We went to the Tankwa National Park for a birding outing. The Tankwa is in what is called the Arid Succulent Karoo. With an average of 15 cm (6″) rainfall per annum the area is dry and water is scarce but the animals, birds, reptiles and plants survive in surprising numbers. This is the second time we have been to Tankwa. Our previous visit is documented here.
This is the view from the front of the chalet looking out towards Sutherland where the South African Large Telescope is housed.
Because of the dust, sunrises are colourful.
The stars are beautiful but light pollution is ubiquitous. That is Cape Town in the distance – about 200 km as the crow flies.
There having been a very wet winter, the only major dam in the reserve was overflowing. We never did identify that bird.
Birds tend to be small and really difficult to photograph.
A mouse warming itself in the early morning sun.
A Spiny Agama suns itself on a rock.
A Black Backed Jackal surveys the world.
Gazanias grow where there is a little more water available.
Where there was once water. A few centimetres of rain causes wash aways an pools like this one.
This is a Sutherlandia commonly called a Cancer Bush, supposedly helps treat cancer. No basis for this claim that I know of.
This plant is still unidentified, it just grows out of the thin soil and produces these beautiful flowers.
Recently I found that most creative people have a portfolio so I decided it was time I created a brag page so here we go. I am a generalist or less politely a jack of all trades. Whichever title you want to use it means I am curious about practically anything so to save you from browsing through the entire website, I will provide a short summary. So here goes
Painting – oil, acrylics and pastels. Acrylic first
Oil
Pastels
Charcoal
Photography – photograph anything that takes my fancy, flowers, sunsets, stars, landscapes and birds.
A glacial pavement just outside Nieuwoudtville when we were part of Pangea.
We joined the Honorary Rangers of the Agulhas Reserve for a birding weekend. The weather was cold and very windy, as only the Agulhas Plains can be. It was not really conducive to much standing around in the open but we did do some good birding just sitting in the car.Even though this is a birding page, you must have a couple of nice travel shots.
Agulhas has probably the most bizarre and intriguing lighthouse. More like a Medieval castle converted to lighthouse duties. It makes for an interesting picture.
The other side is more ordinary, but still an impressive structure.
You can see from the next picture just how powerful the wind was. Those are female weavers clinging on for dear life while the wild wheat blows under them.
Here is a picture of some of the birders returning from a bracing walk in a minor gale.
Flowers – you gotta have flowers. Actually, those white things at the feet of the birders in the picture above are these flowers.
There is a bird in the next picture. Promise.
See? There is a bird. Only a bit small. An LBJ (Little Brown Job) and it is a Large Billed Lark – after much deliberation.
We saw some fish eagles in the far distance and photographed them for id purposes. Turns out we got some rather pleasant landscape pictures as well. There are two fish eagles in there, but check out the landscape. Lovely.
Silhouette of a kite playing the winds.
Weavers sheltering from the wind.
Down at the watering trough.
A kelp gull found an ideal sheltering place.
A white chested comorant takes the early morning sun.
Terns sheltering from the wind.
Waves in the wind.
Here’s looking at you. Cape Spur Fowl.
Steppe buzzard readying for flight.
Cape Robin Chat. We had, by this time migrated to Riviersonderend.
This is a very old post – 2007, but I thought I would update and bring it in line with modern technology. There is a more extensive set of pictures here but the page is old and needs work.
We left Cape Town International early on Monday morning and arrived in Dar-Es-Salaam on Monday afternoon and were rapidly transferred to the domestic arrivals and departures concourse.
Our destination? Chole Island off the coast of Tanzania. The transition from jet planes to prop planes was the start of an amazing adventure.
The sea beneath us as we headed for Mafia Island was studded with coral islands.
We arrived at Mafia Island Airport
The tar is the aircraft parking zone. The dirt is the actual runway. And yes, that is the plane we arrived in!
The taxi drive to the other side of Mafia was an experience all of its own. Land Rovers are the ONLY vehicle in use and they have their own resident mosquitoes. The roads are all dirt roads, they do have speed signs up, but I doubt if any one tries to enforce the speed limit mainly because I personally never saw any of the drivers take the vehicles out of low range.
You don’t drive on the roads as there are too many potholes. You drive next to the road.
We arrived in the Mafia Marine Park in the early evening.
Amanda fleeing the underseat mosquitoes
The next stage of the trip is a boat trip to Chole Island. The boats used are small dhows. I never got to learn the actual name of the type of dhow, they had the typical lateen sail and were used as we might use the family car to nip off to the shop or to take the kids to school.
I am not sure if this one qualifies as a dhow, but you might think of it as a laptop! Actually if you want to be thoroughly boring, it is an outrigger canoe carved from a single mango tree and having a lateen sail. From what I could see, they used this sort of boat for fishing mainly. Note the Mangrove trees growing out of the water in the background.
Bicycles are another way of getting around. You see bicycles everywhere and even bicycles turned to other uses.
But our boat wasn’t ready, so we had beer on the beach.
Darkness came and along with it the boat.
Of course it does splash a bit.
Thanks to Amanda’s persistence we stayed in the Chole Mjinji Resort. The resort consists of a number of tree house and for those who can’t take the height, ground chalets are provided. Every effort has been made to ensure the minimum impact on the surrounding nature. There is no electricity, no TV and no running water. The trees around the tree houses are baobabs.
Music to eat by! I must admit it must be an acquired taste!
This guy shinned up this mast like he was ambling down Adderley Street.
Searching for Whale Sharks and not finding them. The one disappointment of the trip. But a good outing in any case.
The Village tour
Arranged by the hotel. The village is scattered across a huge area. No motor cars, trucks or rail. Just bicycles. Oh, and satellite TV.
A chicken coop. Just a miniature house.
Building materials are mud, coral, rocks and ground up coral.
Everything is done outside. It is just too hot to sit inside.
A makeshift but very comfortable bench outside someones home.
A fruit bat. And yes they are as big as that one looks. About 30 to 40 cm across the wings. Also called flying foxes.
Boat building is a dying craft. Everything is made by hand, even nails are hand made.
School Children on the beach waiting for the ferry to Mafia Island.
Going diving on the dhow.
Hamisi setting up the cylinders.
Last minute diving instructions.
Hamissi taking a break before the dive.
Amanda before her first scuba dive. Looking very cool in a wet suit.
That water is WARM. Richard diving in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. Both for sunburn, rather than warmth. This is the way to dive and only 6 kgs on the belt. Heaven!
Last evening on Chole. Romantic dinner on the slipway before and early start.
Early morning trip to Mafia to return to the mainland Tanzania.
Tanzanian coast line.
Siesta on Zanzibar while the tour company sorted out the payment for our accommodation.
At Mercuries. The story goes that Freddy Mercury of Queen fame grew up in the neighbourhood and the restaurant is named after hem.
Early evening swim! Best thing to do in the heat and humidity.
Breakfast on the top of Malindi guest house.
The fast food restaurant for locals.
The residents lounge – Malindi Guest house
Welcome to the Sultans Palace. Now a museum.
A gatling gun.
Back to Malindi and the start of our return journey.
I love mountain passes and actively seek them out. The one in the video does not have a name to the best of my knowledge. It is very short and possibly cannot even be considered a pass, but I believe it is the steepest I have driven. It outdoes the Botterkloof pass in Namaqualand. Where is it? It crosses the Gouritz River about 50 km east of Herbertsdale. If you want to find it on Google Maps search for Willie se uitkykpunt. Apologies for some bad images, but I was using a hand held camera balanced on the steering wheel and my wife was not with me so I had to do it all myself.
I was in Namaqualand and took the opportunity to drive the Botterkloof pass which is a really steep spectacular pass. On the way there, I was being pressurised by a guy in a big SUV so I let him get ahead and he raced away. I dawdled so I would not be in his dust, but when he got to the pass, he lost his nerve and crept down the pass much to my disgust. I drive Subarus for their amazing road holding and one of the pleasures is sweeping down dirt road passes at a good speed. Apologies for cursing so much about his chicken hearted driving.
The Kgalagadi Park lies on the border of three states, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. While in the park roads cross in and out of sovereign territory without border posts. Only when exiting the park into a different state do border controls come into play. It is a an interesting situation that has little or no affect on visiting the park. Park regulations vary from country to country, but don’t affect the feeling of the park.
The area is in the arid grassland regions and in the dry seasons, water is scarce. Put down a plate of water and the birds and animals appear.
Although renowned for its large predators there are also a smaller mammals to be seen
The larger predators spend much time sleeping so we were delighted to spot a family of hyenas going for a morning bath and drink.
We saw numerous herbivores.
Birds however were the focus of our attention
Fires had recently swept through the park leaving a blackened, burnt environment.
The west coast of South Africa is a dry semi-desert region with an average rainfall of 280 mm (12″). For most of the years the vegetation is low scrub and thorn bushes with patches of dry dusty ground. In August after the winter rains things change dramatically. The flower come out in raging colours. This display lasts three months and by the end of October the flowers are gone and the dry dusty veld is left. We drove up to Langebaan in mid August after good winter rains and enjoyed the glory of the flowers
The flowers spread across all the open ground and wild profusion. If you drive through quickly you only see the carpet of flowers. If however you stop and look, there is a wealth of beautiful flowers hidden within the showy flash of white, yellow and orange.
A visit to the Invasion Beaches and my tribute to the men and women who landed on those beaches. Many did not make it.
In 2019 we traveled to Europe. Included in the itinerary was a visit to the Normandy Landing beaches. Guided by a very competent guide, we saw and walked on Juno, Sword and Gold beaches. What I saw there stunned me and for the first time I understood the shear horror of those landings. I understood the blind courage required to leap out of the landing craft into the ice cold sea and wade ashore into a hail of bullets. Come with me on a personal trip to those beaches.
Phoenix Bridge: Allied Commandos were instructed to take this bridge at all costs. Three gliders landed nearby and then according to the tour guide three soldiers stormed across the bridge to silence a machine gun nest at the other end.
You can get an idea of just how long that bridge is. I asked the guide if the bridge was wider in those days but he said, “Narrower.” I cannot imagine storming a machine gun down a narrow alley of steel and hard road surface. I have no idea how they survived that crazy run.
The landing craft were mainly wood with the front door being steel and the soldiers packed together shoulder to shoulder inside. On an aside note, this is the landing craft that was used during the filming of “Saving Private Ryan”.
The tide was out when I was there so the run was longer than during the invasion but as you can see that there is no cover whatsoever.
The guns were positioned to fire directly along the beaches, not down them. There was thus no way of a soldier further down the beach from evading or stopping the the fire.