Hello Winter, my old friend

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Winter has suddenly and viciously arrived in Cape Town. Just [does the maths] 72 hours after that sublime day out in Franschhoek, with its cloudless skies and 27 degrees, there are suddenly many inches of rain and a plethora of Beauforts. The pressure has dropped below 1000mb for the first time this year and the temperature is only just troubling the mid-teens.

Of course, this is actually no great surprise. Winter comes in May and this is May. It happened last year around this time and again the year before. Personally, I can see a pattern emerging, but that’s probably just down to my intensely-trained scientific mind, so don’t worry if you haven’t spotted it yet.
However, the moaning has started already. This is also no great surprise. Despite the fact that there are plenty of great things to do in this weather (hide under blankets, drink buckets of red wine, watch World Cup football), there are two activities that Capetonians are unable to do in the cold and rain: go to the beach and drive.

The beach thing is fairly obvious. One goes to the beach to enjoy the sun, the warm sea air and the chicks in their bikinis.
One does not go to the beach to get hypothermia. Not even the Brits do that. So, no. No beach in this weather, thank you very much.
The driving thing is more mysterious. It has been well documented that the phenomenon occurs, but no-one is really sure why. And there’s no one way in which Capetonian drivers get worse when it rains. It seems to be that they just do everything rather badly: no indicating, late braking, nipping through red lights, crossing solid white lines, complaining about how other people can’t drive etc.
It’s like everyone suddenly thinks they’re driving a BMW.

This appalling roadsmanship obviously has a profound effect on the traffic flow around the city. When it rains, my journey to work will take twice as long as usual or even increase by as much as 100%, time-wise. And I really don’t think I can be the only one who experiences this. I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and worked out that when it rains, businesses in and around Cape Town lose out by a really big number of Rands because their staff, supplies and deliveries are all caught up in the traffic.

It’s at this point in many blog posts that one might expect to find a few suggested solutions to this problem and who am I to disappoint. Having been daubed with the paintbrush of positivity after seeing what has been managed by local engineers in the form of the all new Hospital Bend and the magnificence that is the Cape Town World Cup Stadium, I now believe they can do anything.
Which is why they can build the huge sponge on the top of Table Mountain.
If I was better with Photoshop (OK, if I even had Photoshop), I’m sure I could show you just how that would look. As it is, you’ll just have to imagine Table Mountain with a sponge on top of it. A huge one. Probably in yellow.

Hopefully, this would absorb any rain that was due to fall on any of Cape Town’s roads and would thus prevent the entire city driving like tossers on wet days. The obviously massive costs of this huge project would be offset by the enormous financial benefits to the city of people actually being able to get to their offices and start work before ten o’clock.

Add a really big heat lamp and we could solve the beach thing too.

Wendy go down

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After a dramatic last day in the Championship, the only game that really mattered – wednesday v Palace at Swillsboro’  – finished 2-2.
And that, as the BBC Football website videprinter confirms, means that Sheffield wednesday find themselves relegated to League One:

As a lifelong Sheffield United fan, I am celebrating (again) this evening. I was going to go the whole hog with the fizzy wine, but I think an understated Castle Milk Stout will do the trick.

And then some fizzy wine.

Five years

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Yesterday, Mrs 6000 and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary and – having survived the meal I cooked for us last night – we headed out to Franschhoek for some real food at Delaire on the Helshoogte Mountain Pass between Stellenbosch and Franschhoek this lunchtime.
And wow. What a treat.

The architecture, the views, the ambiance, the food, the wine, the service all rated as five star. Sure, it was expensive, but we could have paid the same for a meal in one of the Waterfront’s tourist traps and only got three stars for our money (at best). And we really don’t get the chance to do this sort of thing very often: memorably, our first anniversary was spent looking after a five day old baby. Our third was spent with the wife too pregnant to enjoy any sort of celebration. I remember having to drink all the wine that day and I did my best to relive that experience again today.

The journey home along the N2 was punctuated with 130kph photo opportunities, all of which seemed irresistible thanks to the 750ml of Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2007 I had imbibed.

Seriously though, if you’re looking for somewhere a bit special for lunch, I cannot recommend Delaire highly enough. We’ll certainly be returning for a longer visit (involving more food and wine tasting) next time we’re out Franschhoek way.  

More photos from today are on Flickr.

Goal.com Traveller’s Guide To South Africa: Crime And Safety

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It’s actually very difficult to get an objective view on crime and safety in South Africa. As with many subjects, it depends on the perceptions of the individual as to what sort of report you’re going to get. And those reports will range from the hysteria of the ex-pat in Perth to the firmly-staying-put South African ostrich with his head in the sand pretending everything is peachy.
The imminent arrival of the FIFA World Cup has not only increased the discussion around this issue, it has further polarised the differing viewpoints.

But, you may be surprised to learn, neither of these extremes is actually the case.

Here at 6000 miles… we’ve always taken the more sensible middle-of-the-road route. Yes, there is a problem, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get raped, murdered, robbed, mugged or anything else while you’re here in South Africa. 
It’s actually not the crime that is the real problem when discussing crime – it’s the perception of the crime: 

The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have conducted research on the victims of crime in the country, which shows the picture of South African crime as more typical of a developing country.
These statistics show that South Africa has lower rates of violent crime than most African and South American countries, but due to the fact that South Africa is often compared to the developed world, the crime rate is considered high when measured against the likes of England, the US, Italy, Germany and other first world countries.

And at last, it seems that some sort of reasonable voice has made it into the media ahead of the World Cup in the form of Goal.com’s Traveller’s Guide to South Africa: Crime and Safety. It’s like a longer and more detailed version of the infamous Big South African Crime Post of almost three years ago.
And I can’t find fault with it at all.

In the lead up to the World Cup, I’m going to be doing a number of posts on what to expect when visiting South Africa, but goal.com’s Peter Pedroncelli has saved me the job on the whole safety and security issue. Thanks, Pete.

If you’re coming for the World Cup (or even if you’re not) read it and get a dose of reality.

UPDATE: More sense from Andrew Harding.