Saturday Smile

 It certainly looks that way!

RSA - Part IX

 

The drive down from Lalibela took a couple of hours followed by a quick left turn off the main North-South highway (N2) into the bay, this delivered us to our next destination for a couple of days. Plettenberg Bay is a small community built up around a long beach and steep escarpment as you can see (above) the houses are stacked up the hill! The views from some of these pads is stunning, a sprawling vista of beach, azure ocean and forested mountains, not too shabby!

The main beach is to die for, light coloured soft sand lapped by the warm Indian Ocean, you have to have your wits about you though as the water contains quite a few populations of man-eating sharks, there are signs everywhere and there's a permanent lookout on the peninsula above the beach. The best view however is from a rocky promontory called the "Robberg Peninsula" somewhere we'd get to know intimately during our stay at "Plett"! 

I snapped a picture from the top of the Robberg looking back along the Plett beach (see below)

Our hotel was very modern, luxurious and in a great location overlooking the far end of the beach (as you look at the picture above) The only negative I'd say was that each room, although swanky, had a clear glass shower cubicle in the actual bedroom itself (i.e. not in a separate room) I'm not sure which design genius thought this would be "cool" but for those of us who like a little privacy while washing our junk it was a little odd, anyway we found it amusing and enjoyed the relaxed vibe of the hotel, bar and restaurant, I think the staff here were the friendliest we encountered on the whole trip, unlike the common myth here in the UK, such nice people! The hotel had a lovely open veranda overlooking the beach below, just the spot for a G&T before dinner as the warm ocean breeze wafted across our sunburn..

The next day we awoke to bright sunshine and 30 degree temperatures, like mad dogs we decided it would be a good idea to have a hike along the Robberg, so off we went. What we hadn't realised is that the "hike" was more like a scramble up and down cliffs with 500m drop-offs! Whilst normally we're quite happy to walk miles, even up and down hills, this was a different order of difficulty, made more tricky by the stifling heat. Still, being English we kept calm and carried on, successfully navigating the 5km loop in around two hours, the scenery was spectacular and it was a real joy to look down on Cape Fur Seals frolicking in the surf hundreds of feet below! 

Here are a few pictures to sum up what it was like..

Secluded beaches, shear cliffs, sandy walkways and native South African fauna, and yes that's me in the cream coloured cap, surveying the wreck of a ship on the beach below (there are lots of ship wrecks around the Cape) in 1967 a Greek ship, the Athina, ran aground on the Robberg corner and couldn't free herself from the clutches of  the currents and swell around the peninsula, the ship was lost but the crew managed to scramble to safety, today the wreck is a popular dive site and a marine haven for all kinds of critters, you can still see the shadow of the wreck from where I'm standing in this picture! After our heady walk in the sun we retired to our hotel to immerse ourselves in after-sun, phew that was hard work! Anyway, we survived and had a nice meal in a restaurant just outside of town. 

The next day we decided to take a more leisurely approach, it was raining a little so we decided to visit a Monkey and Bird sanctuary just up the coast a little, so off to "Monkey World" we went..

The first thing we saw wasn't a monkey at all but a Ring Tailed Lemur (or "King Julien" as the kids called it), as we moved a little more into the forest some of the monkeys became apparent, in this case a little Capuchin (see below)

After getting our fill of Primates we walked next door to the bird sanctuary, even the drizzle couldn't dampen the amazing colours that some of the birds there showed off, here's a small sample of some of the Aves we spotted..

The next morning was our last and so we checked out and decided to take a walk along the beach before setting off, it was lush, sunny and warm with the waves crashing on the shore. The beach itself was quite interesting too, lot's of little white crabs scuttling into holes as you approached and quite a few little beached jellyfish (which we steered clear of!) Anyway, a great place, a great beach and some fond memories, although I didn't rate the surf rescue much!

Onwards and upwards (literally), our next destination was a place called Oudtshoorn a large town inland from the coast and a good three hour drive from Plett, we stocked up with water and provisions and set off for Ostrich central, more in the next part of the series!

Friday Smirk

The lads pointing out the rather glaring problem that most of our religious brothers and sisters have in that they can easily see the logic flaws in everyone else's religions, but when they focus their gaze back on their own (talking snakes and winged horses et al) there seems to be a pane of frosted glass in the way..

RSA - Part VIII

 

Our next stop took us roughly 100km North from Addo to another game reserve but this one wasn't a public National Park like Addo it was a private reserve called "Lalibela". It wasn't as big as Addo but was still pretty large at 26,000 acres (about the footprint of Bristol), most of the animals that we saw at Addo were here as well but there were much fewer people (around 100) and it felt more wild. We arrived around one in the afternoon ready for a game drive at 3pm and after being shown to our lodge and unpacking we mingled with our co-guests until we were called to our vehicles! Unfortunately it was raining, however this doesn't stop anything (the animals don't care) and so we all donned rain smocks and mounted our open 4X4 Toyota Land Cruiser to spend 4 hours driving around to see what we could see.

After about an hour we came across a pair of Lions, male (below) and female (above), they looked a little miserable in the misty rain but we stuck with it, the animals were really close (around 10 meters) which seemed a little scary at first but apparently they can't distinguish individuals in a vehicle, they just see a large object (too large to be interested in, prey wise) If you were to stand up though it many be a different story, anyone who needed the loo at this point clenched even harder.. Just as we were leaving we noticed another female lion hiding in the bush  that you can see in the foreground of the photo above, amazing camouflage, no one noticed (not even our guide who had x-ray vision for animals!) 

We saw quite a few things that afternoon, zebra, buffalo, various antelope and a Rhino family but to be honest we were all quite happy to get back to the lodge for a hot shower, change of clothes and a warm drink! (I guess it rains down in Africa, as the song goes)

The next morning we had a rude awakening, up at 5am for a 5:30am drive! As we drove off from the lodge the sun was just coming up (see picture at the top of this post) and our bleary eyes were only alleviated by the excitement for the morning and what we might see!

First up we saw half a dozen Giraffes, amazing animals, they all have such different patterns on their skin! Everyone in the group was thrilled to see them up close, the shock of waking up so early had almost completely worn off by now as we moved slowly among the Giraffe family. These huge animals look so improbable, but actually move elegantly and swiftly! Apparently (as our ranger informed us) they only live to about 25 years of age as their hearts give out after having to pump blood all the way up and down that enormous neck! Then, like most things they become Lion or Hyena food...

Excitement and anticipation in the back of the vehicle leapt as a distant voice crackled over the ranger's walkie-talkie, "we have Cheetah"... 

We left the Giraffes to munch on Acacia thorns (their favourite food apparently) and headed up to a high plane above the valley. Resting up here were a pair of Cheetah (brothers) apparently just lazing around in the early morning sun they looked magnificent, such elegant beasts and perfectly hidden in the tall grass on the hill. Soon another crackly message on the radio, "Bull Elephant spotted, west of your location", our guide fired up the motor and off we went across country to see.

After a 10 minute drive across bumpy grassland (like an aggressive massage in the back) we came across this fella, he had a good look at us but lost interest pretty quickly and wandered off, by the way if you're wondering what the white orbs are in the background of this photo, they are termite hills! At this point we were far enough away from our lodge to warrant heading back for lunch and after another 30 minutes of back pummeling we arrived back to a sumptuous spread and some cold drinks. There was much chatter in the group about what we had seen (and not), pretty quickly it became clear that a wish-list was evolving, our guide was going to get some special requests for that afternoon!

That afternoon we headed off down a single track at the bottom of a steep valley, after 10 minutes we stopped as there were Elephants coming in the other direction! At first we thought there were only a couple (see above) but it soon became clear that there was a whole herd headed our way, at least 40 animals, our guide quickly reversed and backed into a small clearing by the side of the track, we waited with much anticipation as the elephants came closer and closer, as we sat there watching the herd pass I noticed some babies mixed in with the adults, so cute, I managed to get a shot before they wandered past us (see below)

After our elephant encounter the whole group was buzzing with excitement, we headed off up to the high ground above the valley and stopped for drinks. It was a little weird getting out of the jeep, nervously scanning the surroundings for lions or leopards etc. Fortunately our guide knew the place like the back of his hand and quickly put us at ease, serving up helpings of coffee, beer or wine according to our preference, very civilized!

After drinks we headed back to the lodge and were treated to a stunning sun set (see below) once back and after a quick shower and change we headed to the dinning room where a lovely spread had been laid out, everyone was eager to eat and full of chat about what we had seen that day, I can see how people get addicted to safari!

Next morning we awoke with the lark, again, off into the sun rise and after 30 minutes or so the message came over the radio, "Cheetah kill, to your East", a mix of excitement and trepidation spread through the vehicle, we headed East back towards the lodge.

Our guide quickly homed in on the Cheetah family (how that guy managed to see these things from kilometers away was outrageous!) Anyway, we stopped near the group (see above) and observed them finishing off their morning kill, a baby antelope of some kind, everyone commented on the "circle of life" but it was a little gruesome in parts. After the Cheetah family breakfast we headed off toward a sighting of a pair of lions that had just killed another baby antelope (it's amazing that any antelope manage to survive at all!) I'll spare you the video that I took, especially the part where the Lioness crunches down on the skull of Bambi (the sound of that will stay with me!) but here's a still shot (below) of the scene we observed..

It was amusing to see most of the Women in the vehicle with their hands over their eyes and most of the blokes leaning out of the side to get a closer view! Nature certainly is "red in tooth and claw", the worst part of it was that the mother of the deceased baby antelope was standing nearby, just looking on wistfully, there goes 9 months of investment, ah well, such is life on the savannah! Later on we saw (up close) a couple of Cape Buffalo (see below), these beasties are just about 2 tons of pure muscle, extremely bad tempered and about the only thing that Lions won't tackle! It was our last sighting before heading back to the lodge and checking out, a wonderful couple of days, we saw some amazing sights and made some good friends, we vowed that we would return to Africa soon!

Lalibela was great, we enjoyed it very much and I haven't mentioned half of the animals we saw which included, Hippos, Jackals, Zebra, Pumba's, Ostrich, antelopes etc.. Our next destination was a little different, we were off to spend a couple of days coming down from the excitement of the safari and relaxing by the beach at a place called "Plattenberg Bay" read all about it in the next episode.

Midweek Mirth

It's only a matter of time...

Progress

When we put our minds to it Humans can achieve quite a lot in 30 years! It's shame some of our number never grow up and learn stuff, and then vote greedy orange clowns into power.

A Wrong Un

Haha, about right..

Springtime in England

As Blur once said in 1993, modern life is rubbish..

RSA - Part VII

 

The next stop on our journey was the Addo Elephant National Park, it's essentially an area the size of Surrey with a fence around it and is home to around 700 elephants and all manner of other animals including, lions, leopards, rhinos, buffaloes, zebras, various antelope, hyenas, jackals, caracals and warthogs (plus a ton of birds and reptiles of course!)

We were staying just outside the park and our hotel provided a 4x4 vehicle and guide with which to tour around finding and spotting animals. We set out early in the morning and one of the first things we saw was this little fella (above) standing in a bush! Apparently Meerkats like to stand guard using elevated lookout posts to see further, I guess this little guy was "head of security" for the clan for that day.. 

Next we came across this pair (above) making their way down to a watering hole, such majestic creatures and the young ones were super cute! Once we reached the water hole in our Land Rover we saw a whole troop relaxing there, a magnificent sight, elephants of all ages just chilling out under the blue sky (see below)

Whilst watching the elephants a family of warthogs passed through, a mother and three babies, of course these animals are now officially known as "Pumba's" (see below)

There were of course loads of other animals running around, too many to post, but here's a little collage of a few of the beasties we were lucky enough to see.

Unfortunately we didn't see any big cats at Addo, apparently they are quite difficult to spot, however the next stop on our journey ticked that particular box, after Addo we were off to a private game reserve about 100km away called Lalibela, the big five were calling and we had a taste for it now. Read more in the next installment.

Friday Smirk

The lads putting too much literal meaning into written words, as usual...

Sharks

Shared a couple of cans of this banger from Verdant with a mate the other weekend. The abbreviation stands for "Even Sharks Need Water" and this beer was originally brewed as part of a series linked to the sponsorship of a Marine Biology programme in Cornwall aimed at conserving the shark population around the coast of the county. It's certainly got some bite!

RSA - Part VI

Day six and we're in Hermanus a couple of hours up the coast from Cape Town, we were actually staying across the bay at a place called De Kelders but we stopped off at the bigger town to meet up with some friends who were staying there. We had a great (and cheap) lunch with our friends at a restaurant at the bottom of the cliffs in front of the town, it was a glorious spot with the waves lapping against the rocks only feet away from our table.

With our fish lunches we supped a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Ataraxia (see above), a snip at ten quid, really fresh and zingy and matched perfectly with our meals. Hermanus is famous for being one of the best places in the world to spot whales from without getting on a boat, it was true, our friends spotted whales and dolphins every day just by looking out of their apartment window, we weren't so lucky however although I did see one whale but it was too far away to identify.

After a couple of nights near Hermanus we moved on, next stop was a place called Swellendam an overnight stop on the way to our next main destination which was a place called Knysna. Swellendam is famous for being the third oldest town in South Africa after Cape Town and Stellenbosch, it's a farming community situated 220km from the Cape itself. It's steeped in Dutch colonial history and still has many provincial heritage sites, most of them buildings of Cape Dutch architecture, it's a bit run down these days though and I suspect it's mainly used as an overnight stop for people like us doing the Garden Route.

Knysna is a "yachting" kind of place (see above), it's basically an old logging town (as it's surrounded by forest) where cut timber was originally loaded onto boats and later trains as the railway up from Cape Town was constructed. The Europeans arrived here in 1760 with Dutch famers settling the Eastern shore of the lagoon. The timber industry peaked in the British era around 1880, there was even a mini-goldrush in 1878, although now the town is mostly known for sailing and golf due to it's year round mild climate.

Another point of interest here is a geological feature known as the "Knysna Heads" (see below), two promontories of rock facing the Indian Ocean that guard the large lagoon that sits behind them. Passage through the "heads" is notoriously tricky due to a shallow sand bar, fierce currents, freak waves and lot's of rocks in close proximity. The place is so famous that apparently back in the day the heads were used as a case study at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in the UK.

After a couple of days in Knysna we moved on, the next stop was one we'd been very much looking forward to, a further four hour drive North up the coast and our first safari stop at a place called Addo, more about that in the next installment!

New Westy

New Westy from Siren that I tried the other weekend, delicious weedy aromas with a solid bitter finish layered up with Grapefruit notes and citrus flavours, good effort from Siren here!

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, however, 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 a coffee shop around 9am in the City Centre and the deal was that he would lead us around eight venues where we would sample a different local food (and/or drink) at each. We also did a little sight seeing along the way, one of the first 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 here, 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!

Next up we tried some local chocolate, interesting made with coconut milk, it was good and very low in calories (unusually for chocolate!) The bars had been spiced up a bit with local African herbs like "Fynbos" and "Rooibos", not your usual Cadburys fruit and nut! (see below)

 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..