Walking

 

30 January 2013 – Wednesday

Lounging  about in huge pools of warm water, soaked up to the neck is a totally new experience for me - very comfortable but  rather like having giant baths with strangers.  Though, Tony, of course, talks to and befriends everyone he meets, so there really aren’t a load of strangers around.  He knows all about the Scottish vets, the sweet South African woman that sometimes camps in the wilds with her husband (and uses a stone to cover each of her newly dug poos),  the couple whose son honeymooned here recently, the Barrydale nutritional expert, the Knysa psycholanalyst and countless more.  Het likes talking to people and they like him back .  He particularly knows about men with Land Rovers.   

I decided I needed some exercise so today I asked about local walks.  Once I had been told about the 6.5 km walk in the mountains I was determined to do it and was delighted that Tony came with me.  Jenny and Angela were very busy at the Scrabble table at the time.  But to give Jenny her due, she has provided all of our catering whilst we have been here.

The walk started from a high point, at the top of the spa and, for the first 2 kilometres, at least, led us uphill.  I’m not desperately good at uphill.  I’m willing – but get out of breath very quickly. (The Bishop probably said that to the actress),  But we kept going and climbed the very stony uphills and were glad of the stony downhills and were also glad that it was cloudy today; not cold, but not boiling hot.    The whole walk was wonderful.  I think the paths we covered must have been created as tracks in the years before car access and modern roads.  These were not highly irrigated pathways but,  with little rainfall, sides of the track were crammed with bushes and intricate plants. 

I also got Tony to take a photo of me on the track.  My friends, Mike and Kerstin Wood, good people,  were photographed recently on their trip to Asia and ended up looking so miserable that I was determined to avoid this for my own blog.  So in a previous photo Tony took, I grinned with such eagerness, I looked like a predatory female paedophile with an enticing line in kittens or baby gerbils.  I’m not posting that one. 

 

The walk was good exercise and took us a bit over 2 hours and we were grateful and thankful to drink large quantities of very cold water when we returned.

Later this afternoon I managed to photograph  one of the peahens resting with her brood.  I have been trying to photograph them since I have been here  and was even responsible for a peacock bunfight.  I changed my mind about feeding them as I was hoping they might hang around long enough to be photographed. What actually happened was that, as soon as I started to distribute bread, male peacocks arrived from every direction and booted the babies out of the way.  So this afternoon offered a very rare quiet moment.

Warm Water and Peacocks

 

Tuesday 29 January

On Sunday we  drove away from Cape Town,  then inland and crossed the mountainous Tradouw Pass.  The Tradouw was constructed in the 19^th century and I cannot begint to imagine how men planned and plotted and gouged routes through these great lolloping mountains. 

Gorge below the Tradouw Pass

We have come to the Warmwaterberg Spa (pronounced VarrmVarterberg) between Barrydale and Ladismith.  This is a place where natural warm mineral water flows from the ground.  There are two or perhaps three warm pools to swim or lounge in and a colder pool for swimming.

I have a little wooden chalet comprising a small bedroom, a kitchen , sitting area and a little bathroom . There’s my own  double benched table outside with a brick built barbecue.   Ever since I received all this plenty, I have been humming an old Incredible String Band song about a Log Cabin Home in the Sky with a very cheerful grin on my face.

Log Cabin Home in the Sky

 

Jenny and Tony are camping a little way away from me with their luxury trailer and Angela,  a neighbour of Jenny’s has come from Prince Albert to meet them and has her own little chalet.

   

In the main, the camp is uncrowded and very quiet.  People poddle about in the sun or sit gently in the warm water pools.  The noisiest inhabitants are the crowds of peacocks the stride about and sometimes either yell or make rude honking noises.  There are also several clutches of fledging peacocks who trot after their mothers in packs.

 

The male peacocks appear in ragged splendour at the moment.  Their faces and bodies are beautiful, but their tail feathers are moulting fast and they drag a few feathers along the ground behind them.

A little cat came to my chalet this morning.  I was searching for something to offer it.  I had only fruit, a little salad and some rye bread in my fridge so I threw it a piece of rye bread and, as it was deciding whether or not to risk it, a large peacock grabbed the piece from the floor.  I’m not going to make a habit of feeding the peacocks.  I’ve already had five or six of them roosting in a tree just about the chalet at night, then stalking about on my tin roof in the early morning. 

When I get up and open the chalet door, two or three peacocks come over to inspect me.  They have bright, intelligent eyes and appear curious.  Although I have had them come to the door step, thankfully none have stepped across the threshold yet.  Could be a bird too far. 

Mooiberge

Saturday – 26 January 2013

Mooiberge

Down the road from Mountain Breeze is one of the strangest wine shops I have ever seen.  This is a large, well visited shop and looks a thriving concern.  However, the store front outside is packed with brightly coloured, garish figures, some made out of tin, some like colourful Guy Fawkes , some in the shape of animals,  many people, a couple of airplanes, cars and carts.  None of the figures are made with great skill or finesse, but clustered together they make a stunning, joyful exhibition.  

Mooiberge claims to have been started by Samuel Zetler sometime in the 20^th century.  Hanging above the rows and rows of bottles inside the store, are pictures of the young Samuel (1909-2002) and his wife Josie (1915-2008) alongside pictures of them in old age.  It's always possible that Samuel and Josie hated one another, they could even have been as miserable as sin together,  but, looking at their pictures, it's very unlikely.   This whole store was their original work and the lifespan pictures give a sense of lives lived together, undertakings commenced and completed, promises kept.

Penguins

25 January 2013 - Friday

Today we visited a thriving penguin colony at Betty’s Bay, further along the coast.  The penguins have all lived there for some time.  Apparently a few years ago there was an attempt to move them to Port Elizabeth following an oil spillage.  They were captured, transported and released whereupon they all promptly swam the 800 kilometres back to Betty’s Bay.  Fortunately, the oil clean up had  just been finished when the penguins arrived back.  For the time being, they live safely at home.

One thing about penguins, or possibly penguins in large numbers, is that they smell really terrible.  Something to do with all the fish they eat.  I’m not sure if it’s the penguins  themselves, or sea loads of penguin poo,   but it’s truly awful.  

I admit that I don’t see the point of  penguins.   They can’t fly and don’t walk well, although they spend a lot of time on land.     We watched  a couple climbing down the rocks towards the sea  and it was a  really slow and jerky process.  Most of them kept still for long periods on the shore. They provide food for sharks and some larger seals, I think, but I’ve never ever seen penguin on any human menu.  Though the smell could be a big deterrent.  

But these were my first penguins outside of a zoo and, at the same time,  I also got to see my first dassies.  And they are a rabbit sized animal with small ears.  And they look nothing like elephants.  

      

We lunched sumptuously at a small Greek restaurant called The Whaling Station in Betty’s Bay.  The kind of Greek meal where they keep bringing you different dishes.  Absolutely delicious and very filling. 

It was good to finish the day back at Mountain Breeze round a wood fire lit by Wilma and Cobus, a kind hospitable couple who fed us small pieces of barbecued sausage and glasses of wine.   I had intended to be fairly abstemious, but, between Vilma’s hospitable insistence on refilling our glasses whenever they became empty, and my weakness in letting her,   I drank.  

Jenny & Cobus

Vilma and Cobus have a method of camping I have never seen before.  Their  large car has  an enclosed bed on the roof rack.  Similar to those paladins that medieval ladies used to ride in.    They said that it was possible to put it down flat for driving and then quickly erect it when needed.  It really was camping with very minimal equipment     

Table Mountain

24 January – Thursday

Table Mountain was covered in cloud when we visited.  We rode the cable car ride to the top, hoping that the cloud might shift during the morning.  It didn’t and it’s odd walking about on a cloudy mountain.   They call it the Table Cloth on days like this.  There should be many different flowers and plants to look at small furry animals called dassies – described as being about the size of a rabbit with small ears and, bizarrely, very closely related to the elephant. We nearly saw a dassie.  Someone  cried, “Look, a dassie” and pointed, so it hid  under the nearest rock before we could see it.   

We wandered through the cloud for a while and then went for a coffee.  I was just thinking that the  big white man beside me at the till reminded me of a large ape when he ordered,  “2 coffees and 2 BANANAS”. 

A very old woman seated on a bench outside was updating her younger male companion with a rather tragic family history.

“Well, John Mark he married Chloe. But he died – had cancer.  They had two boys.  Do you remember Susan  – she tried to commit suicide.  She thought her husband was seeing another woman”

“Not Harold?”

“Yes, Harold.  And Nigel – he was the head boy but he died at 54 with a coronary.  And Samuel drowned.  Peter – he married Lydia but they got divorced, but he has been very happy with his second wife – German you know.”

We lunched very well on fish at Camps Bay in the Pepper Club overlooking the sea and then finished the day with some shopping in Cape Town at the Water Front centre. 

Incidentally, I have discovered that Jenny, like Mike, is also prone to arguments with SatNavs.  I overheard her cry out, "You silly woman" as the beautifully spoken SatNav lady tried to direct us.  It could be a family trait.