Idiots on the mountain again

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Lightning over the weekend started a few fires in Table Mountain National Park. Some of them are still ongoing, sweeping across the top of the mountain from our side down towards the Back Table area above Camps Bay and Hout Bay.

And last night, there was even some local cliff face action: ironically pretty much where I took this photo just a year ago. This was a quick cellphone pic from a car park in Claremont.

But that was nothing compared to what was going on just out of our view, on top:

And our brave firefighting crews are out there fighting the fires. Although that is exactly what they signed up for, I guess. Still, rather them than me.

There are plenty of idiots out there with them though. Despite the fact that there is clearly a fire (see social media posts, news reports passim., not to mention actually just looking at the mountain), the hikers are out there putting themselves in danger and diverting resources away from fighting the fires.

We’ve seen this before.

Where else in the world except South Africa would you see the paragraph at the bottom of this post?

Table Mountain National Park Management has closed the Platteklip Gorge trail effective immediately, as the fire is actively burning in the vicinity of Maclear’s Beacon. As visibility is poor in the area due to low cloud coverage, there is a great risk to users unexpectedly walking into the fire line.

Further closures include:
? All hiking trails between Newlands and Constantia Nek
? All trails leading to Maclear’s Beacon and the Back Table
? Trails leading from the area between Camps Bay, Hout Bay, and Orangekloof
? Platteklip George trail leading up to Maclear’s Beacon

The priority remains the safety of residents, hikers, and firefighting personnel, therefore we encourage users to refrain from accessing these areas. SANParks is appealing to the public to please respect the trail closures in order not to endanger anyone or hamper firefighting efforts.

What sort of person, having just been told that the trail is closed because they face “a great risk of unexpectedly walking into the fire line”, then needs to be reminded that that means they shouldn’t walk along the closed trail?

We all know what sort of person. There are plenty of them around.

I just find it sad that these potential Darwin Award nominees can’t just be allowed to get on with being Darwin Award nominees.

Second image Brandon Louw via VWS Facebook page

Nineteen years

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I’m back from a most excellent long weekend with the football boys just in time for our wedding anniversary. Yep, it is – as beagle-eyed readers may already have spotted – 19 years since my wife and I tied the matrimonial knot in Kirstenbosch gardens with several (or more) tourists watching on as unofficial witnesses.

If I ever doubted that I was punching well above my weight before, then I was firmly reminded of the fact this evening as she headed out to a black tie work thing* and I was asked to do some photos beforehand.

Wowzers…

That was exactly the gif I had in mind. Exactly.

Look, maybe the soft evening light filtering through the smoke from the fire on Table Mountain helped, or maybe she is just stunningly beautiful and I got very, very lucky.

Maybe it’s both.

Anyway, here’s to the next 19 years and beyond.

* it’s ok – we will make sure that we do an anniversary dinner together soon.

Anthropocene – but not the song

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The song being the one I shared a few weeks ago.

What a way to start a Monday morning.

Same subject, different angle. Rather than wax lyrical (quite literally) about the damage we are doing to the planet, there are some really good – and by “good”, I mean “horrifying” – studies and projects being done to illustrate it.

One of the biggest issues seems to be defining the Anthropocene geological epoch. But while geologists fight about whether it began in the 1950s with the first test of the thermonuclear bomb, we’re still ruining what’s left of the earth anyway.

It’s a pretty depressing subject, but there are some very interesting and beautifully ugly images to enjoy or endure on these two links, detailing the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky and his colleagues.

NPR

PetaPixel

CRC

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This image of a Cape Robin-Chat (Dessonornis caffer) has been sitting in my “photos I might do something with” folder for a little while now. And so I’m going to do something with it.

I’m going to put it on here.

Almost too common visitors to the back gardens over here but rarely photographed (perhaps because they are bread and butter), they can be a bit skittish around humans and a bit aggressive with other birds. Territorial can like to be their middle name.

Great at welcoming in those autumnal mornings with a bit of cheer.

Weekend long read: Cable repairs

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An article from The Verge all about the unseen and unsung heroes who hang around out in the deep ocean, ready to fix any one of the hundreds of undersea cables that transport our internet (you’re on it right now) all around the world.

It’s a great read – really fascinating stuff – if you can manage with the occasional, but very annoying, graphics, which don’t do much to help illustrate the story.

Still, give it a go here.