South Africa - 1st weekend in Cape Town, 2006

After the tree walk on Saturday morning, things got really busy for the weekend. I'll just post some highlights. Right now I'm working on my itinerary for the next two weeks and it looks like the schedule is filling pretty nicely. I had several meetings and lots of phone calls today to organize some fieldwork in nature reserves along with a backpacking trip up into the Hexrivierberg. That's scheduled for the last weekend of October and I'm taking a lot of hikes up the backside of Table Mountain to get ready for that trip.

Saturday afternoon was an errand day again - this time to do some shopping at the outdoors stoor to get a walking stick. I'm finding it much easier to walk up the hill using a stick for leverage and for supporting my bum knee. I found a collapsible aluminum one that is very lightweight. I may go get a second one before the backpacking trip. That evening, I had dinner with the Laidlers and a couple of the woodturners from Western Cape Woodturners Association.

On Sunday we went for an early walk up the hill and over on the contour path, then to the Waterfront to do some shopping and the afternoon was spent with Dennis and Gigi Laidler. You'll have to check Dennis' blog for those pics when he posts them.



This is one of the new sites at the waterfront since I was last here. You can see the table cloth spilling over the top of Table Mountain. That's always an indicator that some cooler weather is on its way to Cape Town.








Here's the scenic shot of the harbor next to the waterfront near the craft market.











Sea lions basking in the sun on one of the docks. These ones weren't as obnoxious as the ones hanging around the docks in Oregon.










Another local vagrant, a Hartlaub's Seagull.













And, here's another. One of many box jellyfish in the harbor. This one was over a meter long. It doesn't seem to mind the oil slick in the water.










One of the first stops was at the Waterfront Woodturners Stall in the Red Shed. This is a co-op gallery shared by several of the members from Western Cape Woodturners Association, including Dennis Laidler, Izak Cronje, Gert Ferrera, Steve Bull, Thys Carstens, Beyers Cronje, Bert Parker and Ken Turner.






Here's a view of the Waterfront Woodturners stall in Cape Town.














There's a lovely selection of different styles of woodturnings.











Here's a view of my guest house at Kirstenbosch along with the car I rented. My apartment is to the right of the car.









Here's a cute striped mouse at Kirstenbosch. They're all over the garden beds there, running under the bushes.










This restio (kind of like a grass, but not in that family) is dripping with dew early in the morning.











This is a Cape Canary. He has quite a lovely song.

















The Cape Robin is very handsome, too. This isn't a good photo of one, but they are very sleek in appearance.

















A noisy neighbor at Kirstenbosch, the Hadedah Ibis. This has a loud caw that echos through the neighborhood.







The work crew was out on Monday morning repairing one of the paths. I took this picture because of the tool in use on the left. It's a tree stump with a length of rebar. It's used for tamping the asphalt mix flat.






One last pic. I have a lot more to post from this past weekend, but it's taking too long to post, so it will have to wait until I have some free time. This is a rondavel, a Xhosa style hut that is on display at Kirstenbosch.