Plettenberg Bay 27 December - 13th January 2013

Plettenberg Bay
Thursday 27th December - Sunday 13th January
Bryce's blog on Keurbooms and Plett

Hi!  I am Bryce, I have a brother whose name is Mitch and a sister whose name is Aimee and a mom and dad. We have a big truck that we camp in. Well now that you know me and my family, I will begin. Every year we meet up with friends of ours that live in Cape Town and we stay at Keurbooms campsite in Plettenberg Bay. Our friends names are Uncle Brett, Aunty Lianne, Tim and Jaime. This time we are going to be staying here for 19 days, it is very nice to camp because you make a lot of friends and get in touch with, nature. My friend Tim loves to go fishing on the lagoon so he wakes up early in the morning and goes fishing with his dad. We took part in an event called the Sabrina Love Ocean Challenge. This is for a girl , Sabrina who had a rare bone disease. She learned how to move her wheelchair around and she evven attended ballet classes. Sadly she died just a month before her seventh birthday. The money that is raised goes to research on the bone disease so that they can help other people that have it.
For the race that we did we swam in the dam and ran in the forest. We jumped over branches, crawled under a net, ran over a bridge suspended on water and right near the end we climbed up a bog blow up slide. We got a picture taken with Natalie du Toit and she also handed out awards. It was lovely and I would like to do it again sometime.

SABRINA LOVE CHALLENGE - 29th December

NATALIE DU TOIT- handed out the medals

Now that Mitch and I can surf, we made a few trips to the beach and even went to Buffels Baai where we met up with our second cousins. We swam, boogie boarde, surfed and played on the beach. We had chip rolls for lunch and this is becoming our standard beach lunch.
We also went to Adventure Land which is a water park with lots of slides.My dad and I went on the steepest slide and it is very fast. Can you guess what we had for lunch? If you guess chiprolls you would be correct.
We also did a cycle which we do every year but we couldn't do our normal route as there were baboons fighting in the path so we turned around and chose a different route.
The one day there was such strong winds that it ripped Uncle Brett's rally awning. Tim, Mitch, Jaime, Aimee and I were always riding our bicycles around the camp. We would also skateboard around the camp by towing the person on the skateboard with a rope behind our bikes. We played a lot of cricket and one day we even played cricket in the lagoon.
It was sad to say goodbye to the Kelly's but we would see them at the end of the year.

KEURBOOMS LAGOON

 Jaimee & Aimee

 ADVENTURE LAND

 BENGES VISIT ON WAY TO CAPE TOWN

The Benges came to spend a day with us on their way through to Cape Town for holiday. It was great to catch up with them and to spend some time together at the lagoon.

Saturday 15^th -  Friday 21^st December

Yellow Sands

After packing up the house for the people coming to rent over December and packing up the motorhome for the holidays it ended up being quite a few hectic days before we left Glen Navar. We arrived at Yellow Sands and did a very quick setup as the children had a dress rehearsal for their guitar concert the next day.

We dropped the kids at dress rehearsal and then went back to fetch Maxie from home to drop her off at the kennels for the holiday, always great to see how she wags her tail at the very posh kennels and seems very happy to be back again.

After a very quick surf for the boys the following morning, we headed off to the guitar concert at Amalinda Nursery and the children did so well with their Christmas carols on a boiling hot day. After the guitar concert we were very happy to head back down to the beach even though the water was freezing.

Mitch's blog on Yellow Sands
We stayed at Yellowsands from 15th to the 21st December. We camped with our friends Sebastian and Jaimee. While we were at Yellow Sands we had fun at the trampoline, swimming pool, riding our bikes, playing at the barn and floating down the river. The one day we did a church camp at the beach and it was loads of fun. We also did a guitar concert at Amalinda Nursery. The Dickes, our friends came for a braai one night. We also did a bit of boogie boarding and surfing. The water was freezing during the time we were there. On the last night we went to Areena for supper and we saw a snake trying to get into the restaurant through the sliding door. On the last day we were very sad to leave but we were on our way to Arendsnes in Chintsa.

Guitar concert

The next couple of days were spent  enjoying  the beach and the van der Merwe’s company around the campfire. We were lucky with the weather & the kids were able to get some good surfing/boogie boarding days.

van der Merwe & Du Preez kids at Yellow Sands

Friday 21^st – Monday 24^th December

Arendsnes-Chintsa East

We arrived at Arendsnes early on Friday and set up a very simple camp. Aimee could not wait to see her friend, Leah and persuaded Bryce to cycle with her down to Leah’s house where she spent the afternoon playing. Mitch and I had picked up a nasty tummy bug which kept us running backwards and forwards to the ablutions.

I went for a walk with Caroline, Antoinette to a lady in Chintsa that sells very tasty cheese and when I got back to the campsite we had a lovely visit from a couple we had met in Pomene in Mozambique earlier in the year. It was great to catch up and in the evening we went for some drinks at the Bowling Club over the road from the campsite.

Cable car ride- Leah & Aimee

The next couple of days were spent on the beach and chilling around the campsite. The Emslies came to visit on the Sunday and we all enjoyed our time together.

Emslie & Du Preez clan

 Freaky Storm on Chintsa beach

Aimee's blog about Chintsa(Arendsnes)

When we got to Chintsa we setup and then I cycled to my friend's, Leah, house. By the way she also lives in Chintsa. The next day we went to the beach and we surfed and boogie boarded. When we got back from the beach we went to the pool and swam. The next day Leah came to play at our campsite and we went on a cable car ride up over the trees of the campsite. The following day Leah and I surfed together and it was so funny because whenever one of us fell off we would burst out laughing. After the beach we went back to the campsite and swam in the pool and after that we packed up and went to Granny and Papa's house for Christmas Eve and on Christmas day we drove to P.E.

On the Monday we left Arendsnes and headed to Four Seasons where we spent  Christmas Eve with mom & dad Du Preez and Craig and Viv, who were visiting from Jhb. It was great to all be together for Christmas. We woke up on Christmas morning and after a quick breakfast we headed for P. E. to spend the rest of Christmas day with the Brown side of the family.

 

Christmas Eve at Granny & Papa Du Preez house

 Tuesday 25^th – Thursday 27^th December

Port Elizabeth

 We arrived at about 11h30 and after a quick exchanging of presents we headed to Heidi’s moms house where we all had an awesome Christmas lunch. The following day Grant, Marc & the boys went to watch the cricket at St Georges and had a great day. In the evening we had a very special braai at Grant & Michelle’s house with all the Young cousins that were also visiting in P.E. I cannot remember the last time we have all been together and the end of the evening was spent singing some old favourites with Pam leading on the guitar.