Cape Town, My Eye - Two

I don't like Cities in general but, Cape Town is an exception - mainly because it's so easy to escape the Concrete Jungle and disappear into Nature.


A Bronze Lion in front of the Studio of sculptor Donald Greig.


A section of a giant mural which adorns the wall of a building.


Someone's Hog against a red brick wall.


A steel-hulled sailing ship, Europa, in dry Dock for repairs - I believe it's a training vessel but I don't know it's origin.



All shall be Equal before the Law

I wonder what motivated the artist to paint this message on the last remaining wall of an old demolished building.


The yellowing Spirit of Autumn reflected off a car's windscreen.


Mercury sitting atop a building, holding a Caduceus.


The balcony of the Timbuktu Restaurant on Long Street.


The Drumming Troupe again - I can kick myself now for not being bolder and getting some close-ups of their faces.

Related Posts:
Cape Town, My Eye - One

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Cape Town, My Eye - One

Good Morning, Cape Town! - on a clear day you can see Table Mountain forever.


For the first time ever I stayed in the City Centre and got a street-eye view of the buildings, which, though impressive to my desert mind, are likely tiny by world standards.


Cleaning Windows - not for the faint-hearted, I'm sure.
I had a Bird's-eye view touring the City on the top of an open Bus ...


An advertisement for Caterpillar mining equipment - I probably should know what make of car this is but I don't ... anyone?


One of the older buildings on Long Street, built in the late 1800's.


A tuft of Grass grows proudly defiant in a crack in the Concrete Jungle.


One of a series of murals on the outer walls of Mama Africa's - a store on Long Street - I didn't go in so can't tell you what they sell.


Friends stroll up a hill at Camps Bay - another old, familiar-looking car in the background.


Looking down a steep, covered sidewalk in the City.


This kid was thrilled when a member of a passing Drummer troupe noticed her admiration and exchanged a few words and a smile with her.

Continued Overleaf ...
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Road-trip To Cape Town

Hello Friends

I'm well and back at Home - my Internet 'Device' is installed, it works but not much of an improvement over my old setup - needs some fine tuning ...

Anyway, it's not good enough to make me enthusiastic about surfing the web but at least I'm connected.

I've just come back from a camping visit to the Etosha Pans and, together with my Cape Town pics, have thousands of images to edit.

Here are a few from the road-trip to Cape Town:

Crossing the bridge over the Orange River at Noordoewer.

A travelling couple stop at a Roadside rest place in the northern Cape.

A lone tree on a curve going up a hill.

A woman hitching a ride - she's holding a ten Rand note in her hand to indicate that she's prepared to pay for the ride - many Truckers make money on the side from hikers ...

A colourful Truck dominates the view.

A ring-knuckled driver concentrates as he negotiates a sharp bend in the road, his passenger with a far-away look - in the back a dude sleeps and in the front, a young girl blows a bubble into space ...

I liked the cars curving over the hill and the telephone poles curving under.

"Skattebol" is a cuddly Afrikaans term of endearment - out of place when applied to these hefty Truckers.

Bathed in Yellow - a traffic controller at road works in the mountains.

Out of the mountains and onto the flat wheat-lands a few hundred kilos from Cape Town.

Well, here goes, my first post from Home ...

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Julius & The Hong Kong Hash House Harriers

When I travelled to the North in October, I was accompanied by my buddy Stretch who had paid his first visit to the Southern Desert - we stopped at the Tropic Of Capricorn to take pics:


After setting my camera's timer I scrambled to get into the picture but, alas, I was too slow ...


I noticed that the reverse-sides of the Capricorn signs on either side of the road were plastered with stickers and messages left by travellers who'd stopped here.


Visitors from all over the world had left their mark.


I followed Dom's blog link and found an entry on his Namibia visit - I also found an image of him at the Tropic when he'd pasted his sticker on the sign.


Is that a Japanese Bunny? - and "Ratpanat"? ... that sounds like a word from Malaysia, or Singapore?


Disrupted by routine - Germany, Japan and Australia were here.


Though there is a hint of humour in this sticker left by the Hong Kong Hash House Harriers, (whoever they may be), there are also deadly serious undertones to it.

For those who don't know who Julius is, he's Julius Malema, the obnoxious, recently unseated ex-leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) Youth League.

Malema is most notorious for inciting his followers by singing the anti-apartheid struggle song "Dubul’ iBhunu - Shoot the Boer" at his political rallies, hence the 'I'm not the Boer' reference on the sticker.

The word 'Boer' means farmer and is used more generally to refer to the whole Afrikaner population and, in a wider, derogatory sense, to all white-skinned people.

Even though South Africa's High Court has ruled that the song is 'hate speech', there are still people, like enlightened guru Bono of U2 fame, who jet into South Africa and the security of a luxury hotel, then declare that it's OK - there is a time and place to sing this racist song.

The inconvenient truth is that since 1987 almost FOUR THOUSAND white people (mostly Afrikaners) have been murdered in South African farm attacks, often tortured and slaughtered in the most barbaric way.

If you have the stomach for it, you can follow the links and read the list of victims' names and gory details here.

In light of the above, it would be interesting to learn on which occasions precisely, does Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bono deem it appropriate to sing a song which incites people to genocide - perhaps just before Malema's minions go out marauding?

The Washington-based organization Genocide Watch has rated South Africa as being at Stage 6 on it's 8 Stages of Genocide scale.

To me, the most frightening aspect about Malema is that, even though he's been temporarily disabled, he may well become a future President of South Africa.


Cartoon by Zapiro



... and on a lighter note, we did finally get it right - well, sort of ...

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A Trip To The Richtersveld - Part 2

Sunrise at the Richtersberg Camp site on the Orange River - all the camp sites are very basic, visitors must carry their own water and provisions.


Although I was a passenger, I know what a thrill it is to drive these roads.


I'm guessing that this is a lizard ... gorgeous colours hey ... if you look carefully you can see that it's still shedding its skin.


This viewpoint took my breath away.


Sentkannetjie - Crassula columnaris.

I almost missed these tiny well camouflaged plants.


Spectacular rock formations abound.


What can I say?


Helskloof - the sides of a mountain covered with Pearson's Aloe (Aloe pearsonii) - the only place in the world where this plant grows in such density.


Three Black Crows in one of the rare trees ... they were quite far away and I struggled to get a decent shot of individuals:


A lousy photo I know but, I like the way some of the feathers of the bird are sticking out equally around it's body ... it's easy to see why Crows are associated with witches and the Underworld.

I'm hoping that some of my artistic Friends here will be able to sharpen it up and/or incorporate it into an artwork ... :)

Related Posts:

A Trip To The Richtersveld - Part 1

Scenes From The Richtersveld

A Few Plants From the Richtersveld

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A Trip To The Richtersveld - Part 1

Before I went north in September, Stretch visited this area for the first time and a group of us took a 3-day camping trip to the Richtersveld in South Africa’s Northern Cape province, about a twenty minute drive from my present location:


Approaching the Orange (Gariep) River, one of my favourite scenes in Namibia. I call it 'Flower Mountain' because to me it looks like a rosebud which is about to bloom.


The pontoon comes across the river from South Africa to fetch us at Sendelingsdrift - 'sendeling' means missionary in Afrikaans.


The terrain is very rugged and changeable.


We were a week or two too late to see the plants at their best after the sparse winter rain.


... so named because of the strange impression on the rock.


Most of the roads are pretty rough and are best travelled in a 4-wheel drive but, I've seen people driving here in ordinary sedan vehicles.


Another weirdscape.


I almost missed this fleshy starfish-shaped succulent flower.


A lone Quiver Tree, Kokerboom in Afrikaans.


I photographed this tree on my first visit visit here about three years ago but couldn't resist taking another shot.

I'll probably be off-line for a few days from Thursday exploring new territory but I'll set Part 2 to publish automatically.

Related Posts:

Scenes From The Richtersveld
A Few Plants From The Richtersveld

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