Instead I took a stroll to the most distant of the corvettes and joined a party for a little toddle. These have a helicopter landing deck and hanger, a few guns and four tubes which were marked 'Exocet'. These missiles caused the English quite a number of problems during the Falkland skirmish.
Certainly don't look very threatening with their little red caps, but I later came across a poster showing exactly what they do to a ship in graphic and gory detail and that was enough to make you want to be somewhere far removed when they go bang. It never ceases to amaze me how much money is spent to buy things to kill other people.
As us old ballies get in free on Tuesdays and it is such a stunning place I revisited Kirstenbosch. While strolling I kept hearing the little peeps of Swee Waxbills but could not locate them. However there was a large clump of Seteria megaphylla nearby so I grabbed a pew and it was not long before a whole flock of these delightful little birds decended on the seeds.
A rather depressing area is called "The garden of extinction" and showcases plants which are known to be extinct in the wild plus a veritable graveyard of markers to plants known to be totally extinct. It's a horrifying thought that there are probably thousands of species of all types quietly disappearing and we don't even know of their existence.
Fynbos is of course particularly vulnerable and this erica, grandly titled Louisa Bolus Whorled Heath, after the lady who found it, is now extinct in the wild due to the unnatural frequency of fires in it's home range.
In one of the oldest parts of the garden, the Dell, is Colonel Bird's Bath built in the shape of ..........? Methinks the Colonel had a sense of humour. It is fed by a natural spring and the water is so perfect I'm surprised they don't bottle it. Some perverts prefer to call it Lady Anne Barnard's Bath, but she left Cape Town before it was built.
As I had been past the turn off many times I thought I'd take the bike and trundle around Century City, which is a Marina da Gama on steroids - you can get some idea from this shot lifted from the internet.
It contains a massive shopping centre, a number of hotels and accommodation of every ilk. There's even a mini train that will deliver you to Ratanga Junction, a theme park I wouldn't be caught dead in. What is really amusing though is when the train gets to places where there are people milling around, an assistant leaps out and solemnly walks in front of it with a red flag. The first automobles let loose on the streets of London had to be similarly equipped!
Most Sunday's I collect a paper and head for somewhere pleasant to park and read and this spot in a lay-by between Hout and Camp's Bay was just the job. Under a sign saying among other things "Geen smousery" (lovely Afrikaans term for no hawking) sat a Zimbabwean selling soapstone carvings!
I gave a talk to the Tygerberg Bird Club one evening and was really impressed with the view from the facility they use in the local nature reserve, so a return visit was necessary. I made it to the highest point which is unfortunately cluttered with communication masts but the view was well worth the effort. Don't suppose Belville is everyones' cup of tea but the mountains are pretty.
And in the other direction you are almost at the same level as incoming flights to CT International.
Here's Cape Town's biggest headache, the city centre is 20 k's away, it's 10.30 and that's the N1 with nary an accident in sight.
The euclea bushes were laden with fruit which naturally attracted Mousebirds including a group of rather elegant White-backs with there pretty pink feet and two-tone beaks.
There were also a number of massive firs, which my mother always maintained were Scot's pines, that rather spoilt the ambience but I was intrigued by the bark. Though some had been felled and others had blown over there didn't appear to be any concerted effort to eradicate them. I've rabbited on previously about the squirrels and I'm actually astounded that they are still extant, as they seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that vehicles are not good news. I've seen them blithely sauntering across and even stopping in the middle of busy streets and not a day goes by where you don't see 3 or 4 flat ones, suppose an ag shame is in order.
Went to see a comedian called Alan Committie doing his solo thing called "Love factually" which was hilarious, how do these guys keep going for 2 hours? Laughed so much that I had to dig out the hanky eventually as my shirt sleeves were sopping. Don't remember much with an onslaught like that but he did say that some people are so attached to their phones that they ought to marry them. Wedding wouldn't be much but the reception..........
Just HAD to do Chapman's Peak drive again and came away with the nugget that the peak on the left is called Hangberg, probably because Hangklip was already taken.
Returning via Fish Hoek I decided to see if I could find a back way to avoid the town centre. The suburbs were a bit weird with a lot of traffic circles and I wondered what the story was. When I found it on Google Earth it was immediately apparent that the whole place is laid out in hexagons with six way islands where they meet, extraordinary.
Wondered if anyone knows what manner of beast this is? He lives around here somewhere and occasionally pops in for a visit, and no he's not dead just in a loving ecstacy - very affectionate, very skinny and with corduroy fur, most unusual.
Have been cycling every second day as a bunch of kilos snuck up from somewhere but was totally shattered the other day when a guy on a skateboard whistled past me on a flat road! Can always blame old age I guess. It gets worse, just rode from Fish Hoek to Simonstown station and was so knackered on the return leg that a lady jogger overtook me.
Last Sunday the papers and I ended up at Surfer's Corner and I watched in awe as an enormous flock of Cape Cormorants patrolled up and down about 200 m off-shore, obviously in persuit of a gigantic school of fish. There must have been at least a thousand of them, most impressive.
Later things looked auspicious enough for a really good west coast sunset so I took off to Hout Bay, then over the hump to the same view site mentioned previously and while things certainly appeared to be shaping up for a humdinger.........
.......... a dirty great bank of clouds blew in and spoiled it all.
On one of my previous visits in a former life, I remember slogging down to Sandy Bay to oggle the nudies, who, if I recall correctly weren't worth an oggle, but I thought I might get lucky on a return visit. Not a sausage, but a pretty spot nonetheless.
