Port Elizabeth, South Africa

This was a new port for us. The colonists named it after a wife of a governor, but Gqeberha has been the city's official name since 2021, which is a Xhosa word for the Baakens river that flows through the city.

Flags flying on our ship include the HAL flag, yellow fever flag, Holland flag, and the South African flag.

Our sail in revealed a fair sized city.

Instead of waiting for the shuttle, we walked out of the port.

 
Our goal was The Donkin Reserve, Pyramid and Lighthouse includes a Stone Pyramid Monument with a touching inscription erected by Sir Rufane Donkin in memory of his late wife, Elizabeth, after whom the city was named. It was not far from the dock, but it was up on a high point of land. We walked up through Market Square and then continued up to the Pyramid.

Sayings by Nelson Mandela are listed by year on this display.

Market Square and Town Hall.

A public library next to Market Square...

 
On the way up the hill, we saw a stone church and this art installation of half-vans mounted on the rocky outcrop.

At the top of the hill, there was this huge, ornate King Edward Hotel.

 
This lighthouse and the Pyramid monument with its impressive and extensive mosaic is in front of the King Edward Hotel.

  
What a remarkable monument!

And this circular mosaic was across the plaza from the Pyramid and was under a tree.

This was not as extensive as the pyramid mosaic, but I liked how the trees grow through the rainbows and fences.

 
A tribute to Nelson Mandela and his followers began on the level with the Pyramid and wrapped around the flag pole plaza down to the next level.

Metal silhouettes, representing his millions of followers, wrap around the flagpole wall.

Until they finally merge together into an amorphous line...

 
We got on the ship's shuttle from the Donkin Reserve back to the port and then boarded the next shuttle out to catch a ride to its other stop, a shopping mall. While we waited for the shuttle to fill, Henk, the hotel manager (for 19 World Cruises!) and Nyron, the shore excursions manger posed for a photo. The shopping mall was for wi-fi so we could call an Uber to drive us to The Nelson Mandela University's huge nature reserve. Our Google phone was not accepted by Uber, so one of the guys who was trying to sell private tours to our fellow shipmates as they got off the shuttle bus called a car for us.

 
It was about 11am when we arrived. It was only a few miles from that shopping mall and we arranged for our Uber driver to come back to pick us up at 3pm since we definitely could not call for a ride from there. The reserve was hundreds of acres and was surrounded by an electric fence to keep the wildlife contained. We signed in and climbed the ladder over the fence.

A photo from the top of that ladder provides a good overview of wild area as far as you could see.
This trail, called the Grysbok Environmental Education Trail, only covers a small portion of the reserve.

 
There was a wide array of prickly and succulent plants in this mostly arid habitat.

 
A cute terrapin was about six inches long. We like the trail markers that were painted footprints.

 
We had not been in the reserve but a few minutes when we were joined by Okhanyo, a student and future military man. He stayed with us and served as our local guide for the rest of the our time there. How nice. He said that this is how he spends his Sundays. We didn't see anyone else in the reserve.

What looks like a fungal activity on a specific tree species.

It was surprising to see several of these large bulbs with their zigzag leaves.

We walked along the edge of the reserve along a road and the land between that road and the shoreline seemed to support many more grasses than in the reserve. We guessed this was due to the grass-eating animals in the reserve: zebras, various antelopes, and the like.

 
We had seen many of these land snails along the way, but finally we saw some of the larger game...

We saw a family of plains zebras (Equus quagga) with a big male up on a hill, but he joined the family unit when...

...these two red hartebeests (Alcelaphus buselaphus) came into view.
Click this webpage for more on the mammals found in this reserve.

Okhanyo took us to the watering hole, which is a lined pond that is filled on a regular basis.

And he showed us the bee hives, which were fenced off to keep the animals away.

And a bird blind for watching birds at a wetland.

The view from the bird blind.

We climbed over the electric fence and signed out. Then he showed us the greenhouses where other students were working on research projects. He was not much of a gardener and was surprised when we showed him some rosemary bushes that someone was growing.

 
We wished him luck in his life and thanked him for being our guide.
We began walking toward the main gate for the university at 2:30pm. Our thought was that if our Uber guy did not come, then the guard at the gate could call someone for us, but our guy in the red car did show up early. We flagged him down. The Uber ride cost us about $3 each way, but we gave him a good tip, and in the end, we hoped that he would keep the ride back and that tip off the books since there was no call to Uber. This was our first Uber ride ever.

From the ship, this tall building was on the university campus and everything to the left of it was that reserve.

Another sepia-toned sunset as we sailed away from Durban.

Then we were off to Cape Town, where we spent two days.