Lu-Gerda's Travels

It is wonderful what kids can remember.   I only took my son for one visit to the DiasMuseum in January 2017 and every time we drive is the direction of the museum he asks if he can go to the boat.   After another request from him in December 2017 I decided it was time for a second visit to the museum. The entrance fee to visit the museum complex was R 20 for an adult or for R 40 per adult you can enter the museum and go on the replica of the carvel. For children under 18 the fee is R 5 or R 10.   I think children under 6 years can enter for free. My son, JW was 3 year old and I did not pay for him. The main attractions of the museum for my son, JW is climbing on the boat. But if we start our visit by climbing on the boat he will never understand why he can’t go back to climb on the boat again. So we start by taking a walk through the garden towards the Shell museum and saved the carvel for almost last. Aquariums in the Shell Museum The Shell Museum i...

I did a post last week about our favourite kids’ outings in our neighbouring town, George.   Our home town, Mossel Bay, a small town next to the ocean and mainly a  summer holiday destination.  Thousands of people come here to spend time near the ocean during December and January.   Here are some of our favourite things to do with our  3-year old son JW: 1.   The Ocean – Swimming, Playing in sand, collecting shells…. and many more Mossel Bay’s main attraction during the summer month is the beach.   And there is a lot of them to choose from.  For toddlers and younger kids I would suggest the paddling pool at The Point (I usually take my son early, before it gets too busy and the sun to hot) or Santos with is small waves.  For bigger waves rather try Hartenbos or Diaz Beach. 2.   Hartenbos Seefront Fun Park There is a lot to do at the Hartenbos Fun Park… Swimm...

I live in Mossel Bay. The town is next to the ocean and it is a very popular vacation destination during summer.  From mid December to early January it is very busy and we try to stay away from the shops and tourist places during the day. So when things started to calm down after New Year I decided to take my 2.5 year old son (JW) to visit the Dias Museum Complex.  My last visit to the museum was in 2012 when I went during my lunch hour.  This time we arrived at about 10:00 and spend about 90 minutes at the museum.  (There was still more to see but after 90 minutes my son was getting tired and we went home) The entrance fee is R 20 for an adult to visit the museum or R 40 to visit the museum and go onto the replica of the carvel.  Children are divided in 2 categories.  There was no fee for JW.  (I think children start to pay from 6 years and older) Entrance fees are paid in the Granary and we then walked through the building to the re...

Today is this blogs 5th birthday. After a lot of debating with myself I published my first post on Monday 20 February 2012.  The post was about a visit to the Outeniqua Transport Museum in George.   For the first two years I posted regularly…about 10 times a month on average.  Then in 2014 my husband got sick and our son was born and only 14 posts were written in the last 3 years.  This year I am trying to get back to regular post.  My goal is one post every 2 weeks.  This is my 5 th post for the year.  Let’s see if I can keep it going for the whole year. *** On 16 December 2016 I visited the Outeniqua Transport Museum with my husband H and our 2-year old son JW.  I did not realize that it was 5 years since our last visit to this museum or that a post about the museum will be perfect on the 5th anniversary of my first post. H loves old trains and he passed this love to our son. Both were very ex...

I started to post about our short trip to Prince Albert in October 2015 but did not finish.  Before visiting Prince Albert we did not know a lot about the town. It was bigger than we expected and there were a lot of old buildings to photograph.  Fransie Pienaar Museum One of our first stops was at the Fransie Pienaar Museum. This was n very interesting museum about the history of the town.  Unfortunately they do not allow photos inside the museum.  My fingers itched to take photos.  There is a small shop in the museum but I was disappointed that they did not postcards or photos about the museum’s collection. The museum shop did have very interesting small books about the town written by Helena Marincowitz.  We bought two books: “Prince Albert and the Anglo Boer War” and “The Old Gables of Prince Albert”.  This is when we learned about the Prince Albert Gable. The gable style was brought to South Africa by the settlers from Holland....

After walking around in Dorp Street we made our way to the Braak or “fallow land”.   This open piece of land had many different uses over the years from fair grounds, market place and military parade. At the one end we saw a small white building surrounded by a wall.   The date on the building was 1777 and immediately we were interested.   At first I thought it was a church due to the bell tower.   And I guess that was the reason the bell tower was added to the building. This was the V.O.C Kruithuis or Powder Magazine built in 1777 to store ammunition.   It is the only remaining powder magazine from the days of the VOC.   Today it is a museum.   The entrance fee was only R5 and we decided to take a look inside.   The museum displays a collection of firearms, cannons, military uniforms etc. It is very small with only two rooms.   It did not take long to look at all the displays.   Included in the entrance...