My brother and I ran out to Stellenbosch University (our alma mater) on Sunday.
We stopped at the Faculty of Engineering, at Dagbreek Men’s Residence and at the Neelsie Student Centre.
A major remodeling of the main wing of the Faculty of Engineering is underway.The buildings for the individual departments of the Faculty of Engineering look a little different from 40 years ago, with lettering and new windows. The engineering library is now called the ‘knowledge center’ (Afr. kennissentrum). Hmm.A little house remodeled into offices, across from the Faculty of Engineering.Here’s Victoria Street in summer time, with the trees a neon green, and the sky azure blue. The historic dormitories of Stellenbosch University as well as administrative buildings are found here.The tennis courts where I had spent countless hours playing on as a student, are still there, as is Helshoogte Men’s Residence, and Simonsberg mountain in the distance.The Neelsie Student Centre is quiet now, but will be abuzz with students come February when the new academic year gets underway.Red Square* (Afr. Rooiplein) with its sun dial. *Officially, it is the Jan Marais Square. A long time ago, though, students jokingly started calling the Administration Building nearby the ‘Kremlin’ because the notice boards (where exam results and class marks were pinned up) would declare their fate as a students. So this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the main city square in Moscow that is the real Red Square.
It was time to drive back from Plettenberg Bay to Cape Town on Saturday.
I stopped at my uncle and aunt in Mossel Bay, and took a few pictures around downtown and the beaches.
The town of Mossel Bay lies on a outcrop called The Point, about 2 hours’ drive west from Plettenberg Bay. This is where Portuguese mariner and explorer Bartolomeus Dias set foot on land in 1488 after becoming the first European navigator to round the southern tip of Africa. In recent years it has become a very popular destination for retirees and for younger people moving from South Africa’s northern provinces to the Western Cape province.Here’s the sands and calm waters of Santos Beach that has just a hint of surf.The boat and water sport enthusiasts hang out on the other end of the beach, where there is a launch ramp for fishing boats and other craft.The ‘Stone Church‘ (Afr. Klipkerk) of the Dutch Reformed Church on Church St in downtown. The cornerstone was laid in 1878 and the church was consecrated in 1880.Further down on Church Street the blue water of the bay come into view.The Prince Vintcent Building on Bland Street dates back to 1901. It hosts architects offices, cafes, bakeries and studios.The St Blaize Terrace building from 1909 is on Marsh Street near The Point.Nearby is this beautiful building for the old The Point High School (which now houses Milkwood Primary School). Keating & Co did the construction, also in 1909. The stones were quarried in the hills and transported with cocopans on the rails to the school. Different stones were used: dark pink stones contrasts with the sandstone around the windows.This tide pool is across from The Point Caravan Park.
These pictures are from our visit to Jukani wildlife sanctuary this morning.
The encampments are reasonably large, and in almost all cases the animals are from zoos or from situations where they will no longer survive in the wild.
Animals in the pictures: Burchell’s zebra, springbok, lion, mountain lion, Siberian tiger, caracal, brown hyena.
There was no palm tree at this beach house that belonged to my family thirty years ago. My dad sold it in 1996 and some time after that it was turned into a self-catering guest house.The 6-story atrium inside the Beacon Isle hotel.This is a western cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis).A decorative mask from Ghana, for sale in the Global Village art store here in Plettenberg Bay for US $184.
My friends and I went for a walk on Robberg beach this morning, and for a very pleasant swim in the Indian Ocean.
The peninsula called Robberg is 8 km (5 miles) south of Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route. It is a nature reserve, and also a World Heritage Site.This is Robberg Beach No 5 (one of several beaches with lifeguards between the Beacon Island Hotel and Robberg). The water temperature was very pleasant, all due to the warm Agulhas sea current coming down the coast from further up north.
There was no rain today here in Plettenberg Bay, but it was still cloudy and mild, with a high of only 23 °C (74 °F).
I went for a walk on Central Beach late this afternoon.
This picture is from early Sunday evening, of the iconic Beacon Isle hotel, with Central Beach in the foreground. The site of the hotel has a distinctive history: it was a whaling station at the turn of the twentieth century, and became the location of a small hotel in 1940. In 1972, this hotel was demolished and replaced with the six-story Beacon Isle Hotel.Watch out for great white sharks! 🦈 Looking at that bar chart below the shark’s tail fin, it appears that it is less likely in January for sharks to appear in these waters. Plettenberg Bay has experienced increased white shark activity in recent years and tragically suffered two fatal shark bite incidents in 2022, within three months of each other.Little egrets (Egretta garzetta) roosting in a tree in the parking lot across from the Beacon Island hotel. They are herons, belonging to the family Ardeidae.Here comes a fishing safari boat, hot and heavy, so that it can beach and then be winched further up onto the sand.There is a rocky outcrop on the far end of Central Beach (away from the Beacon Isle Hotel).
It’s a 6-hour drive to Plettenberg Bay. We opted for the N1 national route through the Huguenot Tunnel to Swellendam, from where we took the N2 to Plettenberg Bay.
I could only take pictures of the first half of the drive, while I was the passenger and not the driver. 🤗
It’s a 6 hour drive from Cape Town to Plettenberg Bay.Here is the entrance to the Huguenot Tunnel. It is a toll road tunnel that runs through the Du Toitskloof Mountains, connecting Cape Town to the northern regions of the country. The tunnel is 3.9 km (2.4 mi) long and it opened in March 1988. The tunnel offers a route that is safer, faster (between 15 and 26 mins) and shorter (by 11 km/ 6.8 mi) than the old Du Toitskloof Pass over the mountain.At the other side of the tunnel, there are beautiful scenes of the Du Toitskloof Mountains.Soft cloud puffs and the jagged outcrops of the Du Toitskloof Mountains.This is a railway station building in the town of Robertson.The town of Ashton lies at the foot of the Langeberg mountain range. This arch bridge is new (it opened in August 2021) and lies over the Cogmans Gorge River (Afr. Kogmanskloofrivier) in Ashton.Here is Swellendam, the third oldest town in South Africa after Cape Town and Stellenbosch.I found this hibiscus flower in Riversdale, as we made a stop to have some lunch.This is the N2 national highway in the Riversdale area— even though it offers only one lane in each direction here. We did not run into too much traffic going east, but we ran into lines of cars going in the opposite direction, heading back to Cape Town. The kids in school still have a week or two of summer recess, but maybe mom or dad will have to go back to work on Monday.Lots of rolling hills and farmland in the Riversdale area.We made it! We lost the blue skies and the sun along the way, but that’s OK. It’s just a rainy day in Plettenberg Bay and we will soon have the sun back. This is the view from our Airbnb, of the Keurbooms Estuary and the beaches around Plettenberg Bay.
It’s time to leave the Cape Town area, and the Airbnb that I have been staying in. My friend and I are driving up the coast to Plettenberg Bay in the morning.
I have been staying in an apartment in one of these buildings by the Tyger Waterfront in Bellville. The complex is built around an old quarry that has been transformed into a 4-hectare man-made lake with a promenade around it.A Cape wagtail (Afr. Kaapse kwikstertjie, Motacilla capensis) sits on a handrail.And this fella is a rock hyrax (Afr. Kaapse dassie, Procavia capensis). They are small, plump and tail-less guinea-pig-like animals, about as large as a big rabbit.
It’s 2025!
Happy New Year!
The cartoon is from the South African newspaper Die Burger (“The Citizen”) and by cartoonist Dr Jack.
“Good news, swarrie*! Even though your barbecuing leaves a lot to be desired, we have decided to stay until after New Years” “You may have to run out to the store today, since the brannas** is AGAIN running a little low. “ #$!&🤬 Side Comment by the little hippopotamus: “House guests are like fish— after three days they start to stink”
Four of us had a great seafood dinner at the Century City mall outside of Cape Town.
As we walked outside, we caught this view of beautiful twilight colors over Table Mountain.
It’s great to see my home town as part of a store name— so far away from home. There are 54 Starbuckses in South Africa (but the first one opened only in 2016). The Seattle Coffee Co. franchise has been around a lot longer. The first store opened its doors in Cavendish Square, Cape Town in November 1997.I stopped at a branch of the beleaguered South African Post Office. It was supposed to have completely run out of money and options to stay open by the end of October 2024, and go into bankruptcy, but now it is unclear what the new ‘Day Zero’ is. Do you have any postage stamps to sell to me? I inquired. I came away with this sheet of woodpeckers (issued 2020), one of the last sets of stamps issued by the South African Post Office. No new issues appeared after 2020. 😱Hey! We still have Toys “R” Us in South Africa. (On June 29, 2018, Toys “R” Us permanently closed all of its remaining U.S. locations, after 70 years of operations).And here is what I acquired to add to my collection of African animals: king cheetah (distinctive coat pattern due to a recessive gene; there may only be 10 or so in the wild, with some 50 or so more in captivity); black wildebeest, springbok antelope, and African penguin (these are the ones found in the Boulders Penguin Colony in Simons Town, South Africa).My quest for a six-pack of Beck’s Blue (Beck’s non-alcoholic beer) continues. This store did not have any. Beer and hard liquor are only sold in dedicated liquor stores in South Africa. Wine may be sold at grocery stores as well as at liquor stores. The “YOU HAVE REACHED THE SOUTH POLE” is just a little joke, indicating that the walk-in refrigerated room with chilled beers is right there below the sign.
I stopped briefly at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront today, to use one of the parking garages there.
This is the Robinson Dry Dock in the so-called Alfred Basin in the Waterfront, and it is the oldest operating dry dock of its kind in the world. It dates back to 1882. The foundation stone for the dock was laid by Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria. Named after Governor Sir Hercules Robinson, it was used to repair over 300 ships during World War II.
The Robinson Dry Dock is currently occupied by research vessel DR. FRIDTJOF NANSEN, sailing under the flag of Norway. Ships are typically dry-docked every five years for a special survey, but may also be dry-docked for inspections, maintenance, and repairs, in between.
There is a little Christmas market in the Tyger Valley Shopping Centre, still open for a final few days.
It’s good that it is indoors: day-time highs here were 35°C and 34°C (95°F and 93°F) on Wednesday and Thursday, and 30°C (86°F today).
The Christmas market on the lower level of the food court in the Tyger Valley Shopping Centre. The jumbotron screen (top left corner) showed what was happening in the first of two cricket tests between South Africa 🇿🇦 and Pakistan 🇵🇰.And what happened today in the first of two cricket tests between South Africa and Pakistan that is underway in Centurion in Gauteng Province? From espncricinfo.com: “The first Test match at Centurion is tantalisingly poised after Pakistan took three wickets in nine overs to leave South Africa wobbling at 27 for 3, still 121 runs away from the 147-run target that seals a win, as well as a place in the 2023-25 World Test Championship [WTC] final. After South Africa had bowled Pakistan out for 237, they needed a fairly comfortable 148 to secure victory, but an unerring spell of accurate medium-fast bowling from Mohammad Abbas and Khurram Shahzad was well rewarded. Aside from Aiden Markram, the South Africa batters were somewhat timid in their approach to the last few overs of the day, while Abbas and Shahzad targeted the pads. Abbas brought one to jag back in sharply into Tony de Zorzi for the first breakthrough.” Update Sun 12/29 [From espncricinfo.com] “South Africa have qualified for the World Test Championship (WTC) final after beating Pakistan by two wickets in a high-drama encounter at SuperSport Park. Set a modest but challenging target of 148 to win, they were 99 for 8 just before lunch and it was left to Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen to score the remaining 51 runs in a tense ninth-wicket stand against a Pakistan attack with their tails up.”
These photos are from yesterday, from a little trip I made with my family to Pringle Bay.
Pringle Bay is a small, coastal village in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, in South Africa. It is situated at the foot of Hangklip, on the opposite side of False Bay from Cape Point. The town and surrounds are part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Heritage Site. [Wikipedia]
The main beach at Pringle Bay has rocks and tide pools, and then a sandy stretch for heliophiles and bathers. The rocky outcrop in the distance on the left is Hangklip (Afr. “hanging rock”), 420 m tall (1,377 ft), marking the entrace to False Bay as one approaches Cape Town along the coast from the east.Here is the main beach at Pringle Bay. We’re on the Indian Ocean side of Cape Town (only just), and here the beaches have warmer waters than on the Atlantic side: the effects of the warm Agulhas Current that comes down along Mozambique from Africa’s eastern coast.Time for my nephew to deploy his drone (I don’t know the model name, but it’s a technological marvel; cost: about $800). It has very sophisticated navigation abilities and a super-high resolution 360° swiveling camera.Off it goes, up, up to 1,000 m (3,280 ft)— at which point it is invisible to the naked eye.We only saw something black with fins, maybe, from the beach out in the distance. The drone footage shows that the fins belong to the sea lions. (Seals or sea lions? These are sea lions: brown, bark loudly, “walk” on land using their large flippers and have visible ear flaps. Seals have small flippers, wriggle on their bellies on land, and lack visible ear flaps. – Source: noaa.gov).The drone’s camera has a very high resolution and superzoom capabilities.A viewpoint on the way back to Cape Town, showing the coastline and the fynbos* of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. *Fynbos: fine-leaved shrubland or heathland vegetation found in the Western and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.
Here is our flight path south on Monday night and into Tuesday morning. We were directlyover Tunis (capital of Tunisia) after crossing the Mediterranean Sea. Later on we were at 39,000 ft (the plane’s cruising altitude) over Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Windhoek (Namibia).
We landed at Cape Town International at 7.30 am local time (it’s an Airbus A350-900) and were bused into the terminal.
The shark tank dive billboard 😱 is from the pedestrian underpass to the rental car companies at the airport.
Here is today’s cartoon from South Africa’s Sunday newspaper Rapport.
The summer school holidays are underway in South Africa, and with it the exodus of the binnelanders* to the coast.
*Afrikaans word for those that live ‘inside’ the country— far away from the coast.
“And this?” “I want to look up those words that dad will use on the road.” About the car’s license plate: VAALIES = Old South Africa (pre-1994) nickname for inhabitants of Transvaal province, home to Johannesburg, and which is now called Gauteng (GP) province. [Cartoon by Dr Jack for Rapport newspaper]
Here are stamps issued by South Africa that would be candidates for a themed collection of elements on stamps.
Given South Africa’s large mining industry, it is somewhat surprising that relatively few stamps with a mining theme have been issued.
Gold (atomic number 79) 1961 First Definitive Issue Issued May 31, 1961 Perf. 14 | Photogravure | Wmk Coat of Arms 201 113 2c Ultramarine and yellow | Pouring gold [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Iron (26) Steel is primarily composed of iron, with most types containing around 98% to 99.5% iron, with the remaining percentage typically made up of carbon and trace elements depending on the specific steel grade.
1978 50th Anniversary of ISCOR* (South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation) Issued Jun. 5, 1978 Perf. 12 | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk 441 225 15c Multicolored | Steel rail *In the early 2000s, Iscor was sold by Thabo Mbeki’s government as his administration sought to run a tight ship and right the country’s finances. The name Iscor disappeared for good in March 2005. [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Carbon (6) 1980 World Diamond Congress, Johannesburg Issued May 12, 1980 Perf. 14 |Design: A.H. Barrett |Litho. |No Wmk 478 20c Multicolored | Cullinan II diamond*
*Yes, a diamond is nothing but a lump of carbon. The Cullinan II is a 317.4 carat cushion-cut diamond that is the second-largest cut from the original Cullinan diamond. It is also known as the Second Star of Africa and is the most valuable stone in the Imperial State Crown in the Tower of London. The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, weighing 3,106 carats (621.20 g), discovered at the Premier No.2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905. [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]These four metals happen to sit right next to one another in the periodic table: Titanium (22) Vanadium (23) Chromium (24) Manganese (25) 1984 Strategic Minerals Issued Jun. 8, 1984 Perf. 14 x 14¼ | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk 558 11c Multicolored | Manganese 559 20c Multicolored | Chromium 560 25c Multicolored | Vanadium 561 30c Multicolored | Titanium [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Gold (79) 1986 Centenary of Johannesburg Issued Sep. 25, 1986 Perf. 14 | Design: J. van Niekerk | Litho. | No Wmk 607 30c Multicolored | Gold bars [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
The last batch of my on-paper stamps are getting dunked into the water here (to separate the stamps from the paper).
There he is, in the middle of the picture, The Big Crocodile (Afr. Die Groot Krokodil): nickname of South African State President Pieter Willem (P.W.) Botha in 1984. (Botha passed away in 2006). By 1985, push had came to SHOVE in South Africa’s national politics, with a State of Emergency in place (effectively a form of martial law), and thousands of demonstrators detained in jail. Botha declared in his famous Rubicon speech in August 1985 that he would not support majority rule or the participation of black South Africans in the national government. He fell ill in 1989, though, and was forced to hand over the reigns to F.W. de Klerk. De Klerk introduced radical policy changes that led to the dismantling of the apartheid system, and to the release of Nelson Mandela from jail (in February 1990), which paved the way for the country’s first multiracial elections in April 1994.
Here’s December.
This cartoon is from South African Sunday paper Rapport.
The piggy/ piggy bank is called Savings. The lion is Black Friday. The vulture is Christmas. The hyena is Janu-worry, and says “I say! Leave a little something for us.” [Cartoon by Dr. Jack, published in Rapport newspaper].
