Category: this is south africa

Day 185 – Sad start

Posted on

Not much to say today. The drive back from Agulhas was better than it could have been – we cut over the Highlands Pass instead of joining the hoards going over Houw Hoek and saved ourselves a couple of hours.

But United lost again. Three from three now and that same comment from those watching: “They didn’t deserve to lose”.

Sadly, while that may be true (I was driving home and didn’t watch so I can’t say today), you don’t get points for deserving to win. And when you’re playing well and not winning, you wonder what can be changed to make a difference.

I’m tired this evening – physically and mentally. Early one tonight, I think.

Day 184 – Tropical

Posted on

I’m about to braai some meat, but the clouds are currently dumping all the water on Suiderstrand and so I’m hiding inside for a while first.

With the wind coming straight off the Atlantic, it’s very easy to see when the next precipitation is on the way and consequently, very easy to avoid getting wet.

No such worries earlier when my daughter grabbed the camera and took this image of her mum in front of a tropical lagoon:

You wouldn’t recognise it now. My wife wouldn’t be out there now. In fact, she isn’t – she’s just over there also sitting in the warmth, enjoying an alcoholic beverage.

The rain has stopped. I’m going to braai. Have a nice evening.

Day 183 – SLPP

Posted on

I’ve never been a huge fan of Sir Lowry’s Pass, which carries the N2 out of Cape Town and towards the Overberg. Too many hours spent in traffic jams heading home after wonderful weekends away. It’s a means to an end and we generally like to get past it as quickly as possible.

When we drove over it yesterday though, we went through the clouds and suddenly… well… wow.
For the first time in literally hundreds and hundreds of trips, we had to stop and admire the view.
And, given the fact that my tripod was buried under a few days’ worth of luggage, I’m fairly happy with how this hand-held pano came out.

44.6 Megapixels of view above the blanket of clouds covering the Cape Flats. And – about a third of the way in from the left – Table Mountain and Devils Peak, floating like an island* in a sea of clouds about 46 km away.

Go and look at the whole thing here.

Today couldn’t be more different: horizontal rain being flung from the South Atlantic at the front of the cottage. We’re staying inside, drinking red wine, playing games and… well… writing blog posts.

I may drag the beagle along the beach later.

 

(I may not.)

 

 

* do islands float?

Day 181 – Why watercolour?

Posted on

Here’s another image from the weekend away. We went ziplining.

Obviously, I took the camera along, and I did most of the photography. But when I wanted to be in the photograph, I handed it to one of our guides. And – really just to make it easy for him – I popped it onto Intelligent Auto mode. Literally all the guy had to do was press the shutter button.

What the guy actually did was turn the dial to “Watercolour Effect” mode. That’s something my camera has, but that I have never used. Why would you?
But the ziplining guy has used it. And here’s what he got with it:

Don’t we look great? In… er… faux watercolour.

All he had to do was press the button. What he did was turn the dial.

Fortunately, as soon as I got the camera back, I put the dial back onto Sport mode. But this was an automatic thing in the midst of hanging off cables and traversing kloofs above Ceres, so I didn’t really think about it until afterwards. By which time it was too late.

This was last Saturday, but it’s nice to know that if we’d have gone zip-lining during the Renaissance, this is probably what it would have looked like.