Not long now

Now officially the longest I've stayed in one place since leaving - hope it's not getting boring.  The navy had an open day recently so had to go and see some of the arms that were purchased "without any traceable corrupt practices" according to Zuma's pals latest report.  Of the four subs that were bought only one is still serviceable but the queue to get onto it was too daunting.

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.

Cape Town - still

It must be Xmas, just had a letter from the fund informing me that my pension's increasing by 5.5% AND there's an ad hoc bonus of a full month to boot - northern Namibia here I come later in the year.  Was at the very prestigeous Baxter Theatre watching local comic Nik Rabinowitz and he started going on about hadedas and how clever they were becoming.  Very soon some fundamental type was sure to start training them as terrorists - Jihadedas!  Next day I made the mistake of visiting World of Birds, which is in a bad way compared to my last visit 15 odd years ago.  There I came across some hadedas that had already been got at by the communists.

Also managed to get personal with the amazing Lady Ross's turaco which does occur in the southern African region - just - but which I'll probably never get to see in the wild, so thought I'd share.

One thing you fairly quickly become accustomed to in Muizemberg is the wind so when when I awoke the other day, I thought I'd gone deaf but no...........see below.  Didn't last long, it's currently gusting at 70 kph and waves are breaking against the opposite shore - poor coots look like ships toss'd 'pon stormy sea.  Saw a couple walking dog and baby on the opposite island recently and when they got to the point the guy hurled something into the water. His blonde labrador galloped at full speed for 10 metres and leapt making a huge splash.  Rushed to get my camera but by the time I was ready the game was over, never seen anything quite so extraordinary.

Hadn't had a dose of ag shame for a while so went to visit the penguins at Boulders, remember swimming here as a nine year old whose parents had mananged to save enough for a 6 week stay in Rhodesia by the Sea, a middle class hotel that's now part of the naval base.  6 weeks, who could afford that today?  And of course all those fish that are now red listed, were on the menu as one course of lunch and dinner.

It's at least 10 years since I took Jo there and it would appear that it's not quite as popular with the little guys as it's been turned into a major tourist attraction but perhaps most of them were off fishing.

Certainly are swimming maestros but when this fellow tried to come ashore some imbecilic German lady kept herding him back so her friend could get pictures - people.

Procceded to the Point but was distracted by a lot of side roads that I hadn't visited before so never got to the lighthouse which is hidden behing the peak on the extreme left of the picture below.  On the way back stopped for lunch at Dixie's near Fish Hoek and just had to sample the pita bread filled with "slithers" of steak or chicken.  Would have thought "slithers of snake" more appropriate..

When I was on Signal Hill some time ago, I noticed some cars parked along the road a lot further along the road from the cable car station and decided to investigate.  Loaded the bike and fought my way past the chaos - the queue must have been half a kilometer long - and drove until a gate barred vehicles, then climbed on the trusty pushy and cycled for another few k's to the base of Devil's Peak.  The tar ended there and as I wasn't inclined to hike to the top I ventured further along the track which steadily deteriorated until my wrists started taking strain from the bouncing. On the way back stopped for this view of Lions' Head and Signal Hill......

......the cable car....

..... and Table Bay.  The cannon's just for show it'd never reach the bay.

There's an awful lot of empty real estate behind Hout Bay and I decided to explore.  Couldn't find any access from the town itself and really wasn't enjoying the smell from the fish factory so headed for the hills.  Found a very larney suburb called Mount something but every house was fortified to the hilt and you could still smell the factory.  Weird how some people choose to live.  Eventually ended up in Llandudno which has an idyllic beach and found the car park for Sandy Bay, which if I remember is a nudie beach - will have to put that on the to do list.

Had to do Cape Point and on the way took a stroll through part of Simonstown, very quaint and still has a "British Hotel" and lots of other beautifully restored buildings.

Have been to the Point any number of times but never noticed this before, shades of the Matopas outside my home town.

As an extra 4 kilos have mysteriously appeared around my waist I shunned the funicular and joined a United Nations of cheapskates puffing and blowing their way to the top.  The world is now awash with morons toting selfie sticks, whose only reason for travel is to take pictures of themselves in exotic and even totally mundane locations.

The lighthouse was another cast iron structure and I still haven't firured out a) how they got the pieces there and b) how they connected them - this was 1904 after all.  Turns out it wasn't such a brilliant place to put a light as even though it is visible 70 k's out, it's often shrouded in mist, as the unfortunate passengers and crew of the Lusitania found out a few years later.

Another of the places I hadn't visited since childhood was Groot Constantia, ah nostalgia.  Most impressive gardens, extremely colonial with some of the oaks originally planted by Van der Stel still alive after 300 years odd.  And squirrels ...... and starlings ..............damn Rhodes.

Something which many people don't know was that I considered myself quite the Stirling Moss (Google him if you're less than 60) in my youth and dabbled in amateur rallying and racing.  Thus I was drawn to a track day at Killarney to see what the locals had to offer and was I astonished.  Though small, the track is technical and the infrastructure comprehensive and apparently wholly owned and run by WP Motor Club.  Most of the track is in an industrial area but one side faces Blouberg Strand which is creeping ever closer.  In response to complaints about noise an enormous earth wall has been built, on which it is possible to park and have a birds-eye view from 20 m up, brilliant.

Spent a very pleasant afternoon watching everything from V8 monsters (below) to clubman's, formula Ford and bikes, thoroughly entertaining.

As cabin fever was beginning to bite I headed for the hills of Franschhoek for a couple of nights and happened on the Motor Museum in the grounds of L'Ormarins estate. Another absolute delight, four huge barns filled with vehilces of every age, all in pristine condition and all roadworthy.  It was only later that I found out that most of them belong to Anton Rupert.  I'm not a huge fan but 5 late model Ferrari's including an F40 and F50 must be worth an eye-watering amount.

One section contained a few single seaters, three of which I have actually seen racing.  The bright orange, Gunston sponsored BRM was driven by my home town hero John Love and lurking in the background a Wolf Racing F1 car that was driven by SA's only F1 champion, Jody Scheckter.  He was know as "Sideways" when he raced a Renault R8 and in the only race I ever shared a track with him I was one of the few who managed to avoid having his paint smeared along the flanks of my car.  I think he lapped me three times in a 20 lap race.

Personal favourite, this dinky 7 hp Zebra that enjoyed a very limited production run in 1903.

Franschhoek has myriad wine estates but would you believe I only visited one.  Instead I spent time atlassing but over a period of 30 hours managed to record only 27 species, even though I took an early morning drive up the pass towards Villiersdorp.

The reason I went to Dieu Donne wine estate was because the landlady had recommended it's restaurant and the view.  Well the view was stupendous, the tasting room lavish and the restaurant totally out of my league, so my visit was curtailed.  Driving back to my cottage, I passed the Heugenot Memorial erected in honour of the persecuted French who ended up with the wrong religion and fled here to start a new life.

Well the wind has just managed to rip a couple of sheets off Jane's porch and hurled one of them right over the house into the neighbours' garden.  No other damage fortunately.

One year on

My 1st anniversary, exactly a year ago today I moved into the Beast in Queenspark and it's only taken 365 (it is a leap year isn't it) days to get to Cape Town.  I guess tortoise comparisons are in order, though what's the hurry.

When I house sat for a couple of weeks towards the end of last year there had recently been some horrendous fires just up the road from here and the whole of Silvermine Reserve was closed.  When I went past the other day it was open again so I popped in to see what it looked like and though it is recovering all the proteas and keurbooms have perished.  But fire is supposed to be good for fynbos and this was bourne out by these Rooibergpypies (red mountain pipes) or if you insist Tritoniopsis triticea poking out of the otherwise fairly barren landscape.  As there was a rather chilly wind blowing I didn't stay there long and moved down into the sheltered valley section where I came across a furious bird party, initially consisting of Cape robin-chat, Southern double-collared sunbird, Fiscal flycatcher and Karoo prinia

It soon became apparent what all the fuss was about especially when a boubou appeared and started dive bombing the top of a nearby bush, screaming maniacally.  There seemingly unconcerned sat a juvenile boomslang sunning itself - I suppose the birds are unaware of the fact that snakes are deaf.  I fully expected to see it take out one of the cheeky sods but it merely ducked when they got too close to it's head.

I decided to come back some other time and tackle one of the walks when I was better prepared and drove down Ou Kaapseweg behind a bakkie sporting a sign that read "We repair what your husband fixed".  As I was going to be in one place for some time I thought I'd better investigate a gym so went along to Virgin Constantia - sure we'll sign you up for 3 months at only.............R1 200 a month!  Don't worry I've got a bicycle.  Later I popped into a pub right on the railway line in Kalk Bay and ordered a double vodka, lime and soda .........R52 please, guess I'll drink at home.  I also wanted to compare the city centre with Durban so went into town and found a parking near the Old Fort (closed for repairs) and made my way to Adderley Street - first difference, all street names in Durban have been changed.  Not much difference in the lack of pavement though, all but a narrow corridor filled with make-shift stalls selling everything imaginable - wonder if the shop owners charge them rent.  The biggest difference is that everything is still pretty clean and tidy. Thence to the reasonable calm of the Company Gardens, all very English with oaks and squirrels - both imported.

I made a circuit of the Parliment Buildings and was astounded to see old Louis Botha on his horse at the main gate.  In the light of the #rhodesmustfall campaign it struck me as rather amusing.

I decided to treat myself to breakfast one Sunday so repaired to a restaurant on the beach at Fish Hoek and was once again dazzled by the sheer beauty of the Cape - very reasonable brekkie too, both from quality and price point of view.

A drive up into the hills produced another of those "Wow" moments.

As evidenced by huge numbers of coots - I counted a hundred outside the window the other day - the waterways in Marina da Gama produce massive quantities of water weed but the municipality has a cunning plan.  Voila le aquatic mower, a fearful contraption that's all gnashing teeth, churing paddle-wheels and a roaring diesel engine.  It not only clears floating weed but is capable of reaching about a meter underwater as well, the cut "grass" being transferred to a bin by a conveyer belt, then dumped ashore by the rear one.  Note the attendant Little Egret, there's obviously fish and frogs in them thar weeds.

As I haven't visited Seapoint since I was a lad, I loaded the bike and headed down there.  There's a promenade that runs all along the shore line and I was amazed to discover a civilised way to access the monstrosity called the V&A Waterfront.  There's a back door with free parking and very few people, but a rather busy Helipad which I see from the Times, residents are getting fractious about.

On another beautiful day I returned to Silvermine determined to visit Elephant's Eye Cave which I vaguely recalled from the notice board was about 1.5 k's distant and about 200 m higher up.  As you can see virtually every tree and shrub perished in the blaze except some that were close to the dam which originally suppled water to Muizenberg.  I was about on my last legs when I made it to the Lookout and saw.....

.......that the cave was still miles off and a heck of a way up.  I took a picture.

The view the other way was fairly breathtaking.

If I saw and heard 6 birds during the 3 hours I was there it was a lot, but I did run into the very aptly named Table Mountain Beauty.  Back at the car park I checked the board again -  the cave was actually a 6 k round trip not 3.

A bird I have been seeking for a very long time has pitched up near the Emily Moon restaurant just outside Plettenberg for several years and sure enough it was back again so I decided a quick 1000 km trip was in order - it has been a very long time after all.  I got hold of friends who have recently settled in Plett and they kindly offered overnight accommodation, so off I went.  Of course the idiot bird never showed though it was seen the day before and the day after I was there.  Ah well.  So the best I can do is.........

...........show you someone else's picture of a Sooty Falcon.  Returning to Cape Town one passes the Mosgas plant just outside Mossel Bay which is situated right next door to Eskoms' gas fired power station.  The question that begs an answer is why is Mosgas burning off flammabe gas that could SURELY be used in  a GAS- FIRED power station?

A rather odd sight outside the lounge window had me gropimg for bins.

A Great Crested Grebe, never seen one snoozing before.  It's like having your own private hide, though the birds are common you do get superb views such as Yellow-billed duck and Mallard which I refuse to show as they really ought to be shot.  No, I'm not a raving looney, they are cross breeding with our Yellowbills and as has happened in New Zealand we may lose a species all together and just end up with hybrids.

Took this while having breakfast the other morning.

There are parts of the Cape that are even more quaintly English than England, the bathing huts at Muizenberg being an example, not sure if anyone uses them but they are well maintained.

Having read about the lighthouse at Slangkoppunt near Kommetjie I just had to go and see it.  Completed in 1919, it is 34 m high and made of ............... cast iron!  Quite how they managed to weld the massive pieces together is something that I have not been able to ascertain but it is impressive nonetheless.

Driving back from there I decided to take Boyes Drive which skirts the mountain behind Muizenberg and I stopped at the place where a lookout is posted to keep an eye out for Great Whites.  They would certainly be easy to see on a day like this and the couple of hundred guys on boards at Surfers Corner are very appreciative I'm sure.  With breakers over a kilometer long and about a meter high I may yet be tempted to try long-boarding.