Quota Ostrich

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I have a feeling that the afternoon and evening are going to run away from me (not literally – that would be weird), and so I thought I’d pop up a quick Quota Photo.

This one was taken in the car park of one of the places I stayed up in Limpopo when I was taking photos there last March.

Ostrich in a car park?
I know, I know, its serious.

Sorry.

The acacia tree made for a nice frame for this male ostrich’s head. His comedic goon expression does the rest quite nicely.

When I was younger, growing up in Sheffield, we generally didn’t have ostriches wandering around the car parks. Perhaps a pigeon, sometimes a squirrel, but nothing really this big or daft looking.

Not to say this is the usual thing here in SA either. Although your chances of spotting a wild baboon or ostrich in a parking area are probably here than in Broomhill.

But despite the rather larger wildlife, you’re still perfectly safe.

As long as it chooses not to kick you to death with its terrifying dinosaur feet, of course.

CPD

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Continuing Professional Development?

No: Chapman’s Peak Drive.

We had a bit of a walk on the beach on one side of the peninsula today, before scooting through Sun Valley (which was both sunny and a valley) to the other side for a spot of lunch. We could have come back over the mountain, but because Ke Dezemba (I know, but the spirit remains for the moment), we went around it instead.

Chapman’s Peak Drive has won all sorts of awards for being a beautiful, scenic road, and while I 100% understand where these awards committees are coming from, it really needs to be noted that the beauty of Chapman’s Peak Drive is from Chapman’s Peak Drive, and actually not Chapman’s Peak Drive.

Now just over 100 years old, Chapman’s Peak Drive remains an incredible bit of engineering. Stuck into the granite cliff of… well… Chapman’s Peak, there are 114 bends in 9.6km of road, which begins at 38m AMSL and peaks (lol) at 161m.

It’s an incredible bit of road to drive on, and the views are equally amazing:

This one is a 24MP pano that I knocked up earlier today with almost 2 minutes of effort. Almost.

But that’s the view from the road. If you look at the actual road, it’s a real scar across the Cape landscape. You can see it – or rather not miss it – it on the right hand side of my image above, or if you prefer a borrowed aerial shot from a bit further south:

It has wrecked the mountain a bit. Chapman is presumably turning in his grave.

Of course, none of this was a problem back in the 1910s and 20s, but I’d wager that you’d never get away with building this sort of thing today.

And equally of course, you can’t say that it’s ugly to look at.

That would be against The Rules.

Chapman’s Peak Drive is sacrosanct, flawless and infallible. Just like Stephen Fry. (Although.)

But “Stunning to look from, unpleasant to look at” isn’t a category in any tourism awards, so we have to keep saying that it’s beautiful.

Which the view from it, is.

I beat Geowizard without even thinking about it

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Geowizard – the pseudonym of Youtuber Tom Davies – was probably the guy who got me back into Geoguessr a few years back. At that time, he was one of the world leaders at playing the game, and his sense of humour really added to his entertaining offerings.

But I’ve always enjoyed his videos rather than trying to play along. And once you’ve watched the video, you know the answers, so you can’t play along. So when I realised that I had just a few minutes spare this afternoon, rather than starting his latest video, I decided to click through and play the same game, blind.

And I did OK, considering. This was a single point photosphere, so you couldn’t move. There was a Masjid in Timor L’Este, an airport in China, mountain viewpoints in Liechtenstein and Pakistan, and a mining settlement in Papua New Guinea. And I didn’t spent much time on it: only about 8 minutes in total, but came out with a very decent score of 23,499.

And with a bit more effort (and time), it could have been even better. I guessed a bit, instead of taking the time to plonk my marker down really accurately.

But it was only a couple of hours later than I actually clicked through to see how Tom had done.

16,758. Wow.
Sure, a big error on the last one in PNG, but even without that, I’d still have outscored him.

And this isn’t me being smug. Or me saying that he’s rubbish, because he’s really not.

But if you are going to try to be good at something like this game, and you start learning how to play it, then managing to achieve this sort of thing is a real milestone, and I was amazed to have done it.

I’m still some distance from learning bollards, or challenging the real stars of the game, but I am getting better.

So this was a pretty big moment, and I am well chuffed with it.

Don’t text and drive

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Why on earth would I even bother to say that in South Africa, where if you’re not using your phone while you’re driving, you’re doing it wrong(ly)?

But still, there’s a lesson here for all of us.

Texting while driving causes 3,142 deaths per year.
Texting while driving plays a role in 5.9% of fatal crashes.

And that’s in the USA. If you don’t think that is a lot (and you should think it’s a lot), then compare those stats with this map:
Deaths caused by texting while driving in the each state of the USA in 1960.

Simpler times.

Safer times.

(Apart from the fact that there were no airbags or crumple zones, and the three-point seatbelt was only invented the year before.)

Stellenblog II

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Return Of The Stellenblog

After last week’s visit to Hartenberg, we headed out that way again, but this time choosing to enjoy the hospitality and the wines of Kleine Zalze and Blaauwklippen.

Both farms were busy without being crowded, and we enjoyed a very leisurely, chilled tasting at Kleine Zalze, the highlights being their NV Brut MCC and all of their Family Reserve range, but especially – and unusually for me – the Cabernet Sauvignon.

And a whole 2 minute drive from there, we had some lunch at Blaauwklippen, with great service from Nono, who then took us through their wines. Some deliciously smooth reds, including their De Blaauwe Klip Bordeaux blend, and some really nice, light summer whites and rosés. It was a lovely lunchtime.

We also had time to visit their IS art gallery – finally working out that IS was the name and not just some poor English on the wall:

Lots of rather cool stuff, literally all of it ridiculously far out of our price range, but really cool to look at. Samuel Allerton‘s stuff really caught our attention.

This one was called Forever Dog.

There are rumours about a couple of bottles of their gorgeous 10 year old Potstill Brandy coming home with us, possibly joined by some of their Before & After apéritif/digestif. I couldn’t possibly comment.

More images on the way, but we had to come home and have a braai and do a blog post, so I haven’t managed to check them all out yet.

Tomorrow looks like being a quieter day, so maybe – maybe – some more words on here.