What a day.
Several hours on this beautiful beach in Struisbaai, under dramatic skies:
And then the drive home, any negative feelings about leaving Agulhas expunged by having almost the entirety of the newly-resurfaced R316 to ourselves.
Other photos will have to wait, I want red wine and football this evening. Priorities, ne?
But if you find yourself desperate for some 6000 imagey goodness, firstly, have a word with yourself, and then secondly, head to my Instagram.
I’ve been after this photo for a while. And then, yesterday evening, as we headed down the dirt road from Agulhas to Suiderstrand, I finally got it.
It was one of those few moments that was worth halting the journey for, albeit that it was only for a few moments.
This is posted unadulterated and raw. No filters, no cropping. As it was. Lovely. Try it with the lights off for an even better view. That thing poking towards the bottom right hand corner of the sun is the forecastle mast of the wreck of the Meisho Maru 38, and on top of that is a cormorant, wings unfurled.
All planned, obviously. Obviously.
Sadly for you, I’ve been taking quite a few photographs since we’ve been down here, and you can look forward to them late tomorrow or on Monday.
I’ve got a massively busy day ahead, including several (or more) experiments in the lab and then a fairly long drive later. There will be beer and brandy at the end of the fairly long drive, but that doesn’t help you much if you’re after a 6000 miles… blog post.
In times such as these, I head for the quota photo cabinet, usually immediately delving into the lighthouse section, and today is no exception.
This is the Chicken Rock lighthouse, perched (appropriately enough) upon the Chicken Rock (well, where else would you put it?), just off the SW coast of the Isle of Man (and we’ve seen it before on the blog).
The 44 metres (144 ft) lighthouse is constructed of tapered granite and was designed by David and Thomas Stevenson, after the lights on the Calf of Man were insufficient at warning ships away. Construction finished in December 1874, with the first official lighting day taking place on 1 January 1875.
Thomas, by the way, was the father of famous Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson.
If you’re interested, there’s some interesting Chicken Rock Lighthouse history here.
So, it turns out that my photographs of the endangered African Black Oystercatchers that I took on the day of the walk didn’t win any awards in the photography competition organised by the Elim wine farm of the same name.
Sad. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t make decent quota photos for this blog post.
Awesome birds. You can see them in their full glory here and here. And then you can click the left and right arrows to see more Oystercatcher pictures.
You know you want to.
Meanwhile, the competition continues apace on Facebook, where it’s sadly become more of a popularity contest than a judgement based on photographic talent. You can see all of the top 5 there, but something has gone very wrong if this one (it’s number 4) doesn’t win.
More from me tomorrow, as I mentally prepare to head through the lentil curtain to the Other Side Of The Mountain, where be dragons (allegedly), and scary people (definitely).
What? Seriously? This is all we get? A dead leaf?
Well, yes. I’m short on energy, inspiration, time and inclination, so it’s quota photo time, and I have chosen a quota photo of a leaf.
Initially, it looks quite arty. It’s only when examined more closely that one notices the lack of focus on the actual curled up leaf. So, you know, don’t examine it more closely, please.
But then, it was a point and shoot of my boy’s grubby hand (post jungle gym), captured in a ray of sunlight in the tasting room at Neethlingshof. It was never meant to be a masterpiece.
Having already visited Van Ryn’s distillery and then enjoyed a rather delightful wine and food pairing chez Neethling, I probably couldn’t have shot it (or anything else) in focus anyway.
It still looks rather good bigger and on black, though I do say it myself.
Lucky shot.