Mountain Biking: Just Let Gravity Work

My sister lives close to the Tokai Forest, which has one of the best networks of mountain bike trails in South Africa. Today I took my nephew James up to the top by car, and we mountain biked all the way home. He's a champion ramper.

Proteas in Bloom on Table Mountain

One of the great experiences in Cape Town is to hike up Table Mountain in the late afternoon, have a beer (with a view) at the upper cable station before catching the cable car down.

Today I started hiking late (4pm) and took longer than planned to get up the mountain, because I had to turn back from a route up Slangolie Ravine my map recommended (the 'path' turned into a very steep riverbed and then an old old concrete staircase and then abruptly nothing). So I got up onto the plateau at about 6pm as the last sunlight was stroking across the mountain, and found proteas (South Africa's national flower) everywhere in bloom.


I made it to the upper cable station just in time to get this piece of beautiful sunset and jump over the turnstile to catch the last cable car down for free.

Goldfish at Spier

I saw Goldfish, everyone's favourite electro-jazz band, for the second time last night at the Spier Wine Estate close to Stellenbosch. I wasn't pulled by the music as much as the first concert at Emmarentia, but it was a great opportunity to take pictures - difficult conditions because of the low ambient light but bright strobes and lots of movement. Here are some of the ones I like most.

Take a listen to the band on their website if you'd like to hear their infectious sound.

Cairo to Cape Cycle

A couple of South African cyclists are currently cycling from Cairo to Cape Town to raise money for a school in the Eastern Cape, blogging as they go. Its interesting for me because they are following some of the route I did on my own backpacking trip through Africa - in fact, they've just completed the grueling section through the badlands of Northern Kenya, where the armed bandits are many and tarred road is just a distant dream. Respect!

Fire on Devil's Peak

I've been commuting a lot between Sea Point, where I'm staying, and Tokai close to Muizenburg to see my sister and her family. The road there winds around the base of Devil's Peak, the craggy cone to the left of Table Mountian, going past both the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur, one of the big city hospitals. Both are at the base of the mountain.

On Tuesday night as I drove back past the university, there were clusters of cars flashing blue emergency lights on the side of the road, and then suddenly the road lead through a cloud of smoke. When I looked back a little further on, I saw stretches of orange fire light leading up Devil's Peak; a massive veldt-fire had just broken out.

Last night (Wednesday), after a day spent battling the flames, the fire department said the fire was 'contained', but as I drove past at 10pm, bonfire-sized blazes still pockmarked the hillside, some way up the side of the mountain.

There are some spectacular photos of the fire here.


[Later] I took this photograph from Lion's Head in the late afternoon ... most of the one side of Devil's Peak has been scorched by the fire; there was a lot of smoke and a helicopter was still buzzing between the flames and a reservoir in the city. So much for the fire being under control.

Music Practice

My sister Sheila inherited the music gene in our family, and she is passing it on to her children (sometimes the gene requires a little encouragement to activate it). Here is music practice at home.

Emily at Mdzananda

My niece Emily has a requirement from her school to do a number of hours community service each term ... so today I took her with me to the Mdzananda Animal Clinic, where she spent an hour and a half filling dog shampoo containers. But more fun: she got to feed the litter of puppies that the clinic had just rescued.


Emily also made it onto the Mdzananda Blog.