Even tho’ we at Percy Tours are not the greatest of club football fans, we sure do enjoy our 4 yearly indulgence of World Cup footy action, supporting the under-dogs to overthrow bigger footballing nations. Being in Africa, we cheered on the African teams and much praise must go out to our 4 teams, who put some serious scares into the more established teams. So a big cheer goes out to Ivory Coast, Ghana, Angola and Togo.
With Germany hosting their perfectly organised games, many here in South Africa suddenly thought we had better get our skates on if we are to be ready to host our own World Cup in 2010. The South African press has (sadly) been slating its own country, by scare mongering, saying that we won’t be ready, but this Ladies and Gents is just sensationalised media propaganda aimed at doom and selling newspapers; when infact South Africa is already doing a mighty fine job at delivering infrastructural facilities – now!!
For example – South Africa already has its own World Cup logo designed and using it to full effect worldwide – when Germany only had its logo design ready 2 years before their games. South Africa 2010 merchandising is already on sale in many of the stores here too. In Jo’burg, the Finals stadium is already very close to being finished, with official announcements stating that the doors will be to open for action as early as OCTOBER 2006.
It’s a marvellous state-of-the-art complex, with the facilities being extremely ultra-modern and high-tech. The new Gauteng railway is already under construction, (a full year ahead of schedule) – this is the high-tech railway between Jo’burg and Pretoria to assist the transfer of football fans between games. Cape Town is also constructing a brand new train link from the airport to the city centre, covering the distance of 30kms.
This is some achievement as South Africa has a diabolic public transport system (ie. its non-existent) and roads are, for the majority, the ONLY mode of transport. So we all commend this project.
Cape Town has decided to build its brand new 68,000 seater stadium on the site of the current Green Point stadium, which will host many games, including one of the semi-final games. Located within a short (and safe) 10 minute walk of the magnificent V A Waterfront complex – with its multitude of top-class hotels, (like the award winning 5 star - Cape Grace, Table Bay and Arabella Sheraton), 100’s of shops, restaurants, bars, a large craft market, cinemas, open air amphitheatre, access to Robben Island and many other tourist attractions. However South Africa’s national side (called Bafana Bafana) is another story altogether and are currently a miserable shower, in comparison to other mightier African footballing nations, but we have a plan – South Africa has just employed the fine services of ex-Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira (4 times manager of a World Cup team, including Brazil who won under his managership).
He will certainly have his work cut out, but we are all urging him on to do a stunning job at turning around South Africa’s team. As a matter of fact there are many South African team members playing in major European clubs and this can only be extremely good for the sides training, skills, experiences and enthusiasm to be able to develop the national sides competitive edge fast. Cape Town has, for the last 5 years or so, been a mecca for the film and advertising industry, with over 48,000 filming licences being issued in 2005.
The amazing scenery, long warm sunshine hours all year round, magnificent architecture and cosmopolitan cultures has attracted many to use the city and its surrounding countryside as back-drops for movies and photo shoots. This is all about to explode into further attention with the proposed construction of the monstrous Dreamworks Film studios, about 15kms outside the city centre. And on that note - Cape Town has been recorded to have the 5th best sky in the world, following the 1st expedition to measure the planets bluest sky.
Measured by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, readings were taken in 22 countries over a 3 month project to establish the place whose heavens had the best hue, brightness and colour. Rio came 1st, Bay of Islands NZ 2nd, Ayers Rock Australia (Uluru) 3rd, Fiji 4th - San Francisco and London came last. Afew weeks ago, while on life-guard practice at Muizenberg beach, a young man had his right foot devoured by a rather hungry Great White Shark.
He has recovered very quickly and has had many offers of medical help from prosthetic limb companies and physios. Well, as we all know, if we humans continue to invade the territories (ie. the sea) of many of gods marvelous creatures, then we can hardly blame them for “reacting”.
I mean, would you get out of your car if you suddenly spotted 20 lions in Kruger Park? NO – should be your answer, unless you are stark-raving mad. Needless to say, Muizenberg beach now employs a team of shark spotters along the nearby mountain range, equipped with walkie-talkies and all important remote control siren alarm activators.
Percy Tours has been on “walk-about” and recently explored the mind-blowing area of the Cederberg mountain range, where at this time of the year the wild flowers bloom to create a huge natural carpet of colours. Not only is this area blessed as a Botanists heaven, but also there are San rock art paintings dating back to 6,000 years old. These intricate and elaborate designs are beautiful and show “hunter-gatherer” drawings, ancient cave life and African wildlife.
Hermanus is THE place in the world to get really up-close and personal with Whales. Greenpeace and WWF have stated that here is the best spot to view Southern Right Whales. Last weeks aerial count spotted 100 in the bay and last years record-breaking count was a staggering 138 whales.
Please check out Percy Tours new article on our Whales, on our “What to See and Do” page, by clicking the “Read More…” next to Whale and Dolphin watching. Over the winter period, Percy Tours enrolled and successfully completed the Cape Wine Academy wine college course and is now accredited as professionals in the Cape wine field. Not only that, but many new and award winning wines have just been released onto the local market, making our Wine Tours a very popular activity for many tourists.
:-))) In fact mention has definitely got to go out to 3 Canadian ladies recently – who between them managed to buy a whopping 26 bottles on a one day Wine Tour with Percy Tours – that has got to be a record by any-ones standards, the minibus was choke-a-block :-))) – and guess what, they took the entire lot back to Canada (in newly purchased suitcases) safely and with a minimum of added tax at Halifax airport by the Canadian customs police. Not one bottle smashed. That’s a mighty achievement.
Happy quaffing ladies. :-))) And infact on that day we also added our other minibus in convey to Stellenbosch, with 6 crazy Brits on board, who also bought an astonishing load of wine too. The Wineries utterly loved us that day :-))) Percy Tours also has written a Wine article, to keep you all informed – check out our “What to See and Do” page and click the “Read More…” next to Wine Tours.
As you can appreciate, with all this intense action going on, we have been clicking our new 8 mega-pixel camera at everything imaginable – so check out our ever increasing excellent montage of South Africa by clicking our photo gallery website, where there are over 150 stunning pictures for you to consume – throw it onto “View slide show” mode for a full and delightful display – Yes, it may be only the start of spring and the tourist season but by heck has it been manic, with Percy Tours already completing 5 full-on tours in just 4 weeks (and many day trips too). All power to them I say, as we have escorted 5 ladies around this marvelous part of the world on their own whirl-wind adventures. With just recently – one nurse from New York – Hi Amanda - one lady from Bombay – Hi Khushnuma and 3 ladies from Newfoundland, Canada – Hi Michelle, Carol Christine – and recently booked, for a huge 3 week mammoth exploration of this incredible region - one lady from Saudi Arabia – Hi Louise.
But where on earth are all the guys? Do all the guys just consume way too much time spending their hard earned cash on cars, music, dvds, clubs and getting rat-arsed??
I have no idea. Rain, rain, rain and some hot sunny days is what has occurred over the last 4 months, but this week has been much warmer and hit the 25 degrees mark today, so summer is here at last. Our reservoir is now 100% full, so we are ready for the next 8 months of hot weather to arrive.
Hippos are now on the Red Data Books endangered species list, after 100’s have been shot and eaten in Zimbabwe. On the Zimbabwe front – anyone travelling there should take note that the Zim dollar has suddenly just deduced 3 zeros off all their currency notes, so an old 250,000 note now equals 250. Ginger Baker, ex-drummer of Cream and the Eric Clapton band has just bought a farm in Tulbagh.
Percy Tours has now expanded its merchandising range to include - new t-shirts, jackets and sweatshirts and the new 2006 Percy Tours flyer is going down a storm at all our tourism partners establishments. :-))) And a new and gorgeous addition to Percy Tours is the fabulously lovely professionism of - Ronel - who has taken over the duties of our tours in the Hermanus area. She is a Wine specialist and enjoys the incredible landscapes of South African nature and scenery.
Where are you now - For anyone that keeps getting constantly pestered by very annoying notifications and emails from www.wayn.com, I humbly apologise.
Please delete these messages as this site has got to be one of the most un-user friendly sites in existence. It’s a complete nightmare to navigator or understand and I therefore apologise profusely for any inconvenience this site may have caused you. Please throw any emails you might get from these useless sods into your “block sender” folder, cos I want nothing to do with them, sorry, thank you and Cheers – DOH!
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These beautiful creatures have been released to breed with the other 4 and (hopefully) reduce the number of the local baboon troops, who regularly terrorise the dust bins of the Hermanus outer suburbs – hay that’s mans intervention into nature (once again) :-))) Cape Town and the surrounding area are currently under-going a period of electricity blackouts. The reason for this is that the nuclear power station, that has 2 generators, recently had a bolt “accidentally” thrown into one of them, which shattered its turbine. This means that only one generator is supplying electricity to the entire area, when 2 should be doing the job.
The replacement turbine needs to be built and exported from France and will take about 6 months to be fully operational. When that is fitted, the other generator needs to be shut down, serviced and refuelled with new nuclear fuel rods. (The current ones are “apparently” the wrong type) DOH!
! Square peg in a round hole any body??
So it’s all abit silly here presently. Candles, gas cookers, torches and petrol driven small generators have sold out in milli-seconds from local hardware shops, due to everyone exploring other forms of power. I am even considering solar panels to be put on my roof.
With the grape harvest well and truly complete, we only have afew more months to wait before the first wines of this season hit the shelves. With over 1,000 wineries in the Cape region, we are in for another quoffing bonanza. A local wine tour with Percy Tours, would never be complete without experiencing the new and quite excellent “Heaven” restaurant.
Bruce from the outrageous and highly acclaimed B’s Steakhouse, conjures up a lunchtime menu with so many mouth watering delights. Try his Babotie or Malay chicken curry or chilli steak – stunning!!
Set on a high view point that’s so mind bending and beautiful, that you wish you could stay for eternity. (Should I start a local eatery review page??
) Last weekend we investigated and indulged in the heady atmosphere of a food festival. Cheese was the main produce, but many other incredible delights were on offer, including wines, olives olive oils, meats, champagnes, oysters, herbs spices and much much more. Obviously we had to sample as much as possible - there's nothing quite like wondering around with a glass of excellent Pinotage, while munching on loads of delicious foods.
Our cupboards are now full with our many fabulous purchases too. :-))) Nicole the shark (nick-named after Nicole Kidman) recently was satellite tagged and tracked swimming from Gansbaai, (near Hermanus) South Africa, to the western shoreline of Australia and back again in 99 days. That’s an epic journey of over 22,000 kms.
Scientists speculate as to why she did this (the shark that is, not Nicole Kidman – dopey!!), but as this was the first satellite tagged great white from here, then this can only mean that this species regularly makes this incredible journey.
Robbie Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio, with the King of Jordon partaking in his second diving session. A new shark diving adventure, without the use of a cage in the open ocean, has just started. Viewing blues, makos and many deep continental shelf species.
Its mad and a fabulous experience. Cape Town was the place to be last month, with a full day concert of over 15 international bands playing over 12 hours, on 2 enormous stages. We were graced by the mighty Metallica headlining, Fat Boy Slim, Stereo MC’s, Collective Soul, The Rasmus and many more.
With over 10,000 music hungry nutters attending on a very warm day and a 3 hour queue for the over crowded beer tent, it certainly made for a mad day :-))) One evening we went to the fabulous Spiers (wine village) and had a highly indulgent meal at their Moyo restaurant – dining capacity of 1,800 people at one time, with a great range of foods served buffet style. Ethnic dancers and bands in all sorts of colourful costumes performed and played acoustic African sounds. The atmosphere is further enhanced by tree houses with large platforms and tables, water fountains and sculptural modern art features, huge sofa and cushion crash out areas, large oak trees draped in tiny lights and English rose maze gardens.
A great evenings entertainment. With over 20 or so forest fires in the region during the summer months, I actually witnessed one at very close quarters near Hermanus. High winds pushed the fire along at great speed and flames rose 100’s of metres into the air near a Shell Garage.
A police escort drove us thro’ the flames and I was very glad to see the other side of that mayhem. All rather scary and damn hot. Phew!
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Poor old Table Mountain had another fire hit it in February, which swept right across the cable car route and thankfully stopped at Devils Peak.
The Capetonians have a saying - that you can experience many different weather conditions in one day here - and that has certainly been true recently. With one very hot day hitting the 35 degree mark in early February and the next week it’s down to 15 degrees. Completely barmy.
Winter is on its way now tho’, with wind and rain starting to be a regular feature and the sudden need to get out the space heater and fleeces, to start up my little fire place and drink some corking red wines. For those in the northern hemisphere - Have a great summer everyone. This month I decided it was about time I did some extra studying and enrolled to do the Tour Guides course.
It’s a complex set of exams and covers (nearly) every South African topic imaginable – history, culture, politics, economy, health safety in the work place - right thro’ to tourism, animals, geology, plants, climate – and all points inbetween. This is no easy walk in the park either, as they estimate it should take about 8 to 12 months of hard home study to complete. Fingers crossed all.
March was quite a month and over a 12 day period Percy Tours escorted – a group of 6 UK nurses; a group of 3 UK Uni students and a Canadian lady around the many delights of the Western Cape. A trip last week involved chauffeuring a birthday party up to a game reserve, with champagne on ice for all. Wine tours have been very popular too – 4 crazy British people, 4 Dutch student teachers and a party of bonkers Swedish students.
Another exploration of the spectacular Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens was a fab walk around, with the amphitheatre stage being fully constructed by the road crews, for 4 concerts by the king of soft pop rock Bryan Adams. Percy Tours is always active in finding new ways to promote itself and this new addition to our marketing armoury will please those with an inquisitive mind and with absolutely no time at all to do all that searching for info. Please may I present to you all a one page hit of Percy Tours – Yes Percy Tours has another juicier that hell advert in a gloriously glossy magazine – check out - Explore South Africa (issue 10) and fest your eyes on page 39.
This magazine also goes into every SAA and Cathy Pacific airplane, is sent to over 300 travel agents in Europe, every foreign embassy in South Africa and given out free at the Durban Tourism Indaba in early May. Just last weekend Hermanus was thrust into the international lime light, with the arrival of over 1,000 international mountain cyclists riding into town, for the Cape Epic Challenge. With their whole entourage of support staff, caterers, T.
V. film crews on motorbikes and in helicopters, physios and following village of supporters adding another 3,000 people, the town was a buzz. The finishing line at the Hermanus, Old Harbour resembled a Tour de France spectacular.
The whole race covered a distance of 921 kms over 8 days. Come on – you know you desire an amazing holiday in South Africa with Percy Tours. Email us NOW!
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Cheers all, chat soon,
Hello from an ever increasingly very hot and sunny South Africa – summer is here and it’s a scorcher. 25 to 30 most days and it hasn’t rained for 10 weeks. Yeehaaaa!
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But b4 we get to that, lets start with cuddly animals – and we all know which ones are Percy Tours personal favourites – Richard E. Grant, Ruby Wax, Colin Jackson Amy Nuttel starred in the “Shark Bait” tv program, which was filmed here and watched by 3.6 million people in the UK on Sept.
4th. (Now available on satellite channels). Shark Lady Adventures, who were the dive operators for the program, got literally 1,000s of emails and had a UK newspaper, the Daily Mail, here the following Wednesday, who wrote a double page spread.
Then the “Jet Set” BBC National Lottery tv program was filmed here 2 weeks later and was aired to 10 million people in the UK. With another huge torrent of email enquiries. Afew weeks ago one boat witnessed the rare sighting of a seal kill by a great white breaching right out of the sea for its lunch.
On another day they saw an incredible 15 different sharks on just one dive trip. I have also been on 2 amazing trips recently to see these fabulous creatures. They are not the frenzied man eaters we are led to believe.
Much more purposeful and genuinely inquisitive. Shame that their only way to investigate things that interest them is with 7 rows of razor sharp teeth. I mean have you seen a shark (or dog or lion) feeling things with its body ?
? No, is the obvious answer. If you are as equally enthusiastic about these beautiful and graceful creatures, then you have got to click to this amazing site – They have a Brad Pitt exclusive from when he was here in 2004, as well as news on a small great white at Monterey Bay Aquarium, with live webcams viewing many huge tanks and viewings of many large marine beauties.
While travelling around this incredible country recently, Percy Tours has seen some new sights and amazing eye openers. Witnessed the majestic courtship displays of over 26 Blue Cranes in one field, jumping about merrily, flirting their stuff to prospective partners. Dangerous Puff Adder snakes lazily sunning themselves on the road (which can easily grow up to 2.
5 metres long and the width of your forearm, and are very poisonous indeed); in November, the aerial survey microlight planes spotted a new record of 138 whales in the bay; I got within inches of some very timid antelope – Eland, Kudu, Bontebok and Oryx, as well as 2 Rhino only 30cms away from me and had my eyes jump out of their sockets when I saw over 100 flamingos in our local lake. 2 huge fires have very nearly burnt all the sides of Table Mountain, leaving it bald and charcoaled (one started by a 32 year British backpacker – who was arrested for manslaughter after the fire claimed the life of an old lady). Even bigger news than that - we had a huge bush fire near Hermanus last week - it started near Napier (near Cape Agulhas) and spread along an area covering 70 kms long and at least 10 kms wide - it raged for 6 days and the smoke went out to sea, straight across Walker Bay and over to Cape Point – the fires only stopped when it went across the road between Hermanus to Gansbaai and got to the beach and hit the sea - Die Kelders (a suburb of Gansbaai) only just about escaped, with about 200 metres of ground between the edge of the fire and the first row of houses.
People had to be evacuated for a day from their houses and the road was closed by police for 2 days. It destroyed not only vast areas for farmland and Fynbos but also claimed most of the 5 star Grootbos Nature Reserve. It has now left a huge eerie, sandy and chard landscape that is very bear and empty, which experts say will take at least 5 years b4 it returns to some state of normality.
Newspapers claim it was set off by a farmer welding an irrigation pipe. Nutter!!
! Some covering the enormous distance of 5000 kms. From the Mother City of Cape Town, all the way to Port Elizabeth and all points inbetween.
One tour (thank you Chris and Davina – we had a great time showing you the many sights of Southern Africa) even started in Victoria Falls, with Percy Tours escorting our clients there on helicopter flights, a safari trip to Chobe in Botswana, colourful and buzzing markets, river cruise up the Zambezi and elephant back treks. With all clients opting to do so many different activities from - paragliding, tree canopy rope slides 25 metres off the ground, shark diving, whale watching, sandboarding, quad biking, kloofing, bungee jumping - to the slightly more relaxed pursuits of - very scenic river boat cruises through 1,000 year old forests, elephant parks where you actually touch them all over – have you ever felt behind an elephants ears b4 ??
If not, then you will do on a Percy Tour as it defies belief; Safaris to see all manner of wild animals in their natural environments; many spectacular deserted beaches, Cape of Good Hope, lofty mountain tops, deep canyons and gorges, immense fertile plains and valleys growing every crop imaginable; wine tours of Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Hermanus, Bonnievale, Constantia, Ashton and Montagu; Eco rain-forest restaurant hide-aways; horse riding, pampered chilled out massages and 5 star luxury accommodation. Cuisine decadence is never far away either – kudu, springbok in chocolate sauce, Kynsna oysters champagne, warthog, ostrich, huge lobsters prawns, cape salmon, eland, nouveau cuisine and a la carte, sushi, crocodile, all washed down with wines from the 1000 or so wine farms in the Western Cape. It was great to escort by mum and her man Brian around for their 2 week non-stop tour.
I think mum finished off over 8 rolls of film, crazily snapping away pictures of nearly every scenic view and wild animal. My mate Roger (accompanied by his lovely lady Bev) came over for his 2nd time in a year to bask in the heady atmosphere of sun drenched South Africa. My kidneys needed some recovering after those hedonistic parties.
With my Dad and his fab girlfriend Judy, visited this fabulous country at Christmas to see what all the fuss was all about and left very elated indeed. With Percy Tours having a further 3 tours booked confirmed over the next 3 months, including 14 Italians for a 8 day trip and a group of 6 nurses from the UK. It was Percy Tours utmost pleasure to have escorted 18 fantastic Russians around the Western Cape over a 9 day period in early January.
With 2 minibuses, 2 trailers, 3000kms covered, scuba diving amongst seals and cage diving with great white sharks. Visiting Oudtshoorn – Cango Caves, wildlife park (with it’s all new Crocodile cage diving facility), Ostrich farm and the magnificent Tsitsikamma for tree top slides and eco-tours of the forests. And by heck did this lot know how to party – frozen bottles of Vodka drunk by the gallon, with the very best seafood of lobster and prawns and some mad dancing each night.
Percy Tours was worn out just watching the utter mayhem unfold. Great fun!!
In late January, Percy Tours zipped 2 friends from Devon (Tom Sara) around Cape Town and the Overberg region for 2 weeks. Sun downers, big steak braais, township tours, dazzling markets, Table Mountain (luckily afew days b4 the huge fire engulfed the mountain), wine tours, on safari to see loads of animals, kloofing and sea fishing trips. They were so happy here that they kept insisting that they were going to stay forever.
Fancy another lobster, a Amarula Dom Pedro or some more deep fried ice cream? Well it’s about time you went down to your local news agent, cos the all new Time Out magazine of Cape Town is on the shelves – and feast your eyes on page 22 as there’s an advert by Percy Tours in there. With a secret “Special Offers” website page for you to obtain some nutty bargains and freebies while here.
Check it out folks!! Well it’s a hearty congratulations to Percy Tours on the birth of our new arrival – yes we have a 2nd minibus, and not just any old minibus – this beauty has even more luxury than our 1st minibus.
With even more power in the engine department and many more added luxury features – isn’t it about time you reclined into some real 5 star VIP treatment with us? Pounding Purple Percy has immerged from a long slumber to rock 2 parties recently. Firstly a New Years Eve house party attended by over 40 adoring fans (cough cough !
!) and a 30th birthday party on an isolated farm. Needless to say much merriment and tom foolery was had by all, with not a single rotten fruit or vegetable being thrown at the stage thankfully, cos it’s a blighter to get off computer keyboards and amplifiers.
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