Next trip is a big one!

The next tour I have been booked for is a lovely one, 17 days driving all the way from Johannesburg to Cape Town. The basic itinerary is to go from Jhb to the Kruger Park, through Swaziland to the northern section of Kwa-Zulu Natal, down to Durban, through the south coast to the Wild coast of the Eastern Cape, on to East London, Port Elizabeth, Knysna (The Garden Route), Oudtshoorn (Little Karoo) and in to Cape Town. I love doing this trip as some of the stop-overs are for 2 nights, this takes the pressure off and gives everyone the chance to explore the area, meet with the locals, get a feel for the culture/traditions in the area and most importantly to relax and enjoy their holiday. Lucky me as I should be doing one in April and then again in May.

March Tours

Well here I am the 15th of March and 2 tours finished. Tour 1 was a gas, I had a great bunch of Canadians. We did the usual around Cape Town then went off up the Garden Route. For me the Highlight was the ocean cruise with Ocean Blue in Plettenberg bay, 2 hours of Dolphins and seals. Our first encounter was with a small pod (school?) of Bottle Nose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) near Keurboomsstrand, there were about 10 in the pod. They were playing in the surf zone where we followed them for about 10 to 15 minutes when the skipper of the boat spotted a much larger pod of Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis) out in the middle of the bay. This pod was about 75 animals strong with a large number of calves. We followed the pod for more than half an hour as they moved across the bay towards the Robberg peninsula. I tried to take some photos but only realized later that I had set my ISO too low, I should have set it at 800ISO and not left it at 100 or 200, hence the shutter speed was too low. One can only learn by ones mistakes. A few shots are reasonable, Oh well, maybe next time I will do better.

Tour 2 was dealing with a very large group from USA. They arrived on Saturday, did their thing of going to Cape Point on Sunday, even with the Cape Argus Cycle Race on, flew down on "Choppers" met by the coaches and after lunch came back by road. I played the role of 'Taxi-Taxi', driving the guests to and from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront for the morning, then when all had been sorted out we were told we can go home BUT DO NOT forget to be at the coach depot at 05:45 for the transfer to the airport for their onward flight. Home by 09:30 with a days work finished!