Tag: table mountain

Up, up and away

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A really great night last night, but more on that later, because we woke up to thick fog this morning. And while thick fog doesn’t really make for great photography conditions when you’re in it, if you can get over it, then suddenly, everything changes.

And so I grabbed the drone and headed out, and I did manage to get over it, all 80m of thick stuff lying over the Southern Suburbs, and what’s more, I managed to do it just as the sun came up over the Hottentots Holland Mountains out beyond the Cape Flats.

Looking first that way:

And then turning to see the Mountain sitting like some majestic island emerging from the low clouds:

Glorious light. Horrendous rush hour traffic.

Cape Town showing off, if you could only get to see it. Anyway, always nice to slip in an impromptu photoshoot before I get on with my very busy day.
Which, having done, I must now do.

Up on high

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They’re coming to start some building work on the bar here tomorrow, so rather than tidy up the place and get it ready for them, we went on a 16½km hike up Table Mountain.

Chilly on top in the wind, but otherwise a lovely morning out with plenty of exercise and plenty of fresh air.

And then (after a well-deserved glass of red at a local wine farm), it was back home to prep the place for a week of dust and dirt.

Filthy

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An utterly filthy day, as predicted. 42mm of rain in the back garden so far.

I took Mrs 6000 into town to get her passport back, and with it came added visa-ry goodness, so we’re all clear for takeoff to Europe in a few weeks time on #6kTrip23.

On the way back, we were astounded by the amount of water coming off the back of Table Mountain, so I grabbed my camera and popped down to Newlands in the pouring rain to ‘tog it quickly. You can probably imagine that the light wasn’t all that it could be for this enterprise (it was horrendous), and so I was most delighted to make use of the new AI-powered (because what isn’t these days?) denoise tool on Lightroom.

I mean, this is far from great, but it was a lot further from great before I pressed the button on the computer screen.

And while it isn’t going to win any awards, this does at least document the waterfalls, which we’ve seen before, but were much bigger than usual. And the scale is important, but not hugely visible in this pic.
The total height from where I was standing to the top of the rock is 950m. I think this little lot were probably dropping around 500m.

I’m back to my car park this evening, and I’ll probably take the camera along because wet days are the best days there.

Drone sunset

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I’ve sat in my car park many, many times this year. In all sorts of weather (but mainly wet):

And I was there again last night for the team’s final practice session before the World Cup.
Last week when I was up North, I wished that I had brought my drone along. The sunset was incredible, but I was surrounded by ugly buildings and tall trees, which didn’t make for any decent photography.

So this week, rather than miss out again, I did take my drone along. And predictably, the sunset was completely rubbish.

Initially…

I’d actually packed the drone away and was settling down in the back of the car to watch an episode of Only Connect when I spotted the first tinge of pink in the sky. And while I didn’t think it was going anywhere, I knew I’d be pissed off if it did and I missed it, so I unpacked and set up again and by the time I got flying… well…

First things first: this is a stacked image of 5 bracketed shots, given that the sky was BRIGHT and the mountain was DARK. I’ve already been accused of RBOSSery by someone on the family Whatsapp group (wow – et tu, Brute?), but in fact, it’s actually UN-RBOSSed:

Look at that! And that’s just because there was far too much going on in the sky for the teeny, tiny sensor on my aging drone to handle. So no, definitely no RBOSS or hypocrisy here*.

I think this image would have been better with a bit more Table Bay in the mid-ground, but I was just down the road from Blouberg (aka “Blow”berg), and the South Easter was pumping. I was getting wind warnings even just up at 30m, so I decided not to risk much above 50. A bit irritating, but there are some things that you just can’t control, and hey, I still have a drone this morning, so that’s nice.
Always look for the positives.

Because the World Cup is coming up, I’m not going to be in my car park for a while now, and when practices do start again, they will likely not be 4 or 5 times a week, so I think this was a really good way to sign off for a while.

* Add a bit of Whatsapp compression and I can maybe kind of see where he was coming from, but I’m still rather hurt.

Day 670 – Photos up

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I’ve uploaded some photos on Flickr. I’ve spared you the portraits, the people and the drunken antics and given you some different Table Mountain beauty instead.

Pop along and have a look.

I’m not sure if everyone there was having one on one conversations about living in Cape Town while we were up on the mountain, but I had several. And the general consensus was that while living in South Arica certainly has its challenges, we’re very lucky to live in our little bubble in the south west corner and so privileged to live here and to be able to enjoy experiences like our overnight trip. Having a national park on my doorstep isn’t a new thing for me: I’ve had it when living in Sheffield and Newcastle, and while I don’t use it as much as I might, living in Cape Town has reminded me how much I missed the opportunity to get out and about while living in Oxford (ironic since that is arguably the least urban – and certainly the smallest – place I’ve ever lived).

Anyway, as you might have gathered by the posts on our brief overnighter, we had a pretty amazing time, and it’s reaffirmed my project to get fit again so I can do more trips up the mountain.