Clifton (and our Atlantic Seaboard in general) is one of the most beautiful sea-side areas in the country - which is why the properties in this area are of the most expensive in the land. What's interesting (though not unexpected) is that most of the prime real-estate is owned by foreigners; many of whom spend only a little time in the country each year.
I wouldn't mind house sitting... just putting it out there. ;)
In this particular case, I watched as the onshore breeze blew the lantern from Clifton 4th beach, up to Victoria Road, and onto the slopes of Table Mountain. It's irresponsible of people to threaten peoples lives and properties for the pleasure of marveling at the pretty light in the sky.
Anyway, the haze that you see there is from the cold ocean air moving in over the land. The water temperature at the time was only 12°C - which I'm guessing is why that wetsuitless mad surfer person decided to come in to shore.
In case you're wondering, I know it was 12°C because my friend and I (he with his thermometer-watch) hit the waves for all of 4 minutes. It was very unpleasant. Cold-sandy water, with plenty of seaweed constantly wrapping around our legs.
Everybody says Clifton's a great place to enjoy the view, play in the sand, and relax on the beach - but for swimming, she was certainly not made. Now, this is mostly the case, but I have to say that if you catch the tides just right, Clifton's water can actually be reasonably warm... even approaching a swimmable 19°C! ;)
A stage gets erected, a band is appointed, and people flock to the beach with picnic baskets, bikinis, boardshorts and boomerangs (only kidding, Cape Town isn't in Australia). This year CapeTalk, and Discovery (this year's sponsor), invited The Solid Gold Session band to let their mix of 60s, 70s, and 80s hits spill out over the families and friends gathered on the beach.
I couldn't make it before 9pm, and really only arrived once the official party had stopped - but, just in time to see the full moon start to peak over Lion's Head. See the photos below. Isn't it pretty? Don't you wish you'd been there? :)
The temperature tends to fall reasonably quickly as the sun sets and the cool ocean air moves in over the beach, and it's the strangest feeling to leave the beach and the refreshing 19°C air and walk up the many steps to the parking areas to be met with the preceding day's oven-hot air.
If you are visiting Cape Town at this time of the year - pack a picnic dinner, add a few candles, grab a sweater, and head on down to Clifton 4th beach at about 18h30. Feel free to thank me later. ;)
The thing that Kerry-Anne likes most about the beach isn't the sand, or sea water - hell no, she actually doesn't enjoy those much at all. But, hand her a book and an iPad together with a couple of G and Ts, and she can sit on the beach for hours.
We're both working next week, but I'm going to make a plan to leave work a little early (perhaps on Tuesday), pack in a drink or two, our iPads, and head over to one of Clifton's 4 beaches, or perhaps even Camps Bay if the wind isn't blowing. It's gonna be awesome!
I would have written a little more about what they do, but ironically, Google lists the site with a note "This site may harm your computer." I dug a little deeper and found that Google found that the site is infected with malware that automatically downloads to your computer, potentially infecting it with a virus.
Now Alanis, that's irony.
Isabella's has an astonishingly-comprehensive menu filled with creative gourmet alternatives to regular burgers, wraps, salads and sandwiches. The portions are fairly substantial, and super-tasty.
Don't visit if you're in a hurry though. On both our recent visits it seemed like the restaurant's relaxed atmosphere intoxicated it's staff into a Sunday afternoon-like slumber. :)
But, the lack of speed and sparkyness is made up for by the surroundings and food. So, heed my advice if you're in a hurry, but do visit them if you have some time to spend.
In subsequent years they expanded, introduced more variety, branched out into selling meat, dairy, and baked goods, and is now in many ways South Africa's equivalent of the renown American Whole Foods Market.
This particular Fruit 'n Veg store (near the top of St George's Mall in Cape Town) surprised us a little - it was fantastic. The food looked especially yummy. The store was neat and squeaky clean. It wasn't thronging with people, and the variety of food was simply awesome.
If you're hungry and looking for take-away food (other than fast-food), then pop in at Fruit 'n Veg near the top of St George's Mall. I think I even spied an informal group of tables and chairs where you can sit down to quickly devour your meal.
Imagine for a moment that all the buildings in the city resembled this one's architecture. Wouldn't that be fantastically awesome and thoroughly scary, especially at nightfall? I guess it would then be mandatory to rename Cape Town to something more appropriate, like Gotham City.
Not that Gotham City looks exactly like that, but you get the idea, don't you? :)
While I've never typed on this type of typewriter, I do remember writing school projects using my mothers old electronic typewriter. And, while I'm sure my parents thought that we had it easy (using a nifty electronic typewriter, with soft-touch keys) I can't help but think that kids these days have it really-really easy.
But then, perhaps kids these days simply have other challenges - like disciplining themselves to stay focused among the distraction created by our many digital devices and social platforms. Poor things. I pity those kids kids.
If you're scouting for similar decor, the particular contraption to the right of this photo, with it's dozons of pipes, cogs, and levers was created by Chris Jones (email) from Psychedelic Steampunk.
After a blistering hot Friday, we had a strangely-cool Saturday, with plenty of cloud-cover, especially congregating around Table Mountain like a huge ball of grey cotton wool. Kerry-Anne and I headed out to the Alphen Hotel in Constantia to meet up with friends for lunch at La Belle, a lovely restaurant on the hotel's estate.
La Belle is pretty awesome - the service is great, and the food is superb. The pork neck I ordered was spectacular, the cheese cake was heavenly, but the coffee was unfortunately only average. I'd definitely recommend you visit La Belle though - you're sure to enjoy it.
Their brand name is County Fair (which I often mispronounce as Country Fair), but the company's actually called Astral Poultry, and produce feed, eggs, chickens and a variety of other poultry products.
Anyway, can you see how she actually looks female, while the one in my previous post looks male? I wonder if it's this obvious for all cattle.
We really do seem to have the best of both worlds here in Cape Town: We're almost surrounded by the ocean (as peninsulas tend to be), we have a great big mountain towering over our city, and we have big open winelands with beautiful blue mountain ranges. This truely is a remarkable part of Africa!
This photo was taken from the delightful Asara wine estate. The location on Google Maps has been wrong for some time now - here's a map I created to show you the way.
I found this gem at Truth Coffee Roasting, a popular coffee shop in Buitenkant Street. I'm sure it's no longer in use - they do, after all, have far more sophisticated espresso machines these days. But still, it's quite pretty - don't you think?
* To be honest though, so would I, actually. ;)
What happens is that a warm south-easterly wind blows up the back of the Table Mountain range, until it reaches the summit (which is about 1000m above sea level) where it quickly cools down as it meets the cold air covering the top of the mountain. Because cool air isn't able to hold as much moisture, condensation and a thick cloud results.
The air continues to move towards Cape Town and Table Bay, and as it falls off the edge of the mountain it descends, meeting warmer air that's able to absorb the cloud's water vapour, making the cloud disappear, literally into thin air. :)
On good-weather days hundreds of people walk up Lion's Head - and then you get the few like the two in the lower left corner that sprint up the hill.
The average person will take an hour, or perhaps an hour and a half, to walk up Lion's Head, whereas the two in this photo probably took only twenty or thirty minutes to hit the summit.
The problem with running up the hill is that as the path narrows and the cliffs become more treacherous, it's pretty darn dangerous for the runner and for the people they're running past. I think it was last year that someone graciously stepped aside for a runner, lost their footing, and fell to their death.
Use Lion's head to get fit - but don't endanger others - rather walk the narrow sections.