Blog Update – 7 January – 14 January 2013

We left Natures Rest, after breakfast.  So far,so good, with the campervan.  The leafsprings that Fiat had installed to lift the van, were working a treat.   Yay, so now we could attempt to travel a little further.  We had made a booking, just the day before at Green Fountain Farm Resort, about 6kms from Port Alfred Centre.  The Resort is owned managed and run, ably assisted by Jannie and her husband as the live in Manager/s.  The beauty is that it is ‘dog friendly’ and we got ‘pensioners rates’.  Haha, I know we aren’t pensioners yet, but we are granny and grandpa…that count’s for some, doesn’t it?????

Green Fountain Resort has a caravan/campsite situated on the border of the adjoining farm, also belonging to the owners.  We set up our camk with a view of a male ostrich and his harem.  This was our dog’s first encounter with ostriches.  LOL.  Gypsey had a good olde bark at them, just letting them know we had arrived and that they were supposed to get  used to sharing their space with us. Being a resort, Green Fountain also offer bungalows for rent, these are mostly privately owned, so each one is differently decorated. The bungalows come in varying sizes, up to 8 sleepers.  The Resort boasts its own Chapel, two swimming pools, a duck pond, playpark for the kids and each campsite/caravan site has its own private bathroom….what luxury.

My sister Peta, her husband and two kids were staying in Kenton-on-Sea, about a 30 minute drive from Port Alfred, so we spent an afternoon and evening with them, braaing and kuiering.  The lagoon at Kenton is gorgeous, so are the beaches, so our dogs were once again treated to a wonderful walk, although this time on lead, we didn’t want to upset the locals, now did we.

Port Alfred has a small shopping centre with all the necessary ‘retail therapy’ one needs, without having to drive too far and BONUS, we found a family run butchery just outside Port Alfred who were happy to make the dogs some BARF.  Stress now zero for me anyway.

We met Peta, Mac and the kids at the Brewery Restaurant in Wharf Street (the oldest street in Port Alfred).  We had an amazing lunch, washed down with local beer.   John and I had previously visited the restaurant and had scrummy fish and chips.

John, armed with his camera and permission from the owners of the farm, left early one morning to visit the resident Nguni herd.  They are a local cow, actually quite beautiful to look at and very different from the ‘normal cows’ we know.   There was a bull with his flock of nguni cow wives, all just quietly getting on with life.   The bull was a little inquisitive of John to start with, think perhaps he thought there might be some competition there LOL.  After eyeing John and giving him the once over, he seemed satisfied that there was ‘little competition’ from this human and carried on his daily business of scanning his ‘cow wives’ to see who was the ‘one’ today.

The days were warm and the evenings windfree, so it made it easy to decide what to cook…….SA’s favourite ‘braai’.    All too soon our visit to Port Alfred came to an end, we had decided that we would head to Port Elizabeth, sleep over at Willows for a further night, then head to Addo Elephant Park for three nights.  Just one small challenge, to find a kennel that I was satisfied my dogs would be happy going to AND sourcing their food.