes rule and wore boots instead, because being sensible is just not something I do. 

Cath and her sister Tam were my fellow Hogsbackers for the day. 

While I enjoyed going away for the day and exploring the hiking trails, I think that Hogsback has so much more to offer, from the many craft stores to the fairy meander and quaint restaurants. This can only be fully experienced by spending more than a day there. Hopefully I can do this soon!

And then we went to the beach...

Three days after Hogsback, I set off on a rather spontaneous beach trip with Dave and Laura. We went to Port Alfred which is roughly 60km away and one of the closest beach towns. Content was the word Laura used to describe how she felt and I couldn't agree more after walking along the beach, lying in the sun and having delicious pizza for lunch.

I love polka dots and yes I know it's just a Coke can but it is so pretty!
Also, behold, Laura's content face, which is also quite pretty.

And in keeping with the prettiness for the day, here is some festive bunting that adorned the entrances to many of the shops in Bathurst, which is where we stopped at after Port Alfred. Bathurst is tiny and so I'm going to say it's more like a village than a town. It has the oldest pub in South Africa, as well as many craft stores, nurseries and vintage stores (which is my idea of heaven). I've decided to make many of the things that I liked instead of buying them, which is probably cheaper and more satisfying to create. First on the list is making my own bunting of course, as it is so so simple. Will post photos when I do!

Happy birthday Cath!

This weekend we journeyed out of Grahamstown and into the seaside town of Port Alfred. Cath turned 21 and it was lovely being able to celebrate the birthday of such a dear friend at the beach. It was the perfect opportunity to procrastinate (I wrote an exam the following day), pop open a bottle of champagne, enjoy the company of friends and take many many photos.

The weather was quite fickle at times but worked to our advantage - blue skies and sunshine at the beach followed by light drizzle coming in when we arrived back to Julia's cosy holiday home for tea and the best ever chocolate cake.

Driving back home we stopped at Bathurst to see the almost 17m tall man-made pineapple, one of the many out of the ordinary tourist attractions in the Eastern Cape. Yes, I felt like SpongeBob.

Simone says that it is tradition in her home to decorate the plate of the person celebrating their birthday with flowers, so she headed off to the garden to pick flowers for Cath. Is that not just the sweetest thing?

Adventures at Addo

Yesterday I got the chance to play tourist in my own country when Kel, Ange, Cath and I went on a mini road-trip to Addo, an elephant park just outside the town that I live in. We planned a day of no studying, no work, no distractions; just friends, food, fun times and the beautiful outdoors.

Kelina, Angela, Carissa, Catherine: forget duck faces, here are our roaring lion faces!

We spent the day driving around ticking animals off our check list as we spotted them. One of the biggest misconceptions about South Africa is that lions and elephants roam around freely and that we keep them as pets. This is obviously far from reality and so it was exciting for me to have these animals so close. I particularly enjoyed being about 2m away from this elephant's bum as we drove past.

On numerous occasions, Kel would point to something excitedly and we would all crane our necks to see what it was. Much laughter ensued as every spotting of Kel's turned out to be a false alarm as she spotted a log, a stone, some bricks, a heap of sand and a leaf. Time for new glasses perhaps?

At this point, Kel is most likely pointing at a tree which she thinks is a giraffe.

No sightings of lions and leopards unfortunately, but lots of elephants, zebras, warthogs, kudu, dung beetles (and LOTS of dung), mongoose, a Blue Crane (our national bird), ostriches, and a few other birds and animals. At times it felt like we were viewing a typical scene from a movie set in Africa, especially with the zebras running around and the warthogs hanging around a waterhole. There were many lone elephants walking around, but seeing an entire herd walking together was quite a magical moment.

We stopped at a few picnic spots throughout the park to take in the amazing views of the place. My love for the beauty of SA was reaffirmed, as well as the knowledge that I have some pretty damn awesome friends!