And so, without any more ado, and not ever so much fanfare, here’s one of the photos I took over the weekend. It’s quite dark (hey, it was night time), and so it looks MUCH better on black, but to look at it like that you’ll have to click through to Flickr here.
This was a 30 second exposure looking WSW (240.99º to be exact) from Suiderstrand bay. Next stop heading straight out from here is Necochea, Argentina, 6819.62 km across the South Atlantic.
But I didn’t go there. I wandered the 100m or so back up to the cottage and had a brandy.
I solved my problem yesterday by using the System Restore tool to travel back in time to a point when I didn’t have the catchily-named
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool for Windows 8, 8.1, 10 and Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016 x64 Edition – November 2017 (KB890830)
on my laptop.
My laptop didn’t seem to like something about that particular update, but all seems to be running smoothly now. And yes, I realise that I will have to reinstall that update at some point, but at least if things go awry again, I’ll know why it is and I can deal with it a bit more quickly than I did this time around.
All of that meant that I could finally get some photos uploaded from the weekend, and that means that you will be able to see them shortly.
I’m having a few connectivity problems today. They’re preventing me from uploading a few of the photos I took over the weekend, and which were to be the basis for today’s blog post.
It’s a weird thing that’s happening. The (new) laptop tells me that it is happily and securely connected to any given wifi (I’m having the same issue on 4 different networks I have tried, so I’m guessing it’s the laptop that’s somehow at fault here), but then I can’t do stuff on various programs.
Lightroom can’t connect to Flickr. The connection to Gmail keeps dropping on Chrome (it’s ok for 30 seconds or so, then dies), but Facebook is fine and Twitter seems unaffected too. Uploading anything to anywhere sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. But mostly doesn’t.
A quick ping of the ISP was faultless. I’ve lowered Firewalls and run troubleshooters.
Nothing so far has worked. I’m now in the process of resetting all my network adaptors. All of them.
If you see a photo on Flickr or on here later, something might have worked.
If not, you’ll just have to follow me on Instagram.
Another trip down South is on the cards this weekend and I’ve been checking the weather forecast accordingly. Cape Agulhas got plenty of rain this week, which is great, but it looks to be mostly clear and bright this weekend, which is also great.
I’m anxious to try some more drone stuff out and also some long exposure stuff. And although it’s right there, I’m going to avoid any lighthouse images this time. Probably, anyway.
Thankfully, other people have been ‘togging red lighthouses (really well), so I don’t have to. This is on the North Hollandish island of Texel, in North Holland. Super simple, but super effective.
Tonight sees me attending my first quiz in ages, which will be even more fun (and possibly slightly more successful) if I can shake this blinding headache before the first question kicks in.
Of course, this can be the case with any road trip, but this is about Norway’s ambitious tourist project, the Norwegian Scenic Routes: 18 scenic routes you can drive along – in Norway.
After the project was greenlighted in the late 1990s, and following a nationwide competition (both in terms of the roads chosen and the new structures proposed), Norway had envisioned the endeavor as a 30-plus year undertaking to transform 18 of Norway’s highways into cultural destinations.
Each stop would have a new pavilion, observation deck, bridge, restaurant, hotel or other structure, conceived by young emerging architects, and predominantly Norwegian ones, alongside installations by artists of note (like the French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’ evocative memorial for women and men burned as witches in the 1600s). So far 144 projects have been built, with 46 more on the horizon (completion is expected in 2023).
There are no prizes for guessing why I want to do this. The scenery, the cleanliness, the organisation, the scenery, the respect, the safety, the engineering and the scenery. I could go on. But sometimes, one can let a video do the talking.
Incredible.
One (or more) of these trips is going down on the bucket list, where is is vying for top place with Iceland – ironically “just” across the water from many of these roads.
Of course – Cape Town has its own beautiful Atlantic Road – the magnificent R44 Clarence Drive, which I most recently ‘togged like this:
