Back home

A little wierd I know but it really does feel like that now - even though it keeps shifting.  Had to includeanother of my sister's beautiful cats, a very loving fellow who likes to pose as the Sphynx and goes by the name of Pishcat - damned if I can remember why.

Arrived back in Cape Town early and had some time to kill before meeting Sally and Nick Harris who had kindly offered me a bed for the night.  Had some new shoes fitted to the bakkie then took a drive up Lions Head as it was at least 10 years since Jo and I were there.  Pretty impressive view.

This monstrosity was not there last time, why would anyone need a bedpan that big?

Wanted to atlas the Pacific Golden Plover at Gouritzmond as I was unsure if it had been reported by anyone so booked into a cottage on a farm just outside Albertinia and trundled down to the mouth next morning. Forgot to check tides and of course it was highwater when I arrived - no bird.  Established low tide was around 1 pm so returned later and came across this little fellow scuttling across the road - they seem to know it's not a good idea even though there are signs warning motorists.  No quite just hatched but no more than about 100 mm stem to stern.

On my return not only was the plover there but also this spectacular Eurasian Curlew which I last saw at Bayhead in 1992, as good as a lifer really.

I was sitting having a celebratory sundowner back at the ranch when a family of Greater Striped Swallows came in to roost, kiddies in the nest, mom and dad just below on a lekker big wire heart hanging on the wall.

Next stop was Oudtshoorn but on the way there dropped in at the old bungee site off the bridge over the Gouritz River.  It was closed in 2009 when the bridge was deemed unsafe, surprised it hasn't been stolen and sold as scrap.  From here the rail bridge is on the right, old road bridge left and new road bridge in the background.

From Mossel Bay the road to Oudtshoorn traverses the Robinson Pass and when I got stuck behind a massive truck creeping up in first geas, I decided on a time out.  Delightful Protea aurea (thanks Richard) were in bloom everywhere, varying from pink to cream, though I thought this was the most impressive.

Once over the pass, it's back to the Karoo with painted skies and mountain backdrop - oh and heat.  I wanted to check out a place called Kleinplaas so booked into one of their rooms which was very pleasant and so was the park, so I decided to collect the van and stay for a week - which turned out to be fairly trying as the temperature was never less than 35 C.

When I'd collected the van and opened the fridge to switch it on I was assailed by a very strong smell of apples.  On opening the fruit drawer I found a bag of Fuji's that I'd forgotten there a month earlier. Amazingly there was only one rotten one and the rest were quite edible and crisp.  Seem to remember something about freon gas being a ripening agent so assume once what was in the fridge was used, the seal kept "fresh air" out.  Mornings were always pleasant and the wind generally came up in the late afternoon, but on a 37 C day, I'd only had the aircon on for a couple of hours when the heat overload switch kicked in and left me with only the fan.  Spent the rest of the day driving around to keep cool and noted this rather interesting phenomenon - cloud waterfall.

Keep harping on about it but this really is a stunning country.

Stopped by an ostrich paddock to have a sandwich and next minute they were lined up expectantly, must be a whisperer!

The park was on the finals flightpath for the local airport and from 7 am a steady stream of light aircraft would rain down.  Must be bringing in people to see the caves thought I, but none of them were bigger  4 seaters which didn't make sense.  I eventually noticed that they all had the same livery and on visiting said airport, I found a dirty great flying academy and the stream was students doing circuits and bumps.

I found a pamphlet for ballooning and as I've never had the pleasure decided to give it a go and went onto their website which said "Sorry we're closed, but if you are a group of 10 give us a call"  Went to the CP Nel Museum instead, not as exciting but a lot cheaper.  One huge hall devoted to the ostrich booms and busts and a ton of other antiquey things, my favourite being the original Lennons Pharmacy with all the glass jars, drawers and myriad strange chemicals. Took me straight back to my youth.  A lot of the ostrich baron's built themselves "palaces" which all seem to feature these turrets, sort of architecture with knobs on.

But there are also plenty of Karoo classics.................

...........and they seem to have everything here, police academy, infantry school and some really grand schools with immaculate sports facilities.  No wonder Afrikaners are so good at sport, it was over 35 C maar julle moet loop (but you must run).

What about the caves then - been there done that and they are no longer a patch on what they were over 50 years ago when I first went (50 years, bugger me, never thought I'd write that).  Far more interesting was Rust-en-Vrede waterfalls, a 61 m plunge of the clearest water imaginable - just had to have a drink.

Proof of the lack of pollution was this Cape River Frog which didn't seem to mind my presence at all.

A little way downstream is a small dam which feeds a massive cast iron pipeline that still delivers water to the town 36 kilometers away.  The manhole covers are dated 1899, extraordinary.

Following days of heat I felt that the moderating effect of the sea was called for so investigated Mossel Bay and found Dibiki in Hartenbos just 10 k's north.  For all of R120 a night you get a paved site with an amazing shower, toilet, storage and washing up facilities, brilliant.

Mossel Bay has always been one of those places you drive past on the way to somewhere else and I had no idea how quaint and interesting it is.  What looks like the centre of town because of all the high-rises  is actually the suburb of Diaz Beach which was where I went to locate the Diaz Museum complex - wrong. That's 10 k's down the road in the proper town centre near the harbour.  It consists of among others things the Post Office Tree, the Shell and Maritime Museums.  The Tree (Sideroxylon inerme) is a sprawling giant thought to be about 500 years old and probably the same tree where early Portugese navigators left letters hanging in old boots.  Anything posted in the box in the shaped like a boot gets a special franking mark but you are warned not to put any valuables or money in your letter, ah South Africa.

Then there's the boat, a full scale replica of Bartholomew Diaz' caravel that was built in Lisbon and donated to SA to commemorate the 500 th anniversary of his landing in 1488.  It was sailed to Mossel Bay and the captain not only made it on the right day but at around the right time too.  Not only gobsmacked by the size and complexity of the thing, I was facinated by how they got it from the sea into the museum using a combination of old and new technology.  This involved jacks and a track made of greased sleepers and nary a crane in sight, quite something as it weighed around 100 tons.

The town proper is squeezed between a cliff and the sea and ends at the Point where you can get to St Blaizes cave which was apparently a popular spot 160 000 years ago.............

...............and the other way across the bay.

Stumbled across this stately pile built in 1908 from pink and brown sandstone and it also has a touch of the "turrets".

Certainly no shortage of beaches, four of which have blue flag staus and the suburb of Dana Bay is unbelievable with thousands of houses perched on rolling hills with magic sea views, a bit out of my league though.  Must just mention ATKV in Hartenbos which has 520 camp sites plus about the same number of rondavels and cottages and over Xmas it is packed with up to 80 000 visitors of Afrikaans persuasion - in fact some of the seaside camps are still pretty full.  As I recall the Afrikaanse Taal en Kultuurvereeniging was funded by the SARS pension fund and built a number of these resorts at popular spots around the country.

Dubai and all

Though I've been before, Dubai makes me feel like I'm on a Hollywood movie set.  Virtually every time you blink they've put up a new building and the whole place immaculately clean and intensively manicured.  A lot of the houses in the Springs Complex are built on the shores of "lakes" which are surrounded by paths, trees, lawns and thousands of bouganvillias, which is very "colonially" satisfying but rather sterile.

The main bird species (like the trees) are aliens, mynas, rose-ringed parakeets and house crows but every now and then you come across a local such as this beautiful White-eared Bulbul.

The beaches are white enough to hurt and the water crystal clear as there is very little heavy industry.  Sally knew the right spot which was almost totally devoid of humans and right across from the sheik's island and his dinky kittle "yacht".

Another stroll around the lakes on a perfect winter morning (24 C), without a breath of wind produced this mirror and ...............

............another invader in the form of Pied Myna.

Something I had to try was the Metro which is totally automated and kind of startles one initially when you see passengers standing where the driver ought to be.

For the most part it runs alongside the Sheik Rattle and Roll (or some such) highway - 16 lanes of motorway madness, thank goodness I didn't have to drive.  After crossing this by a pedestrian footbridge, Nick and I caught a taxi back to the complex - which was exceedingly cheap I thought and which Nick confirmed as they pay very little for fuel.

And the buildings, oh wow.  They seem to have got tired of straight up and down so now it's lets do a bent one  ..................

.............. or a twisted one.........

......... how about a disc?  This one seen on a trip to Abu Dhabi on my last day where Sally kindly took me to.....

.....the Sheik Zayed mosque, a slightly OTT structure which boasts the world's biggest carpet and probably the most expensive chandeliers ever made - Zwarovski crystal of course - I'll reserve my opinions for fear of Jihadists.  No shorts allowed so were were given those ankle length shirts and Sally had a black hooded thing in which she looked most becoming.



The day I arrived it rained a bit, the day I left it deluged.  See here's the thing, they don't bother with drainage in Dubai, so when it does rain the motorways become lovely big skid pans and the runways.....lakes.  So after boarding the aircraft, our captain announces a half hour delay in push back, which then caused queues on the taxi ways which resulted in another hour sitting in "traffic".  So a nine hour flight became nearly eleven. Thank goodness I had the foresight to check in to the Roadside Lodge at the airport and I arrived there just in time for sundowners - marvellous.  As things were still fairly chaotic by die see I took time out in Riebeek Kasteel to decide, where to next.  Quite a hot idea as it turned out, I didn't see the official figures by a fellow I chatted with at the local garage said 48 C.  My room was equipped with a fan and I was stripped off and lying on the bed when there's a knock on the door and my hosts' head appears with a chilled bunch of his very own grapes - glad it wasn't the wife.  Also had dinner with friends whose house was airconditioned - bliss.  The only person I could think of to scrounge off for a week was my sister, so grabbed a flight to Joeys and spent the next week in dear old Boksburg.  This is the cottage where my mother spent the last years of her life and it looks out onto a little jewel of a garden, though Beth will tell you otherwise.

There are at least four cats, never really sure, and they include Dusty, (she apparently arrived covered in wind-blown mine-dump) a stunner who was my mom's favourite, three dogs and dozens of wild birds surprisingly. And the weather? Hottest day on record in Joburg 39 C but then some wonderful rain.

Now for the ornithology bit.  Probably 20 years ago I borrowed some skins from David Allan 
at the museum to do a day-time talk where I couldn't use a slide projector - remember them?  One specimen I took was an Olive Thrush and I noticed that the tray was split into two lots of about 15 birds each.  On querying this I was shown the differences.  The ones on the left were smaller, had a completely orange beak and sported less orange on the belly and David was sure that they were a seperate species.  Subsequent analysis proved him correct and voila in the next Robert's  we had Karoo and Olive thrushes.  This is a regular visitor to Beth's garden - see if you can tell which it is.

Karoo - korrect.  Reports of Spotted Crake at Marievale had me on me bike to join the queue, this is only what was left as there must have been 20 vehilces when I arrived.  It did eventually put in an appearance to give me my 760 th species but while we were waiting....

.... this Purple Heron decided to steal the limelight.  The crake was too far away for a picture and even binocular views were a bit disappointing, but Marievale wasn't finished yet.  Next day came a sighting of a Pallid Harrier which had me roaring out to Nigel once more.

On my way to where it was seen I bumped into an African Snipe sitting quietly next to the road, so I took this through the windscreen and of course as soon as I opened the window for the money shot.........damn

No harrier so back to the Crake spot where I was the only person present and I soon found one, much closer that before and sat down to see if I could get it on record.  This was the best I could do, but you can see the spots.........can't you?  I did have the satisfaction of pointing it out to half a dozen others who arrived later.