ElephantsAbroad

We’ve been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Kip’s parents and our wish was granted on Friday. They arrived fairly fresh and very excited to see us.

We let them enjoy one day of recuperation from the flight before we made them jump in the car for our two hour trip to Hermanus. There was a little protest about why exactly we were making them travel somewhere the day after they arrived from their 24-hour travel day but we assured them it would be worth it. Having not been to Hermanus before, I think both Kip and I were praying a little that, yes, it would be worth the drive and repacking. Thankfully, we were right.

After a gorgeous coastal drive we arrived at beautiful Birkenhead House. I had high hopes for the hotel knowing that it is a sister hotel to our first love, La Residence, in Franschhoek. Birkenhead House is situated on the cliffs overlooking Walker Bay. A few friends told us we’d be able to see whales from the hotel but I sort of brushed them off, not wanting to get my hopes up only to be disappointed by Mother Nature. After being in South Africa for 5 months though, you’d think I would have learned by now, Mother Nature rarely disappoints. We saw whales. Lots of them!

The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for our first day. We basked in the sunshine, much like the whales we were spying on, and had lots of time to catch up with one another.

Even though we could see the whales from the hotel, we decided to book a boat trip for Sunday morning to get the full experience. It was cold, misty and full of children. Three of my least favorite things. I would actually say the boat ride was a complete miss if it weren’t for the shark sighting. We saw whales up close; which was neat but not as impressive as I expected. I guess I was being a typical tourist and expecting some National Geographic photo ops. That did not happen. In fact, I am not posting any of our whale photos because they are simply not worth the bandwidth. After the whales, we took off to visit Seal Island… home to 60,000+ not-seal sea lions. Much like the penguins we visited a few months ago, cute but pungent.

As we were heading back to solid ground, the skipper announced we were going to stop by another boat to see if we could see a shark. Again, I didn’t get my hopes up. When will I learn?! We were there for maybe 5 minutes before we saw a huge great white shark hurl itself out of the freezing ocean. I was a little scared but mostly in awe. Again, there are no photos so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Needless to say, Hermanus and Mother Nature didn’t disappoint.

The Morlots are here until Sunday and I leave on Monday for Botswana. My goal is to post about the rest of their trip before I leave for mine. Fingers crossed for good wifi on Sunday.