Moving on - Eastern Cape

After a couple of days relaxation here in Plettenberg (read walking by the beach, reading, and showering as many times as I can without it being strange OCD type behaviour)and dodging the cockroaches in my room - they were only babies and somehow that didnt seem so bad. im ready to move on.  Ive just walked 1km up a hill so steep i thought my backpack would drag me back down and now relaxing in a quaint coffee shop at the top, they have something called a 'harvest table' here, ive not seen this before.  The idea is, you pick what you want to eat and are charged R19 per 100g, i wonder if this is a good answer to food waste? (19 rand is about a £1)  Im going to hole up here as long as i can on the free wifi (it's 11.30 now and my bus is 1.4km away at 2pm so i reckon ive at least and hour or two) How long can you reasonably make a latte last? I cant have another else ill be on the ceiling!
As i walked away from the last job ive got the luxury of ten days or so free until my next masterplan (more about that later) Ive spent a stupid amount of time online trying to figure out where to go and what to do.  The next big town is Port Elizabeth so ive booked the Intercape bus to go there this afternoon and a backpackers in town called The Hippo for four nights.
I can see that the Addo National Elephant Park is nearby and theres a good chance of seeing lots of native animals in their natural environment which i really fancy doing cost permitting.
Workaway isnt giving me much choice for the next few weeks in the area and im not quite ready to leave SA just yet - my visa has a few more weeks on it so ill see what i can do before i leave.

Ive booked a backpackers called Hippo in Port Elizabeth and am hoping its nice, a female shared dorm was £10 a night.

Major annoyances thus far are my kit failing, i spent out on what i assumed to be decent stuff as i wanted it to last the distance and its been wholly disappointing, North Face hoody, zip broken, Montane trousers and shorts - really bobbly fabric now, and worst of all my beloved Vibram Fivefinger trek shoes have holes in them, at three months old this really isnt acceptable.  Its hard to make any kind of complaint when you are 9000 miles away but im having a go!  So im a few items down and getting quite sick of the same clothes all the time after six weeks, first world problems huh?

Right, time to see what fun things there are to do in Port Liz.....
In a later post ill tell you about my next big plans, but i can't reveal it just yet (otherwise ill have to kill you etc etc)

Run Away not Workaway!

Ok so this place is strange, harmless strange but wow. Essentially the animals run the house, and the weeds, you need to know about these.

Seven dachshunds, four cats, four goats and four cockerels

Its a massive plot of land with a large wooden house on it, Kelly who runs it is a 58 yr old woman whose husband is away working (read, they have split up 1-2 year ago) She has a bad back and also Fibromyalgia in her upper back and severe other health problems. 

She sleeps downstairs because the seven dachshunds struggle to get upstairs - there are steps by the sofa and her bed so the dogs can get on them, being that their legs are 2 inches tall.

Downstairs is sofas and dog beds and a kitchen, the kitchen is also dedicated to dogs and the feeding regime. They all must have room temp food and there is an order, They each have a cocktail of tablets both homoeopathic and vet prescribed. They all eat raw meat.

The washing up is piled up and is done once a week apparently, in one of the two dishwashers in the meantime it adorns all the work surfaces.  There's a water shortage here. Hence its piled up and there are flies everywhere.

Upstairs is my area, nice big room with veranda and bathroom, tidy but the underlying smell of something and the bedding stinks like it's not seen a washing machine for months - this will be the first time I use my sleeping bag liner!

Heres the strange thing,  The garden is massive, with amazing views, but she has a weed fixation, so once I've fed the animals my job is to pull weeds from the lawn. However, there are millions of weeds. We went out this afternoon to do a few. There are two people from Malawi living in a caravan in the garden - their job is also to pull weeds.  When we get a big one she is very happy, but then we are supposed to leave them upside down on the grass to die/dry out.  This is a job that you can do for eternity.

Dogs and weeds. Its harmless I suppose.

I desperately want to clean the kitchen and clear the cooker which hasn’t been used in a while.  She’s v thrifty with water and power so im not sure how this will work.

Also, the dogs wee at will in the house and I found a petrified dead bird in a dark corner inside!

Ok after last night in the smelly bed and watching her put all our breakfast dishes on the floor for the dogs to lick clean ive decided I can’t stay, honesty is the best policy so I said I wasn’t happy with these hygiene levels etc but really enjoyed her and the animals company, (true) and she was really nice about it.

I was in a cab before you could spell DACHSHUND and outta there.

The cab driver was. Fab and im now in modern apartment with a Seaview, for £18 a night inc breakfast back in Plettenberg Bay.  Hmmmm what to do next??