Homeleigh Halt Guest House

Posts Tagged ‘port elizabeth’

Group B

June 12: Korea Republic v Greece, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Group C

June 23: England v Slovenia, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Group D

June 18: Germany v Serbia, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Group G

June 15: Ivory Coast v Portugal, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Group H

June 21: Spain v Honduras, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth

Where:  Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay)
 
 When:  25 April 2010 - 07:00 am to 12:00 am 

Accommodation: Homeleigh Halt – Walmer, Port Elizbeth

Adrenaline, testosterone, steely willpower and entertainment merge for a gutsy duo of show and sport. The Sunshine Coast is getting amped for the IRONMAN South Africa April 2010!

The gruelling challenge involves a 3,8km swim, 180km cycle race and a 42.2km run.

 Athletes from around the globe and South Africa will be descending on Port Elizabeth to find out if they have what it takes.

The swim will be a rectangular 1.9 km route in the sea, which will be repeated twice. Sea conditions are excellent as the course is situated in a bay. Sea temperatures range between 17 to 25 degrees Celsius for this time of the year. The route will be a double lap off Hobie Beach in an anti-clockwise direction. The cut-off time for the swim is 09:20am

From Hobie Beach, you cycle along the coast for 3km towards the city. You will climb for 10km to reach the highest point of 183 meters above sea level, this is a gentle continuous climb. From here it is downhill to the 20km mark. Gentle rolling hills occur to the turn around point at 34km mark. It is then rolling hills all the way to the 40km mark where it is downhill to the coast. The route is then relatively flat along the coast back to transition at 60km. You need to complete the three loops on race day.

The run will be a three loop course of 14.07km along Marine Drive. The run route is a very fast flat route with no hills through the top gate of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and out through the bottom gate of the University and back towards transition.

The total cut-off time is 12:00am (midnight) – 17 hours after race start. Eish!

Have you entered the 2010 Ironman South Africa? Entries will remain open until the 31 January 2010 at midnight (SA Time).
 
Event website:  www.ironmansouthafrica.com  
 
Homeleigh Halt Guest House welcomes Ironman competitors.

 Talk Radio 702, East Coast Radio, Algoa FM and 94.5 Kfm proudly present the return of Elton John to South Africa in March 2010 on his exciting solo tour ‘Under African Skies”. The legendary superstar will be joined in four relaxed, picnic style concerts by long-time collaborator and renowned percussionist, Ray Cooper.

Be sure not to miss this iconic performance live at the NMMU Sportsfields, South Campus, Port Elizabeth, Friday 26th March.

Elton John’s musical career spans over four decades. He was the biggest pop superstar of the early 70’s and forty years later remains one of the most entertaining, charismatic and energetic musicians and performers on the planet. Be sure not to miss this incredible showman in a relaxed, picnic-style setting – “LIVE, Under African Skies”.

Please note this is an outdoor ‘picnic style’ concert.
Port Elizabeth
Friday 26th March
NMMU Sportsfields South Campus
Tickets R399

To date he has sold over 200 million records worldwide and had a multitude of hits including ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ and ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’. He has also had success in film when he composed ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ for Disney’s The Lion King, which won him both a Grammy and an Academy Award. Elton has gone onto compose various musical scores including Aida, Lestat and the award winning musical Billy Elliot, which has played to well over 2.5 million people in London, Sydney and in New York where it recently won 10 Tony awards including Best Musical.

In 1997 Elton John released ‘Candle In the Wind’ in tribute to his friend Princess Diana. It is still the biggest single of all time selling over 33,000,000 copies and helped to raise millions of pounds for Diana’s charities. After in 1998 Elton received a knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II for “services to music and charitable services.” He was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Brace yourselves Port Elizabeth men (and some women!), time to hit the gym, go for that shave and brush up on the foreign language of your choice. I have already been offered huge amounts of cash (and other stuff) from the red blooded men in the media room at the Chevrolet Warriors vs Nashua Titans (keep up with all the action by following the live blog this afternoon: Thursday 12 November 2009- click on the higlighted link)currently underway at Axxess DSL St Georges in Port Elizabeth.

But, armed with my chastity belt, courtesy of the Longhair, this is one assignment that just screams out, “Your country needs you!”. I shall answer the call and once more dear friends; “Unto the breach I go!”

The Miss World contestants will grace fair Port Elizabeth with their presence from 16th to 19th November 2009. They will be participating in the “Miss World Sport” leg of the competition at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on 18 November. Guys, sorry for you, but this event is closed to the public.

The hosting of the Miss World contestants is a coup for hosts, East Cape Tourism Board, as ECTB CEO, Zola Tshefu said this afternoon at the Shamwari Townhouse (Sorry Babe they DID have Sushi for snacks and I made a pig of myself, just for you!); “This is an exciting event for us, as a province, as the girls will become ambassadors for the Eastern Cape Province and Port  Elizabeth” adding that the Eastern Cape was inviting the Miss World contestants to “…come and have the adventure of your life in the Eastern Cape.”

Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism CEO, Fezikile Tshiwula added that this event contributed to an; “..unexpected double bonanza for Nelson Mandela Bay,” as it occurs straight after the Japan Bafana Bafana friendly being played at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday 14 November.

The Miss World Contestants will compete in various sports on the 18th; a gladiator course, an adventure zone, a relay race and archery. The points earned at this event accumulate towards their final points for the competition.

Ticket sales from a gala event on the 17th will be used to benefit the Vistarus Haven in Sidwell.

Charity is a major component for Miss World with it’s “Beauty for a Purpose” tagline. In Africa Miss World has donated millions of rands to charities such as Operation Hunger and the Nelson Mandela Trust.

With four different television crews and hordes of print, web and other media following the Miss World contestants, Port Elizabeth is sure to get a major boost for their tourism industry in the lead up to the Soccer World Cup in 2010.

The Miss World final takes place on 12 December at Gallagher Estate on Gauteng and with more than a billion television viewers, the Eastern Cape and Port Elizabeth can expect massive exposure from this coup.

Eastern Cape – Came to the Adventure Province.

South Africa’s entrant in the Miss World Contest is Tatum Lucy Keshwar, 25 and 181 centimetres tall

Information: courtesy of MyPE  – with permission from the “editor”. 

http://www.mype.co.za/: The birth of a humpback whale was filmed this weekend by a German TV crew which travelled to Port Elizabeth at the invitation of Rainer Schimpf from Dive Expert-Tours. The crew is in Port Elizabeth to see and film the marine diversity of Algoa Bay.

Rainer says; “Traveling around Cape Receife, we saw a breaching Humpback whale, as we came closer with the boat we realized that there were five Humpback whales displaying great activity in this area. They were diving up and down and behaving very excited for quite some time and then, suddenly, a sixth Humpback whale – a newborn baby, grey in colour and a with a bent hump, broke the surface to take its first breath!”

With this historic event caught on camera by the TV crew and still photographers, we have conclusive photographic proof of Algoa Bay being the birth place of a Humpback whale. Shortly after the baby Humpback surfaced for it’s first breath, the afterbirth also surfaced and drifted away.

To read more on this historic event and to view the images captured please visit the article posted on MyPE

Port Elizabeth’s rich cultural heritage guarantees history lovers a unique insight into the Eastern Cape’s and the Metro’s diverse and remarkable past.
The nomadic San were the earliest group of indigenous people known to live in the Eastern Cape. The Khoi displaced the San into the mountains and semi-desert, early in the second millennium AD. The forefathers of the Xhosa speaking people arrived on the banks of the Kei River in about 800AD.
While on his epic voyage of discovery searching for a sea route to the East, the Portuguese, Bartolomeu Dias, rounded the “Cabo da Roca” in February 1488 and entered “Baia da Roca” – Cape and Bay of the Rock (now Cape Recife and Algoa Bay). Dias also gave the name “Ilheus Chaos” (Flat Islands) to the Bird Islands. In 1497, Vasco da Gama, successor to Dias, entered Algoa Bay and noted the Bird Islands on his voyage to India. His charts gave Cape Recife it’s name – “Cabo do Arricife” – Cape of the Reef. The “Bay” was later named “Baia de Lagoa”, by navigator and cartographer Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo in 1576, which referred to the lagoon situated at the mouth of the Baakens River.

By the middle of the 18th century, the number of ships passing the “Bay” had increased and occasionally survivors of the shipwrecks were given hospitality by Dutch Trekboers (farmers) who had trekked from the Cape in search of good farmland.

 At the end of 1799 the English, fearing that the French would render military assistance to the Graaff Reinet rebels, decided to construct Fort Frederick, overlooking the mouth of the Baakens River as a permanent military post.
4 000 British Settlers arrived by sea in 1820, to become the first permanent British residents in the Albany District. On 6 June 1820, Sir Rufane Donkin, Acting Governor of the Cape Colony at the time, named the new sea port in memory of his late wife, Elizabeth.
Before the up-country gold and diamond booms, PE developed as one of the major commercial cities in SA, trading in wool, mohair and ostrich feathers. As a result, the harbour became a bustling port. People traveled to the city in search of trade and labour opportunities.

Early Port Elizabeth was characterized by the settlement of European, Cape Malay and immigrant communities. The diverse community lived together according to economic and social status, rather than on an ethnic basis. Some folk were already residing in New Brighton since 1903. However, when the Group Areas Act was legislated in 1960, this resulted in forced relocation under the “apartheid law” among the non-white population and the so-called townships came into being.
Port Elizabeth was the first city in SA to establish a fully integrated, democratic local authority and has long been a leader in the political transformation of the country.

 Presently, Port Elizabeth is fondly referred to as “Ibhayi” by Xhosa speakers, “Die Baai” by Afrikaners and “The Bay” by English speakers.

The Bay of Port Elizabeth is located on the south-eastern coast of Africa along the shores of Algoa Bay.

The city is fondly referred to as “The Friendly City” and tourists, who linger long enough to discover Port Elizabeth’s treasures, soon encounter the refreshing and sincere hospitality from which the city has earned its name.

Port Elizabeth is a superb value-for-money and family fun holiday destination, the city offers a diverse selection of attractions, scenic nature trails, historic heritage, magnificent wildlife, cultural experiences, countless water sport activities and 40km of breathtaking coastline and beaches.

The Bay is known as South Africa’s watersport capital and offers activity throughout the year, especially wind-surfing and fishing.

In fact, Algoa Bay is regarded as one of the best sailing venues in the world, while scuba diving is of world class quality with beautiful reefs, shipwrecks, fish and colourful coral species.

Port Elizabeth boasts a wonderful moderate climate all year round, and has been rated as having the fourth best weather in the world! Sea temperatures range from 16ÞC in winter to 23ÞC in summer. Summers are dry and warm with relatively low humidity, while winters are notably mild, with an all year round rainfall.

 Spoil yourself and enjoy a truly unique holiday experience in Port Elizabeth.

Homeleigh Halt offers you superb accommodation at an affordable price.

Feel free to contact us for any further information.

Sailing

Homeleigh Halt Guest House is offering a magical special offer of a 4 night, 5 day getaway for R3500.00 for 2 sharing, in the friendly city of Port Elizabeth

 You get 4 nights luxury accommodation and a full English breakfast daily.

This offer also includes a trip to the world renowned Addo Elephant National Park, with a qualified field guide. The trip includes a light lunch. 

Other meals and refreshments are for your own account.

This incredible offer is also to be found on the official South African Tourism site under the exciting “Sho’t Left – Affordable Mzansi Holidays.”

Due to popular demand this offer is being extended to 31 August 2009.

See you soon!

Port Elizabeth Opera House: Fostering a love of the performing arts.

The Opera House is the oldest theatre on the continent of Africa and the Southern Hemisphere.

This special piece of World History is right here in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province.

The P.E. Dramatic Society was formed in the 1840’s .

On 6 June 1860 land was granted to “P.E. Dramatic Amateurs” on condition a theatre was erected.

The Theatre remains active and locals and visitors are often able to visit the theatre for a grand performance.

Sunday 7 June 2009

History is made in Port Elizabeth. Local and national visitors celebrated our local landmark…when the Port Elizabeth 2010 Stadium was introduced to the world.

South Africa’s first newly-built 2010 World Cup stadium officially opened on Sunday in Port Elizabeth a year before kick-off next June.

“For us today’s first opening of a newly-built 2010 World Cup stadium is a huge boost,” said local organising committee chief Danny Jordaan.

Eight 2010 games will be played at 48,000 seat Nelson Mandela Bay stadium.

But the first game in the stadium will be a rugby match between the British and Irish Lions and the Southern Kings.

“It demonstrates the capacity of South Africa’s construction industry and our commitment to deliver on all our 2010 Fifa World Cup promises,” Jordaan added.

The Confederations Cup, seen as a test event for the World Cup, starts on Sunday at four refurbished stadiums in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Rustenburg.

The five additional new stadiums that will also be used in Africa’s first World Cup were “shaping up nicely” to be ready ahead of 2010, Jordaan said.

A night view of the Port Elizabeth 2010 FIFA World Cup Stadium