IT IS GOOD TO GET OUT

It is widely believed that travelling – whether locally or abroad – is good for us for all sorts of reasons. While I have been abroad a few times, most of our travels have been around South Africa – and we haven’t even scratched the surface of places to experience for the first time. Mention ‘travel’ and one or other ‘exotic’ location seems to spring to mind. There is a tendency to overlook what our home environment has to offer (forgetting that other people make the effort to come and explore our ‘home ground’) and to plan a trip much further afield.  Looking through my archives, I have chosen five nearby destinations and one further away to show how travelling can expose us to new things, and provide an opportunity to experience different parts of the country and ways of doing things.

Not even ten kilometres from our town we can enjoy completely different scenery as we drive along the Beaumont Valley road and on towards Bathurst. This is a wonderful place to see aloes blooming en masse during the winter, to view vegetables being grown under irrigation on a vast scale, and to see dairy farms close up.  Along the way one comes across this interesting vegetation on the steeply sloping, semi-arid, river valleys.

This Albany Thicket is comprised of dense impenetrable vegetation dominated by spiny, often succulent, trees and shrubs such as Spekboom (Portulacaria afra) and Euphorbia bothae.  Just over half an hour away is the interesting hamlet of Bathurst situated on the left bank of the Kowie River. It was founded in 1820 and still boasts some very old buildings. Among these is St. John’s Anglican Church, which is the oldest unaltered Anglican church in South Africa. This is a part of its tower.

Nearly 98 kilometres from home is the world-famous Addo Elephant National Park – an easy distance if we want to visit it for only a day. How can I not show you one of the hundreds of elephants one can see there? This one is standing on the edge of the Hapoor Waterhole.

Now, travelling a little further is the second oldest city in South Africa, Port Elizabeth (the name of which has recently been changed to Gqeberha). Here is where we go for medical reasons and to shop for items not available in our neck of the woods. There are so many interesting parks and places of historical interest to see there that I will highlight an unusual one, the bronze Sacramento canon at Schoenmakerskop.

A brief history of it can be read on this plaque.

Travelling just over 750 kilometres from home along the N1 takes us to the seaside fishing village of Arniston, established over two hundred years ago. There are numerous holiday homes hugging the shoreline and the hills above, alongside which is the Kassiesbaai Fishing Village, where the local fishing community live in a range of cottages built in a similar style to this one.

One really does not have to travel far in order to ‘recharge’, to experience new things, to meet interesting people, try out new foods, or to learn about the history of one’s country. There is no doubt that travelling is good for you!