study why sea lions swim in cursive

with our friend veronica (who loves riding in the car) we drove the rental car i had gotten for the dad visit down to hout bay harbor for a nice sunset hike. libby and i always dreamed of walking all the way around this one mountain outcropping, which has a path overlooking the ocean the whole way, and in five hours you could do the whole loop. well, we never made that hike, despite our dreams and our talking about it. we always went down to hout bay in the afternoon and so we had to be content with shorter, sunset hikes. all the same, this one was really worth it.

we found a beautiful place to sit and look out at the ocean…

and there, down below, was what seemed to be 10,000 sea lions. the whole time we were there, they were all singing, talking, playing, eating dinner, doing 10,000 different things i guess. it sounded something like a loud cafe broadcast through speakers to the square outside, except maybe louder, and from sea lions. but we could only be sure it was sea lions by taking close up photos, and then zooming in, again, on the view setting of the digital camera.

(if you have a way to zoom this photo in, you’ll be able to make out the distinct shape of hundreds and hundreds of sea lions).

after marveling at the sea lions, we walked a bit further and watched the sun finally sink into the ocean before heading back home…

80% Climbing Table Mountain

the more times i tried to climb table mountain, the less spectacular and easy it seemed to be. when we tried to take erin and amanda up with us, it proved to be so unbelievably windy that we were quite simply uncomfortable and unhappy much of the time. after making it 75% of the way up, erin was intimidated by the fact that the wind seemed to be getting 1000 times stronger, and plus increasing fog was making it impossible to see to the top. she decided to walk back down, and libby went with her.

amanda and i stubbornly pushed on to the top, and there was some small satisfaction in “making it” the whole way, but that was pretty small indeed.
here we are trying to prove that it’s beautiful at the top (when actually the visibility was next to nothing at all…)

Hiking and Biking: The Great Cave Adventure

Libby and I looked up a hike on the internet, which took us up an amazing route from St. James station, (one past Muizenburg) winding up a small mountain (with valleys which seemed really surreal – see above) till we got to a cool cave.

Here was the view of the coastline:

amazing rock formations:

the bit-more-than-halfway sign:

more cool rocks:

finally, the cave:

and libby hamming it up inside, as usual:

we had to use a candle to find our way in the damp, dark of the cave:

coming down we wound through this forest, on a boardwalk:

and caught another view of the ocean:

before going back down the zig-zag ramp/steps down to st. james again:

wanna see the last portion in motion, and with “home made” soundtrack?

Hiking and Biking: Mohamed & I Near Simonstown

After studying the map a bit, Mohamed and I decided on a funky little hike, starting from Glencairn train station (which is one north of the last stop, Simonstown). Turns out the area we walked through is a strange quasi-military, quasi-petro-chemical area, and a couple hundred meters up there’s this funky little valley neighborhood, which almost looks like it’s in a crater, because it’s surrounded by mountain on all sides. Here’s their neighborhood park:

The neighborhood gives way to a section of national park, which is relatively small and flat, but a nice walk nonetheless. I loved this solitary tree in the distance:

Then, once we were back on the paved round, I decided, characteristically, that it might be fun to go off of the paved road and any clear path. It looked like it might be a faster way down to Simonstown, also. Turns out it was quite a mess of a scramble, in really fierce winds:

Fortunately, after about 30 minutes of wacky scrambling, we stumbled upon this amazing old cannon, which was a ton of fun to play around on and under (and then we were also back to the paved road, which was also a relief):

* by the way, the top picture was taken with the thought in mind that there really ought to be a photograph taken of mohamed that is good enough to please his future wife…

Hiking and Biking: Hout Bay Harbor

Libby and I took a hike nearly every week. One week in October we decided to take the bus down to Hout Bay Harbor, and take a hike up through the mountains there. It’s only a few hundred meters tall (unlike 1000+ on Table Mountain), so good for a short trip. We took the bus down to the harbor, hiked on up, listened to music and rested, then made it back down in time to catch the last bus back up to town and dinner. It was a fun afternoon.

there’s the actual harbor, and the working class neighborhood of the otherwise very-upscale Hout Bay:

Hiking and Biking: Sunset Bike Ride

Libby and I rode our bikes out past Sea Point, to sit for a bit and enjoy the beautiful sunset.

We went out along the high road, which allowed us to look down at the harbor, and all of Sea Point.

The ‘neighborhood,’ that we decided to stop at is an extremely wealthy area, called Bantry Bay. Having come in along the high road, we climbed more than 300 steps down to the lower road, to find a place to sit by the ocean. The wealthy people who live there don’t seem to use the stairs much, though, as many houses had their own, private elevators installed outside their houses:

Just across the street from these decadent homes, homeless people eek out a way to live, in the rocks beneath the scenic drive:

In addition to enjoying the sight of whales playing off in the distance, we played around ourselves with the sunset, taking it in deeply, and even upside down:

From that position, the sky and the sea look like this:

Hiking and Biking: From Tamboerskloof to Sea Point

Libby and I decided to take a ‘hike’ that took us from our house, up across signal hill and down to Sea Point. It was a simple, leisurely little walk. We got some pastries in the Tamboerskloof neighboorhood, wandered around checking out their houses, went past the Deutsch school and then up a little path to the top. Once at the top, we ate our pastries, listened to some music, and libby practiced her beautiful yoga moves…

drop n go?

Hiking and Biking: Bike Adventure to Athlone

I have gone on a number of hiking and biking adventures in the last couple of months. The first great adventure that Libby and I went on was to ride our bikes more than ten miles, from downtown, through the harbor, to a mixed race suburb called Brooklyn, to a white suburb called Pinelands, into coloured Athlone, over to Rondebosch, and home by train. It was a tremendously fun journey, and allowed us to see the different sides, and divisions of Cape Town.

Biking along the harbor, we were fascinated by the way that the touristic images of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head are obscured by the trucks and machinery of the harbor, and the freeway. 

In addition to checking out this cool little boat, we stopped at a cargo company, to look into taking a boat up the coast of Africa somehow. Seems we were the first person to ever come to them with such a request.

Leaving the harbor, we crossed the not-so-beautiful Salt River.

We carted our bikes up over the pedestrian bridge at Ysterplaat rail station, and took a minute to note the new view of the mountain.

(for images of Brooklyn, see “graffiti” post below…)

Pinelands is a completely “planned community.” It is fairly lifeless, despite the abundance of trees and wide boulevards. There is a park which runs along the little creek, which isn’t too bad. It’s full, as should be expected, with white people and with dogs.

Libby and I were wondering whether kids in Pineland would be allowed to do something that curious and playful as to explore the potentially fun aspects of construction piping. Turns out, they do, which is a great sign for the humanity of Pinelands’ inhabitants:

As Pinelands is necessarily a creation of policies of racial segregation, biking from there to neighboring (and coloured) Athlone is virtually impossible. One must go many kilometers out of their way, or, as we did, scramble across an empty field and up a hill onto the motorway…

This house in Athlone is amazing:

After getting some nice spices and a quick snack of veggie samoosa’s, we biked off into the sunset, stopping one last time to check the final view of the mountains, so much different from the view from the harbor: