Today is an absolute stinker of a hot day! We started early and hiked up Devil's Peak - to get this view over the city of Cape Town on the fringes of Table Bay; Robben Island in the middle. Welcome drifts of cool air from that mist coming in from the north made the return bearable.
Rondebosch Common with the University of Cape Town at the foot of Devil's Peak in the background. The common is an open space in the centre of Cape Town suburbia - its history stretching back into the dim and distant past when Khoe herders grazed their sheep and cattle there. During the Dutch and English colonial periods it was used as a military encampment but also as common grazing land. Botanically it has become of great importance as it harbours two patches of almost extinct vegetation types - Sand Plain Fynbos and Renosterveld.
Devils's Peak and Table Mountain rise above the heat haze over Cape Town - viewed from Khayelitsha. It is almost too hot today to exercise one's fingers on the keyboard!
Pelargoniums are usually incorrectly called geraniums, and it is the South African wild pelargoniums that are the parents of all the "geraniums" you see spilling out of window boxes all over the world. This misty, breezy morning we climbed Devil's Peak and these purple perlargoniums (Pelargonium cucullatum) were in full flower all along the path.
The fruit of the pelargonium resembles a stork's bill which is where the name comes from (pelargos is Greek for stork) and you can see some of the fruits pointing straight up on the left of the photo above. This photo, also taken this morning on Devil's Peak, is of Pelargonium myrrhifolium which is also common on Table Mountain. There are at least twenty common species of Pelargoniun on Table Mountain.
A lovely shady spot on the lawns below Rhodes Mem for a warm spring day. This classical monument - a memorial to Cecil John Rhodes on the slopes of Devil's Peak where he was said to come for some peace and quiet - was designed by Sir Francis Macey and Sir Herbert Baker and completed in 1912. The eight lions that flank the 49 steps (one for each year of Rhodes's life) were modelled on the ones at the base of the Nelson column in Trafalgar Square, London. The large horse in front, the "Statue of Energy", is an identical twin of one in Kensington Palace Gardens, also in London. Rhodes Mem is just above the campus of the University of Cape Town and is frequented by students. There is a very nice restaurant there too, but more of that in a future blog. For more worlds, go to My World Tuesday.
This “belvedere” on the University of Cape Town's Middle Campus was built in about 1760 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on Rustenburg Estate. It is the oldest building on the University of Cape Town's Groote Schuur campus. It was designed as a belvedere, a raised structure from which to enjoy an extensive view and to provide a shady retreat in summer. A garden plan that was drawn up in 1791 for Rustenburg House features a drawing of the "Summer House" as the focal point for an avenue of oaks leading up the hillside from the house. When Cecil John Rhodes bought the land for the Groote Schuur estate a century later, he commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to restore the dilapidated belvedere. 
That puff of smoke in the centre of the photo is two huge concrete cooling towers being imploded in Cape Town this morning. It was a rather stormy day with squalls of rain blowing over but luckily we were able to see it all happen from our vantage point on the slopes of Devil's Peak. And we nearly missed it because it went off about 4 minutes early.
Cape Town Time