The thin edge of the wedge?

Chapmans Peak reaching out into the ocean encloses Hout Bay and forms part of the Natural World Heritage Site that is the Table Mountain National Park. Chapman's Peak Drive, which you can just see in the photo, is a toll road which is administered by Entilini, a rather shadowy company that has taken some liberties in the past with its concession. Yesterday Capetonians were outraged when news broke of a proposed R54 million office block to be built in the Table Mountain National Park to house a bunch of road-toll officials with large, large egos - an an eye on possible high rent tenants, who knows. And guess who finances most of it? Us, the tax-payers! It is absolutely outrageous! My first thoughts on reading the article by Melanie Gosling in the Cape Times was "Is it April Fool's Day?" The office block will impinge on the integrity of our national park and seriously undermine the integrity of SANParks.(SANParks, go and read your mission statement on your website to remind yourself what you are all about!) It will be the beginning of the end of the war against the attrition of our beleaguered natural areas and I really, really hope that it will never happen.
There will be a protest march on Sunday 22 January at 10 am, starting at both ends of Chapmans Peak Drive.

Don't miss the bus

Yesterday was a rather wet and chilly day and not the best choice for our trip in the open-top Cape Town City Sightseeing Bus, but it was still a fantastic outing. Here we are passing the picturesque Hout Bay Harbour. The buses do circular trips, one around the city, and one that goes from Cape Town city, via Kirstenbosch, Hout Bay and Camps Bay and back to the city. One can hop on or hop off anywhere along the route. They have some good deals and suggestions for things to do along the way too. An ideal way to kick off a visit to Cape Town.

Sardine Run

An unseasonal Sardine Run is on at the moment in the sea around Cape Town. I was on Hout Bay beach this morning and the water was alive with these little fish no more than 25 cm long. They seem completely disorientated, some of them swim up onto the beach and lie there flipping before some tern swoops down and flies off with them.
The photo on the left shows one that has just stranded itself and lies there flapping and gasping. They are sardines (Sardinopsis sugax) and theories abound as to why they do this - but it is still rather mysterious.
There were hundreds and thousands of seagulls, terns and cormorants - as well as dolphins and seals (and no doubt, sharks), all having a feeding frenzy. The local humans also cashed in.

Under the radar

The ruin of an old Second World War radar station high on the Karbonkelberg above Hout Bay. It was built to detect submarines when they surfaced to recharge their batteries. You can see Little Lion's Head in the background.

Reflecting on old Cape Town

As you drive through Hout Bay you pass this imposing looking Cape Dutch homestead - Kronendal. The house was built along the old wagon road linking Constantia Nek to Hout Bay. (Hout means wood in Dutch - reflecting the origins of this place as the source of much plunder of trees!) Although there had been buildings on this site earlier, work on this house was begun in 1793 when Johannes Guilliam van Helsdingen was the owner. He apparently copied the design of the gable of Groot Constantia for his elegant home.
Kronendal has a ghost too, according to the entry in Cape Dutch Houses by Phillida Brookes Simons. In the mid 19th century, a young English soldier stationed at the Cape fell in love with Elsa Cloete, daughter of Kronendal's owner at the time. Cloete forbade the couple to marry, and the soldier hanged himself in despair from one of the oaks in the avenue. Else died unwed and her unhappy ghost haunts the house to this day.
Kronedal now houses a restaurant, Kitima, and a table is laid each night for the unhappy Elsa.

Roadside flowers

A roadside flower stall in Hout Bay in front of the Kronendal homestead. Holding her grandson, the flower-seller told me with pride that her family had been farming in Hout Bay for over two hundred years. The first Dutch farmers are reputed to have settled here in the 1670s, and it is thought that some part of their original dwellings are incorporated in the old Cape Dutch house - the Kronendal. And if their farmlands are where the existing farmlands of Kronendal are today then these lands are the oldest existing farmlands in South Africa today.

Two sentinels

You can just make out the bronze leopard on the large granite boulder looking across Hout Bay towards the The Sentinel and the harbour. (The beach is just to the right, out of the photo.) Also acting as a sentinel of the bay (albeit a rather depressed looking one), the leopard was sculpted in 1963 by Ivan Mitford-Barbeton and placed here in 1963. The last living leopard was shot in Hout Bay in the 1930s. No doubt they used to prey on the baboons and dassies that thrive here now.

Cool off

With temperatures heading towards 40 degrees, Hout Bay beach is a good place to be!

Tragic Times

The inhabitants of the township of Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay, like the rest of us Capetonians from Constantia to Gugulethu, are trying hard to capitalize on the great success of the World Cup earlier this year by attracting tourists to our wonderful city. One of our unique tourist attractions is a visit to a township - most of which are dense settlements on the outskirts of the city that grew during the dark days of apartheid when it was illegal for black people to live in the city without a work "pass". Poverty is rife, and tourism is one way of uplifting the communities there.
But then we wake to the horrible news of a hijacking and murder of a British tourist who was visiting Gugulethu to experience the wonderful "vibe" of Xoli's Tavern - which is a famous shebeen (bar) and eatery there. How very tragic - not only for the family and friends of the two people involved in the horrific crime, but for the whole community - the township of "Gugs" , the whole of Cape Town and indeed, all of South Africa.

Fire Heath

Today is Wednesday - which means walking on Table Mountain and ABC Wednesday. Luckily one of the first flowers I saw in the fynbos on the slopes of Chapman's Peak above Hout Bay this morning was a Fire Heath (Erica cerinthoides). Apart from the fact that they glow red like a flame, they come up after a fire in the veld. And fynbos is famous for being a fire-dependent vegetation type.

For more fs, see ABC Wednesday.

Contemplation

Today's walk was up Chapmans Peak in hot sunny weather - some midwinters day! Paul decided to get a better view of the Sentinel - the peak that guards the entrance to Hout Bay Harbour. Just to the left of the Sentinel is the Dungeons, which is a huge wave that attracts lots of crazy surfers.