The best beach in Cape Town

I think by now you probably know that we're quite fond of the beaches along the Atlantic Seaboard (Camps Bay, Clifton, Llandudno). Our favourite of these is definitely Clifton 4th Beach. I don't think I need to say any more really - just take a look at the photo. Doesn't it look idyllic?

After the sun has set

We went down to Clifton 4th Beach this evening with a few friends. I wanted to do something to mark the one-year anniversary of my brother's death, but I wanted it to be happy and special, rather than sad and melancholy. So we took a picnic and spent a couple of hours watching the sky change colour after the sun had set.

The weather was sublime, and I even went for a swim (on my own, since no-one else had brought their costumes) just before it got completely dark. This is an experience I can totally recommend - if you live in Cape Town, you should do this at least once in your life.

It turned out to be a truly beautiful evening, spent with people I love - which is just what I'd wanted.

Two South African inventions

South Africans are proud of their inventors. It's almost guaranteed that if you're a foreigner and find yourself talking with South African friends on a harbour pier, at some point someone from the group will mention that it was a South African who invented the dolos (the 20 ton pieces oddly-shaped pieces of concrete seen in the photo).

This bit of information will more often than not be followed up by the story of Ferdinand Chauvier's world-first automatic pool cleaning system, the Kreepy Krauly and how the American company, Zodiac, allegedly stole the South African design, with their Baracuda pool cleaner.

Ironically, I'm South African and I own a Baracuda... which, much to my dismay, sucked all the water from my swimming pool during the night because I left the pump on backwash by mistake! Perhaps it's the Gods of Invention that are trying to teach me a lesson about patriotism. :D

Does it rain in January?

Perhaps it's because January and February are normally so hot that I was surprised by the rain that we had today. I googled "cape town rainfall" and discovered a few sites showing that the Western Cape's historical rainfall is about 11mm in the month of January, increasing each month until it peaks at about 98mm in June, and then decreasing again to 13mm in December.

Our province experienced heavy water restrictions a couple of years ago and at the time it seemed as though everyone was installing well-points or bore-holes. I even tried to install one myself - this makes for an entertaining story. :)

At the time talk was going around that the government was considering placing restrictions, or perhaps levies, on the use of ground water for residential irrigation, due to the impact that the increased and uncontrolled use of ground water could have on the province's water table, and consequently on natural vegetation.

Read this interesting article for more information about the origin and use of groundwater in Cape Town.

Graeme Smith arrives in Cape Town

If you follow cricket, then you'll know that South Africa made history recently by winning a test series against Australia IN Australia. You'll probably also know that Graeme Smith, the captain of the South African side, got hit by a ball on the second day of the third test (South Africa having won the first two tests), breaking his left hand. Despite being in obvious pain, he came out to bat at number 11 on the final day of the match, in an effort to stop Australia from winning the final test. (I'm not ashamed to say that I cried when the radio commentator announced that he was walking onto the field.) He scored three runs, amazingly, but was unfortunately bowled out when there were just ten balls left in the game.

We went through to the airport this evening to join other fans in welcoming our Captain Courageous back home. Unfortunately, it seems that ACSA's online real-time flight info is not quite as real-time as one might have hoped. Graeme's flight landed a full thirty minutes early, but the "expected arrival time" was only updated AFTER the flight had already landed. So, sadly, we arrived too late and missed him.

Fortunately we came across four really friendly and helpful policemen and -women, one of whom agreed to let us post the photos he had taken of Graeme with his cellphone. Thanks, Albert; you are indeed an officer and a gentleman. :)

You can see the other photos on Cape Town Daily Photo Extras.

Fishing boats of the V&A Waterfront

Fish Quay, seen above, is in the V&A Basin of the Waterfront, very close to the Clock Tower mentioned in this post a few days ago. Although I've never seen fish being offloaded, presumably because we normally visit the Waterfront over weekends or in the evening, I believe that visitors to the Waterfront can stand and watch as these deep-sea fishing boats dock and offload their super-fresh fish.

Unfortunately, I doubt that one can purchase fish directly from the boat captains here. If you're keen on this, then Kalk Bay harbour is the place to be, as recently caught fish can be bought directly from fishermen on the pier.

Look right, it must be white

In yesterday's post I asked a question about the direction in which I was taking the photo. Trust an engineer to work it out first - although I guess it would be fair to mention that Duncan knows this particular road pretty well. :)

So yes to all of you who agreed; from this shot (taken a little further on) you can easily deduce that yesterday's photo was indeed taken in reverse. While the reason Duncan gave was correct, it's not the reason I was probing for - read on.

South Africa has a few large roads that carry traffic in one direction only. If the line on the road (in yesterday's photo) were white then this road would be one of these roads (carrying traffic in one direction only) and I would have been taking the photos facing forwards.

If you're ever driving in South Africa and find that darkness or fog prevents you from seeing too much, take note of the solid lines on the left and right of your vehicle - left should be yellow, right should be white... if that's not the case, pull off the road really fast!

Surprisingly, this does happen - I once experienced two such incidents in a single day. Leave a message if you're interested in reading the story and I'll add it as a comment.

Left, right, yellow, white

I shot this photo out the car's window. My question to you is this: in what direction did I take the photo? Was I pointing my camera towards the front of the car or towards the back, and why do you say so?

I'll post the answer and the reason for the question tomorrow.

Girls, lifeguards and blue flags

If you've been following this blog it will be no surprise to you which beach is being featured today. Clifton 4th beach, obviously. :)

The guy and girl sitting on the unusually high chairs are lifeguards watching over bathers. We watched for some time as about 10 people practised their lifesaving skills by dragging a "victim" from the ocean; and unlike my brief description here, watching this mock-rescue was actually fairly entertaining.

Clifton 4th is classified as a Blue Flag beach, meaning that it complies with certain quality requirements set forward by the Foundation for Environmental Education.

In this case "quality" doesn't refer to how beautiful the people on the beach are (though if it did, Clifton would retain its status, no doubt). Instead it refers to a number of criteria in the following categories:

• Bather environmental education and information
• Water quality
• Environmental management
• Safety and services

You can read the full list of measurement criteria on the Blue Flag website.

Bubble-people

I've always wanted to go zorbing in the hills of Rotorua in New Zealand - it's right up there with skydiving, learning French, and writing a book, on my list of lifetime goals. I was tempted to try this mini-version of zorbing at the V&A Waterfront on New Year's Eve, but I suspect it wouldn't have been quite as much fun as the real thing.

The kids that were playing in these giant plastic balls seemed to be having a pretty good time though, rolling and tumbling along on the surface of the water. Have you ever been zorbing? Is it as much fun as I think it would be?

New Year's Eve at the V&A Waterfront

As I said in yesterday's post, it really was busy at the V&A Waterfront last night. If you're familiar with the Waterfront then you'll likely remember the narrow swinging bridge at the Clock Tower. This crowd on the Clock Tower side was trying to change places with a similarly large crowd on the other side.

Speaking of the Clock Tower: in case you don't know what it is, the Clock Tower was the old port master's watchtower, built in the late 1800s when the harbour was still full of old-style sailing ships.

The tower houses a huge clock (hence the name "Clock Tower"), which was about 5 minutes slow on New Year's Eve. The crowd on our side of the harbour must have been watching the tower because only when a roar of cheering was heard from the other side of the harbour did our side erupt with the realisation that 2009 had arrived at last.

Another revolution

With no particular plans for seeing the new year in, Kerry-Anne and I went through to the Cape Town Waterfront to join the thronging crowds watching the annual fireworks display. We bought tickets for a ride on this ferris wheel just before midnight and watched the new year approach from several metres above the ground.

You may notice that only the "W" in "Ferris Wheel" was lit. As we boarded the giant wheel I wondered whether or not I should be concerned that the ride operators were not even able to keep all the lights in working order... :)

In closing, thanks for spending the last year with us; we've certainly enjoyed ourselves and hope that you've enjoyed sharing in Cape Town each day. We wish you an exciting and fun-filled 2009 with much love, joy and peace!