The Big Seven
The Eastern Cape offers traditional Big Five (elephant, lion, rhino, leopard and buffalo) game viewing in a malaria free area at numerous private game reserves and lodges within one hour’s drive from Port Elizabeth.
The Greater Addo Elephant National Park offers the Big Seven – including the Southern Right Whale and Great White shark off the Bird Island Group Marine Protected Area in Algoa Bay adjacent to the park. Proclaimed in 1931 to save the Eastern Cape Elephant and Cape Buffalo from extinction, Addo (a Khoisan word for the place one would cross a river) now has almost 400 elephant.
Watersports
Ten long unspoilt beaches, warm water, rocky patches, calm waters, a fair breeze, ship wrecks and reefs have earned Port Elizabeth the reputation as Africa’s watersports capital. It allows for safe swimming, surfing, body boarding, sailing, scuba and skin diving as well as rock, beach and deep sea fishing.
Port Elizabeth boasts 12 popular surfing-spots with the world’s perfect wave at Super Tubes in Jeffrey’s Bay a 50-minute drive west towards the Garden Route. In July each year Super Tubes hosts the international Billabong Surfing Festival attracting the top 45 world ranked surfers.
Volkswagen AutoPavilion
Known as the “Place of Cars and Legends” the AutoPavilion opened in 2004 as the only automobile discovery centre on the continent.
As one of the Eastern Cape’s largest industries, auto manufacturing is celebrated with a technology of the future section, a section celebrating motoring brands such as the Bentley, Lamborghini, Audi, Skoda, Seat and motorsports, as well as a nostalgia zone where “the good old days” of the first Kombi and Beetle in South Africa is remembered.
It features a vast car collection, including unique vehicles, prototypes and record-breaking cars. Highlights include a cut-through collapsible new Beetle, as well as a VW Nardo W12, a world record-beating super speed-car. There are 27 static and graphic displays and over 20 interactive exhibits.
