Travels in April Part I

Yikes it's May 3rd and I"m just updating now! Big apologies for the delay but I have been travelling 97% of April so perhaps you`ll forgive me.

Well, at the beginning of April I spent a week up in Nelspruit attending the 4th Forest Engineering Conference which the university hosted. I was on the organizing committee so it was lots of work but also a lot of fun. Mostly we were running around the hotel so I don`t have too many nice photos but it was a nice hotel and the conference was a great success. I made many new friends and learned a lot which was great.

After the conference, I was back in Stellenbosch for three days before going to Weza plantation to work and gather more data for research. Weza is in KwaZulu-Natal province and about 3 hours north-westish from the Indian Ocean. The surroundings reminding me a lot of Calgary actually, although the cows apparently don`t deal with fences.

We had many a slowdown/full stop for cows as you can see. The nice thing about all this incredible rangeland is the best Biltong ever! We stopped in Kokstad and bought really good, really cheap biltong. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Biltong is South African jerky. Usually made of beef, it can also be made of Kudu or Springbok or other game animals. Anyways, it differs from jerky in that its usually quite soft and chewy. Super delicious! Anyways, if you want the best biltong, Kokstad is the place to be.

After a long week of getting up early (4:45 am for me) to track trucks and skidders, we took Friday afternoon off and went to the seaside town of Port Edward.

Here we are at Leisure Bay enjoying the afternoon sun and the sandy beach. Port Edward is just behind that ridge. It wasn't warm enough to swim but we walked on this beautiful sandy beach. I also put my foot in the Indian Ocean for the first time which was pretty neat.

After the beach though, we went to see the Mtamvuna Canyon. The Mtamvuna river divdes KwaZulu-Natal province from the Eastern Cape and Transkei.

 The canyon was really incredible. It's hard to get a sense of scale from the photos but it's huge. In the photo above, you can see the Eastern Cape and the start of the Transkei which is beautiful rolling planes. I haven't been there yet, but hopefully later during my stay here in South Africa.

After our stop at the canyon we had a nice dinner and early night before heading the Durban the next day...but more about that next post!