Sprung Spring

It's beginning to look a lot like Spring has sprung around these here parts.. 

Friday Treats

We had a meeting in London on Friday afternoon and afterwards treated our kids to a slap up meal in town. We all met up at a bar in Exmouth Market at around 6pm and then headed down the Farringdon Road to a little bistro for some pasta and wine. The wine list was pretty decent and I chose a Bandol (S. France) from Tempier, I'd had this wine several times before over the years and the 2016 was a banger, rich, layered, dark red fruits and plum, very nice indeed! Fortunately the rain eased up as we made our way back to Farringdon Station and a smooth train ride home from Paddington delivered us home in under an hour, an enjoyable evening in town!

Saturday Smile

One of those party games where the music stops and you all have to touch the nearest paedo (allegedly)?

Friday Smirk

The boys discussing how the Abrahamic religions tend to have a pretty poor view of 50% of the population, i.e. Women, apparently their "God" is masculine, they always seem totally confident of this, but how they know it's true is much less clear..

RSA - Part V

 

Our fifth day started around 6am (yawn!), we were headed down the Cape Peninsula (see above) to Cape Point a drive of roughly two hours but I wanted to get an early start as it was a Saturday and the sights down there get hellishly busy as coach loads of "cruise people" descend throughout the day. 

First stop was just past Simons Town (the old British Naval base) and a place called "Boulders Beach", it's here that you can reliably see African Penguins as there's a small  colony there. I came here back in the 90s, I found it fascinating to see Penguins in Africa (so unlikely!), back then the numbers were much more healthy, now, due to over fishing and human encroachment on habitat the colony is sadly much smaller; one of those "see them before they disappear" deals, it's a shame as they are very cute animals (if a bit smelly!)

This is the main "Penguin beach" (above), there were a mix of adult and young here and in some places you could even make out birds sitting on eggs. They seem to tolerate humans pretty well and although you aren't allowed to walk on this particular beach (there are boardwalks) but it's only 100yds from other beaches that are open to the public, apparently sometimes you can actually swim with these little critters! We were glad we arrived so early in the morning, we had the place to ourselves!

After leaving Boulders Beach we headed further down the cape to the national park and Cape Point itself (aka The Cape of Good Hope), the most South Westerly point of the African continent. From the car park you can take a funicular up to the old lighthouse but being keen walkers we decided to leg it up, a decent hike but well worth the views on the way up (the picture below shows the beginning of the trail).

The sign on the left of this picture warns hikers of the dangers of the local Baboon troops, this thought certainly added a little excitement to the walk!

After visiting the Cape we returned to the city and headed up to Table Mountain where there's a cable car that takes you to the top. It was a lovely warm day and the cloud cover at the top of the mountain formed the iconic "tablecloth" effect as warm air hits the back of the mountain rising up to around 3,500ft where is is cooled and condenses, it then falls over the front of the mountain and disappears as it warms again, it's a really cool sight and I shot a little video of the Atlantic side (see below)

The views from the top are predictably spectacular, the whole city is laid out in front of you and since the sky was so blue and the air clear that day we could see for miles and miles, I took a pano of the scene (see below)

The pointy (smaller) mountain on the left of this picture is called "Lions Head", I remember when I visited the city back in the 90s I borrowed a paraglider and took off from that hill. I remember flying around for a bit taking advantage of the on-shore breeze and the local topology that created great ridge lift, the landing point was a bit exciting though, a beach below the peak which would be fine if it were empty but it was really crowded at the time, luckily I was precise enough to touch down in between the towels and deck chairs!

This was our last day in Cape Town as the following day we were headed up the Garden Route. First stop was a place called Hermanus a couple of hours drive North up the coast, more on that in the next episode..

Clowns

Definitely a clown but it's not Coco we're dealing with...

RSA - Part IV

 

Our fourth day in Cape Town was mainly taken up by a "local food tour" on foot, we met our guide at 9am in the City Centre and he lead us around eight venues where we sampled a different local food (or drink) at each. We also did a little sight seeing along the way as well, one of the stops was in the historic Bo-Kaap district where most of the buildings are painted in bright colours (see above) 

This district is one of the oldest in the city and was established in 1760 it was formally known as the "Malay Quarter" and is still home to many Muslim residents (there are a couple of old Mosques there too), it's said that some are even ancestors of the Malaysian and Indonesian workers bought here by the Dutch, initially as slaves, but later in different waves of immigration. During the Apartheid years this areas was zoned under racial laws meaning that only "Malay" people could live here, other districts in Cape Town (i.e. District 6) were bulldozed and re-developed as "white only" areas, luckily the race-zoning rules probably saved Bo-Kaap from being leveled.

The area is changing now though, being close to the city centre (i.e. within the "city bowl", as it's known) it's gradually being bought up by wealthier Africans, "gentrified" as it's commonly known as, it's a shame because the character of the place will almost certainly change or even disappear. Understandably, Bo-Kaap is the centre of "Cape Malay" cuisine and the food here has spicy far eastern origins although it's morphed somewhat over the centuries from what you usually get in Malaysia and India, our guide told us that it originally had to change because the Dutch overlords didn't take to the ample spice in the food, back in the day meat and two veg was more their thing.

In the picture above you can see some of the dishes on offer from a local cafe, curries of course but also more Indian style bites like Samosas (Samoosas), Pakoras (Daljies) and Rotis (an Indian flat bread), despite the Dutch influence in reducing heat in this style of food, some of these snacks were still pretty (spicy) hot!

In another spot we had a BBQ selection or traditional South African "Braai" this was a popular option with our tour group, ribs, sausages and chops, very nice (see below)

After our tour we headed back to our hotel and freshened up then headed out for a bite to eat (back at the Jamaican themed bar!) and a reasonably early night as we had a very early start the next day, more on that in part V..