Monthly Archives: July 2013

A comfy Union Jack

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A comfy Union Jack
It's been a long time since South Africa was a colony. Back then, around the time of the Boer War, the Brits made life really difficult for folk living here. It was a dark time, but I think we've kinda forgiven them now. :)

Bay Harbour Market – Feed me Seymore…

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Bay Harbour Market - Feed me Seymore...
As I mentioned in my previous post - the food at the Bay Harbour Market in Hout Bay was superb. After walking from stall to stall I settled on the one in this photo - their omelettes looked to awesome to pass up.

Even though I waited about 20 minutes for the food (which isn't really *that* long) what was great was that I didn't have to stand at the stall, they handed out buzzers that would vibrate when your order's ready for collection. Quite different to a regular food market, heh? :)

Bay Harbour Market in Hout Bay

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Bay Harbour Market in Hout Bay
We arrived at about 10h30 - there was still space to breath. This was however not a luxury to be enjoyed once lunch time and the hungry hoards arrived.

I'm being overly dramatic, sure. :) While lunch time was pretty busy, and it took a little longer than what I'd hoped for to get my fantastically-awesome bacon and brie cheese omelet from stall 1 and take-away coffee from stall 2, it wasn't too bad. It was raining outside and I was pretty darn glad that this market was indoors, and in retrospect pretty glad for said hoards - they soon heated up the place, keeping temperatures at a comfy 23°C. :)

If you haven't, you should visit. Fridays from 17h00 to 21h00, and weekend-days from 09h30 to 16h00.

Underground parking garage

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Underground parking garage
I heard once that shopping malls charge parking fees to encourage people to get their shopping done and leave, instead of hanging around for hours on end window shopping. The rational is that even if they charge a small hourly fee that it triggers a part of our brain that's wired to be frugal.

What's interesting is that we spend about 40 minutes at Cavendish Square mall and that cost us R10 in parking. We then spent about two or three hours at the V&A Waterfront for the same amount of parking money.

I'd guess then that the cost of parking is relative to the mall's floor space and number of available parking bays. The V&A Waterfront has a huge amount of space, and comparatively far more parking than what Cavendish does - but still, for some reason a felt a little robbed at Cavendish, expecting the cost for an hour's worth of parking to be around R5 - similar to that charged by large malls in the northern suburbs.

Legend of the Kaaiman

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Legend of the Kaaiman
I'm sure when you think of a mermaid you picture what we've been indoctrinated to imagine - a beautiful blonde woman with long flowing hair, much like the one in this photo.

Cape Town, well, rather Swellendam (a small town 225Km outside of Cape Town) has it's own mermaid legend - that of the Kaaiman. From what I can tell sightings are extermely infrequent, with the last reported one being in 2008. The Kaaiman is apparantly a white woman with long black hair, red eyes, and a fish-like lower half. Read this story on Monstropedia for details on the 2008 sighting.

A schooner called Spirit of Victoria

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A schooner called Spirit of Victoria
Call me ignorant, but until now I had no idea that a vessel with this sail configuration is called a schooner and used the word "yacht" to generically refer to boats with sails.

Now, I'm not sure when a boat is a yacht - if perhaps it has more to do with the vessels purpose in life, or something else, but it's unlikely that it has anything to do with sails as modern luxury yachts often don't even have sails. If you do know, then don't hesitate - leave a comment please. :)

Impressionist Sunset at the Sea Point Promenade

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Impressionist Sunset at Mouille Point
I do so love summer, but the clear-sky summer sunsets just don't compare with the pastel colours in winter. Click on the image to see the larger version - notice the reflection on the stormy water. Beautiful hey?

Here's the photo I uploaded to Instagram at the time.

Cars at Cavendish

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Cars at Cavendish
It was much like a magnet. There really was no stopping me from descending to the ground floor in the busy Cavendish Square mall to take a look at the bright red Audi R8 on display. It sure is beautiful.

While we have our fair share of Maseratis, Ferraris, Porches and Lamborginis racing around our fair city, they're really not as common as they are in European or American cities - so you may say that I'm just a smidgen deprived. ;)

Rushing over rocks

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Rushing over rocks
For the record, I was watching the water very carefully when this wave broke. The section of rock that I was standing on was on the same level as the rock in the photo, and for a moment I wasn't completely sure that the foaming-frothing sea water wasn't going to reach me. :)

Hermanus beaches

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Hermanus beaches
This is one of the many little beaches tucked away along the Cliff Path walking trail in Hermanus. I've never actually been here in summer - so I wonder how busy these beaches get. I suspect they're not overrun, but probably not quite as deserted as in this photo. :)

The Hermanus Cliff Path

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The Harmanus Cliff Path
The Cliff Path in Hermanus isn't quite as scary as it sounds - there are cliff's, shear drops down to the rocks below, but the pathway is well kept and as long as you don't walk with your nose high-up in the air, you're unlikely to fall off the edge. :)

The only annoying thing is that we came across people who were walking their two unstable-looking Alsatians along the path... at times without leashes!