Lu-Gerda's Travels

I am almost to late for the Capture the Colour photo challenge  but it sounded like a lot of fun and I decided to give it a try. The challenge is simple, “publish a blog post showcasing five of your  favourite travel photographs which best capture the colour of our five categories:  red, blue, green, yellow and white”. Here are my picks from our trip to the Eastern Cape in South Africa in 2012: Green: Pier Street Mosque, Port Elizabeth White: Dutch Reformed Church, Alexandria Yellow: The Big Pineapple, Bathurst Blue: View from Magazine Hill, Graaff-Reinet   Red: Oldest Official Letter Box in South Africa, Grahamstown The instruction for the photo challenge is to nominate 5 fellow bloggers to take part.     Since the competition closes today, I will not nominate other bloggers.

Last year I borrowed my grandmother’s photo albums to scan all her photos.   Yesterday I was looking through these scanned photos and found this one of the Bellevue Seminary in Somerset East.   The description in Ouma Trudie’s album next to the photo was:  “Bellevue Saal – plek vir LO, 1948”  or Bellevue Hall – The place for PT, 1948 .  Bellevue Seminary 1948 Before her marriage to my grandfather Ouma Trudie was a gym teacher at Bellevue Seminary in Somerset East.   I knew that my grandparents lived here for a while but it was interesting to find the photos. In April 2012, while on our honeymoon, H and I visited Somerset East.   Here is our photo of the same building.    Bellevue Seminary 2012 The Old Bellevue Seminary in 72 Paulet Street is a National Heritage Site.   Rev JH Hofmeyer of the Dutch Reformed Church ask the church council of his church to build and finance a seminary for girls.   T...

In October 2008 we went to Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape of South Africa for my cousins wedding.   We left George early on the Saturday morning and drove the 3 hours to Graaff-Reinet.  We first went to the Acacia Guesthouse where we had rooms for the night.   The guesthouse was very nice. There were 4 rooms.   The two rooms in front had twin beds, a small bathroom with a shower and coffee making facilities.   The two rooms in the back are bigger with a small kitchen, bathroom and a double bed.   After unpacking we went to explore.   The guesthouse is close to town and we walked to the main road. Graaff-Reinet was established in 1786 and is the fourth oldest town in South Africa.   It was named after the governor of the Cape Colony, Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff and his wife whose maiden name was “Reynet”. We walked pass the Dutch Reformed Church where the wedding was taking place later. There are 5...

In October 2008 we were in Graaff-Reinet for my cousins wedding.   Before returning home on Sunday we decided to drive to the Valley of Desolation ( Vallei van Verlatenheid) . We went to a viewpoint and saw the amazing columns and beautiful Camdeboo plains.   The Valley of Desolation was declared a National Heritage Site in 1939.   It is about 14km outside of Graaff-Reinet in the Camdeboo National Park.   The piled dolerite columns are the product of volcanic and erosive forces of nature over 100 million years.      The Camdeboo National Park  also has other activities but we did not have enough time.   We will return one day to view game and birds and walk some more trails with views of the Valley.

In July 2012 my husband had to go to Port Elizabeth for business and we decided too make it a day trip.   We stayed over at my parents in George on the Friday night and left early on Saturday morning.   PE is about 322 km from George and we had a nice drive.   We stopped for breakfast at Stormsriver. After the business was done we drove to the Cape Recife Lighthouse.   The lighthouse is in the Cape Recife Nature Reserve.   It was built in 1851 to warn mariners of Thunderbolt Reef.   It is 24m high and is built on a rock foundation.   Unfortunately the lighthouse was being renovated.   Next we drove back to the city to the Donkin Reserve.   Earlier in the year we visited also visited the Donkin reserve and I wrote about the pyramid and the Hill Lighthouse .        This time we came to see the flag. This is the highest flagpole in South Africa and is 60 meters high.   It is also the home of the largest ...

We spend our last night in the Eastern Cape at Bhejane Game Reserve .   It was a great way to end the holiday.   We spend some time watching the sun setting over the mountains. The next day we drove the last 260 km home on Saturday and Monday it was back to work. (Not a sponsored post)

We left Graaff-Reinet after lunch on Friday to drive to our accommodation for our last night at Bhejane Game Reserve   near Willowmore.   After driving for about 60 km we stopped in Aberdeen. Aberdeen is a town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.   Aberdeen was founded in 1856 and was named after Rev Andrew Murray’s birthplace in Scotland.   We were only planning to take photos of the church but once we stopped and started to walk around we found some beautiful old buildings. Our first stop was at the Dutch Reformed Church in Van Riebeeck Street.   The congregation was started in 1855 and the church was built in two stages.   The first was completed in 1864 and the second in 1908. There is almost always something interesting to find while walking in these small towns.   We found this memorial for Carel Petrus van Heerden close to the church.   He was shot near the Dutch Reformed Church while stealing horses belonging to the...