South Africa's Choo Tjoe Train

Experience a day down memory lane, visit the Outeniqua Transport Museum before you travel on South Africa’s only remaining scheduled steam train, the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe

The Choo Tjoe offers its passengers a unique, picturesque and scenic 52-kilometre journey experiencing the Garden Route with spectacular views of the Indian Ocean. The George / Mossel Bay line was officially opened by Sir Pieter Fraure on 25 September 1907 and was operated by the Cape Government Railways (CGR) by the New Cape Central railway (NCCR) until the railway line was completed as far as Oudtshoorn in 1913.
The railway initially traverses mainly agricultural land used for grazing. Two major rivers are crossed. These are the Gwaiing and Malgate rivers. After crossing the Gwaiing River the railway climbs towards the siding of Skimmelkrans. After Skimmelkrans the railway winds its way for 4 kms into the Malgate Valley. The railway crosses the Malgate River high above the river where large roundish holes can be seen in the rock of the riverbed. These holes are the result of floodwater rolling stones over and over in the depressions causing gradual, but noticeable erosion.
From Outeniqua the line begins its descendant to the sea. As the train twists around a large horseshoe bend, the hillsides fall dramatically towards the sea. The first seaside resort to come into view is Glentana.
read more here.....http://www.onlinesources.co.za/chootjoe/
http://steam-locomotives-south-africa.blogspot.com/2009/04/fauresmith-municipality-sar-class-8b.html

Top Tourist Attractions in South Africa

The top tourist attractions in South Africa are:

• Victoria & Alfred Waterfront: Cape Town


• Table Mountains Cable way: Cape Town


• The Wine Route: Stellenbosch, Paarl, Boland.


• Kirstenbosch Botanic gardens: Cape Town


• The Garden Route: Cape Town to Port Elizabeth


• Ostrich Farms: Oudtshoorn ,Karoo, Western cape


• Kruger National park: Mpulmalanga / Limpopo Province


• Durban Beach Front: Durban City


• Robben Island: From cape Town Water Front


• Cango Caves: Oudtshoorn ,Karoo, western cape


• Blyde River canyon: Mpumalanga Escarpment


• Pretoria: Gauteng


• Drakensberg Resorts: uKhahlamba drakensberg, KwaZulu-Natal


• Pilgrims Rest Historic Village: Mpumalanga Escarpment


• KwaZulu-Natal Game Parks: Northern Natal


• Shakaland Cultural Zulu Village: Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal


• Gold reef City: Johannesburg


• Soweto: Gauteng (only guided tours)


• Port Elizabeth: Eastern Cape


• EasternCape Beaches: Eastern Cape


• Eastern cape National Parks: Eastern Cape


• Mpumalanga Private Game Reserve: Mpumalanga


• Sun City resort and Pilanesberg National Park: North west Province


• Namaqualand Wild flower Routes and Parks: Northern Cape

Google Street View to Capture the Big Outdoors in South Africa

Google and South African Tourism announced the winners of the online and mobile poll, in which South Africans voted for the first tourist attractions to be photographed by the Google Street View Trike.

The top three most popular tourist attractions will get a visit from the Street View trike and car in the coming weeks. The images it collects will be carefully stitched together with the aim for them to be available in Street View on Google Maps, in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The Trikes, which weigh nearly 115kg, is comprised by three bicycle wheels, a mounted Street View camera and a specially decorated box containing image-collecting gadgetry.
The three winners reveal South Africa's passion for the big outdoors: Chapman's Peak and the Cape coastal routes; Kruger National Park; and the Blyde River Canyon. These tourist attractions will be put right on the virtual map, tempting people at home and overseas to explore South Africa's scenery and landmarks in an exciting new way, over the internet.
In addition to the Cape coastal routes, Kruger and the Blyde River Canyon, the voting shortlist of 20 included Tsitsikamma National Park, Simon's Town and Boulders Beach, the Moses Mabhida Stadium, the Franschhoek Winelands, Durban Waterfront, Newlands Cricket Stadium, Maropeng and Sterkfontein Caves, Addo Elephant Park, Madiba's House, Hector Pieterson Memorial and other Soweto Highlights; Constitution Hill; St Lucia/iSimangaliso Wetlands; the Big Hole, Kimberley; Cathedral Peak; the Apartheid Museum; Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift and Valley of the Zulu Kings; Golf Course Highlights and the Bloemfontein Houses of Parliament.

First catch

Hold still while I untie this hook!

Project 365: Take a photo a day for a year

http://www.365project.co.za/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/project_365/
http://lifehacker.com/207424/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day-for-a-year

Photography web site Photojojo suggests documenting your life by taking a photo every day for a year; they call it Project 365. The author gives a few reasons why you might want to do this, most compelling to me being:

Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.

At first I thought the idea was along the lines of the popular YouTube video where the girl takes a picture of herself every day for three years, but it's actually broader than that. You take a picture of anything (the Photojojo post suggests varying your themes) and post it somewhere (like Flickr) where you can keep all 365 of your photos.

As photo uploading gets easier and cameraphones get better, the commitment required to do something like this isn't that bad. Alternatively, if you have a webcam or something along those lines on your computer (like an iSight), going the picture of yourself every day route seems even easier. So if either of these ideas trip your trigger, it's time to get documenting.

If you've ever taken on similar photo-documenting projects, share them with your fellow life hackers in the comments. — Adam Pash

Orlando Towers

Orlando Towers, an old, disused power station just off the highway in Orlando, a suburb of South Africa’s iconic township, Soweto, has recently become a hub for all adrenalin junkies. The stations two cooling towers, which push up 100m into the African sky, have become a familiar part of Johannesburg’s skyline since they were built. Painted with huge, colourful African murals in attempt to brighten up the drab concrete, the old station recently got a new lease of life when they were fitted out to enable both adrenalin junkies and urbanites alike to experience a few seconds of free fall above Soweto’s skyline. The towers are in the same neighbourhood as the stadium that will be hosting both the opening ceremony and the final match of the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup Orlando Tower’s Facelift The two huge towers, which are both hollow inside, have been connected with a sky bridge which forms the launch platform for those who choose to bungee from these towers. The western tower has been fitted with mine elevator, which is on the outside of the tower. This lift can fit up to twenty passengers, and affords visitors and staff alike a speedy way up the 100m towers. The western tower has a gangplank that extends half way across the width of the tower, allowing visitors to get unique view into the very bowels of this gigantic cooling tower. Read more at Suite101: Orlando Towers in Soweto, South Africa: Bungee, Abseil, Swing in Johannesburg http://south-africa-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/orlando_towers_in_soweto_south_africa#ixzz0cwoxVcHk

Susan Boyle I dream a dream

http://www.susanboylemusic.com/gb/home/
I saw the Mnet special of Susan last night and boy am I a fan of this woman! Awesome stuff!

Rocke's Drift KZN Battlefields

Rorke’s Drift, 46 kilometres southeast of Dundee, describes a natural crossing presented by a rocky outcrop that allows one to cross the Buffalo River on foot. To give one an idea of its significance, just 4 kilometres down from the drift the river enters a gorge and from here there is no easy crossing until it joins up with the Tugela River.

Rorke’s Drift thus provides an easy route from the northern plateau of Natal into Zululand, past the Isandlwana and Siphezi mountains. It was named after James Rorke who farmed near the crossing. After his death, the farm was taken over by a Swedish Mission that was to play a strategic role in one of the fiercest battles of the Anglo-Zulu War.

The countryside around Rorke’s Drift still manages to give true meaning to the description ‘unspoilt beauty’, and it is hard to imagine that this peaceful, undulating landscape was the scene of such violence. A visit to the Rorke’s Drift Battle Museum, which has received worldwide attention for its displays of the Anglo-Zulu War, gives an incredible audiovisual depiction of the Rorke’s Drift battle and others, and is well worth a visit.

The arts and crafts centre, which started as a workshop run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church, began when black artists received training from Swedish art teachers. Today the centre has received as much acclaim as the museum and the likes of Azaria Mbatha, sculptor Zuminkosi Zulu and lino-cut artist John Muafangejo received their training here. Students from here have gone on to achieve international acclaim, and today the centre specialises in hand woven tapestries, pottery and silkscreen fabrics.