Tag Archives: southern right whales

MasterChef Season 2: Predict the winner of MasterChef SA and win a whale of a weekend!

In 10 weeks we will know who our own MasterChef SA Season 2 winner is.  We are curious to hear who our readers think will become MasterChef SA Season 2, and why.

We ask you to send your nominations with a motivation via Comment to this Blog (please add your name and surname and e-mail address).  To thank you for your input, we will award one lucky reader a complimentary weekend of your choice location at one of our Whale Cottages in Camps Bay, Hermanus, or Franschhoek, subject to availability and inclusive of breakfast, but exclusive of other meals and transport, out of all of those entries correctly predicting the winner of MasterChef SA. Continue reading →

Two Oceans Hermanus Whale Festival celebrates coming of age!

This weekend the Two Oceans Hermanus Whale Festival celebrates its 21st anniversary of saluting the Southern Right whales, who seem to particularly love coming to this seaside village to mate, to calf, and to generally have a whale of a time in Walker Bay. Hermanus offers the best land-based whale watching in the world, from May until early December.

Last year the Whale Festival attracted a record of 137000 attendees, and this year could see that record exceeded, given that favourable weather has been forecast and that the school holidays have started.

This year the Whale Festival celebrates the natural environment of Hermanus, the Marine Endangered Species Expo focusing on the birds, fish, and mammals in the area, including an exhibit of a life size replica of a baby whale and a Great White shark, and a 3D movie experience as if one is swimming with whales, dolphins, and sharks. Other events include showcasing the cuisine of the local restaurants; a number of theatrical and musical shows; a Cliff Path night run; mountain bike challenges in the Hemel en Aarde Valley; a half marathon; a fun run; distance swims in the Old Harbour; a beauty pageant; a vintage car show; a marine-themed fancy dress competition; and a dog walk. A host of musical acts will perform, including Elvis Blue, Steve Hofmeyr, and Nianell.  The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, known for its dedication in fighting whaling by Japan, will be present, and presentations will be done by Abagold, Save our Seas, Marine Coastal Management, the South African Shark Conservancy, and Dyer Island Conservation Trust.

Calling itself an ‘Enviro Arts Festival’, the Hermanus Whale Festival is sponsored by Distell’s Two Oceans brand, with a clever pay-off line ‘Where the Whales Meet’.

The truck driver strike has had a surprise effect on the Hermanus Whale Festival, in that most ATM’s have run out of cash in the town, and no new notes can be delivered this weekend due to the strike, leading the organisers of the Hermanus Whale Festival to urge attendees via its media partner Kfm to bring their credit cards and cash from home.

Two Oceans Hermanus Whale Festival, 28 September – 1 October.  www.whalefestival.co.za

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Whale Cottage Portfolio celebrates 16th anniversary on Women’s Day!

Whale Cottage Hermanus celebrates its 16th birthday today, being the first of our Whale Cottages to be opened.  Our first guests were welcomed on the Women’s Day weekend in 1996.

Initially located on Main Road in Hermanus, in a Victorian Cottage, we moved the guest house into a seafacing property ten years ago, to offer our guests the ultimate opportunity to see the magnificent Southern Right whales from our terrace, the lounge, breakfast room, and three of our bedrooms.  Whale Cottage Camps Bay opened in 1998, and Whale Cottage Franschhoek in 2004.

To celebrate the 16th anniversary of the establishment of the Whale Cottage Portfolio, we have sponsored accommodation for the ‘Queen at the Ballet’ ‘Freddie Mercury’ singer Cito at Whale Cottage Camps Bay.  The show opened last night, and runs at the Baxter Theatre until 18 August.

We are a proudly-women company, and only employ women to look after our guests. I salute my team of Carole, Teresa, Anna, and Hadjira for their contribution to our success.  For Women’s Day we salute our lady guests in particular, and all the women who work for the supplier companies we deal with, and thank them for their support. We also admire the work done by our Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille and the Premier of our province Helen Zille, and all women who have broken through corporate glass ceilings, or who have started their own businesses, against tougher odds!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio:  www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

SA Tourism on a Mission to bring UK media personalities to Cape Town and South Africa!

The Guardian has accepted a SA Tourism-sponsored series of ‘My Mission’ articles, written as ‘celebrity blogposts’ by four UK media personalities, each of them reporting back on their visits to experience their ‘mission’ of interest, creating good exposure for Cape Town, the Western Cape and other parts of the country.

The first to visit the country, in September,  and to write about his experience was TV presenter, wildlife expert, photographer and author, Chris Packham, whose Mission was Wildlife and Safari.  His journey started at Klaserie Nature Reserve, on the border of the Kruger National Park, doing game-viewing on foot in a guided walking safari, and a game drive.  He also experienced the highly regarded Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve, with further games drives, guided walks, and night drives.  Packham writes about the ‘diary written in the sand’, being the spoor left by animals and telling a story.  He has visited the country before, and praises the friendly locals and good roads.  Packham saw white rhino, saddle-billed stork, giraffe, a pack of wild dogs, and a herd of elephants.  He concludes positively: “Back then, safari meant Kenya. Today, for me, South Africa is by far the best place to come on safari. There is incredible biodiversity – everything from savannah to tropical forest, as well as a huge surfeit of animal life from great white sharks to lions to raptors, all within a couple of hours’ drive of each other”. Packham also praised the accessibility of the country, its good roads and flights, and well-trained guides. Despite his  mission having been accomplished, Packham writes that he will be back, as there is more to see and learn in the bush.

TV presenter Jamie Theakston is a sport- and music-orientated TV and radio presenter, whose Mission was Adventure and Sport, which he experienced in KwaZulu-Natal.  He started off with a walk in the UNESCO World Heritage site iSimangaliso wetland park, seeing a Red duiker, and a family of vervet monkeys.  He went out to sea, and the boat was surrounded by eight humpback whales: ‘..the actual experience exceeds my anticipation in thousands of ways.  It is a a few minutes of rare and special wonder‘, he wrote. His next adventure was game viewing in Phinda game reserve, and he was excited to see a young cheetah.  Dinner was in a clearing in the bush, a surprise venue, ‘creating the prettiest restaurant I have ever dined in’. Tracking white rhino on foot at Phinda concluded his visit to South Africa, his heart beating: ‘…I realise just how lucky I am to be given the chance to view these animals – one of South Africa’s famous Big Five – up that close and that personal’.

Last month we wrote about TV presenter Gloria Hunniford’s visit to Cape Town and the Winelands. She visited Camps Bay, Bo-Kaap, Chapman’s Peak, and New7Wonders of Nature Table Mountain in Cape Town, and Delaire Graff, Warwick, and Spier, where she stroked a cheetah.  Her Mission was ‘Affordable Luxury’. Hunniford visited the Western Cape stand at World Travel Market in London this week, said Calvyn Gilfellan, CEO of Cape Town Routes Unlimited, in a media release.  She is quoted as saying: “I had a most amazing time. The weather was perfect! I was amazed at the flowering landscape on one of the wine estates, it was like a piece of heaven”. She must have been referring to Delaire Graff in the Helshoogte Pass, whose garden was created by Keith Kirsten.

Monty Don is also a TV presenter, and a writer and speaker on Horticulture.  He is yet to visit the Cape, and to write his blog posts for The Guardian. His mission is Flora, Fauna and Culture. Don will start his visit at Babylonstoren outside Franschhoek, to see its fruit and vegetable garden, inspired by the Company Gardens of the Cape when Cape Town was a halfway station between the East and Holland for the Dutch East India Company.  Then he will visit Grootbos, between Hermanus and Gansbaai, close to shark cage-diving, and Southern Right whale watching.  He will be taken to the Harald Porter National Botanical Park in Kleinmond, to see its wealth of fynbos, and will conclude his tour with a visit to Kirstenbosch National Botanical garden.

The UK celebrity endorsements of the tourism highlights of our country are powerful, and do not appear to have lost credibility in that they have been sponsored by SA Tourism.  It seems a shame that so much energy and money will be spent on this campaign, when so few British tourists will be travelling this summer.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage