Boldly bald

For the third year in a row, an annual “shavaton” took place all over South Africa, including East London. During this day, you can get your hair shaved or sprayed green for the benefit of the South African Cancer Association CANSA.

We went crazy and decided to go for the “real thing” and had our hair shaved. The result looked like this:

Karl’s hair was surprisingly soft after the shave. His haircut looked like this:

Bald Karl

Johan’s hair, on the other hand ended up very “sticky”. So much so that he had a hard time pulling T-shirts over his head as they became stuck in the hair, similar to velcro.

Johan going bald for charity

When we got the haircuts, the weather was very hot and humid and therefore the advantage of the cut was that we were able to “keep our heads cool”. However, a day later, the weather changed and it became suddenly much colder. I guess the haircut worked to keep us cool!

January 23, 2007 by admin

McNaught

Over the last week or so, comet McNaught was supposed to be visible on the Western sky in the early evening. Unfortunately, the weather has not been that great lately, so we were unable to see it because of clouds.

However, when we were at a concert on Saturday night, a group of people suddenly got up and went outside and started looking at the sky. We followed them and saw the comet very clearly in the sky with its tail trailing over a large section of the sky. It was spectacular.

Since we didn´t have a camera on that Saturday night, we went to a friends place on Sunday night to try to take some pictures. He lives at a farm away from the light with a great view of the Western sky. We found out it is very difficult to get decent pictures of a Comet. However, here are some of our best photo´s. As always, click on the photo to see a larger version:

McNaught over Africa

December 24, 2006 by admin

Prior team member wins photography prize!

Tony Linden was responsible for the IT infrastructure team within the company until he left us at the end of 2005. It as great to read in the local newspaper that he appears to be doing well after he left us!

According to an article in the daily dispatch, Tony won a car worth 290 000 Rand (42 000 USD/ 31 000 Euro) for a video he took about a wasp protecting her nest from the rain. Tony has always shown interest in photography and it is great to see that he managed to win a prestegious prize with his hobby!

Well done, Tony!

December 24, 2006 by admin

Christmas greetings from South Africa!

This year will be our third christmas in South Africa and we are still not used to this whole “Christmas in summer” concept. Yesterday, we wrapped Christmas presents after a swim in our 27.4 degree Celcius (81.3F) pool. Today, the weather is wet, but warm, and people are planning their braai´s (barbeque) and beach walks for the next couple of days. A very different atmosphere from Christmas in the Northern hemisphere!

I would like to share a picture with you that I saw in the Daily Dispatch, our local newspaper, that gives you an idea about the Christmas atmosphere in South Africa:

Many of you, who are from colder climates, will therefore understand why we often “dream of a white Christmas” out here in South Africa. For your enjoyment, in case you have not yet seen it, here is a brilliant little flash video with reindeer singing “I am dreaming of a white Christmas” . The animation has been around for a while, so you may have seen it before, but it does the trick for me every time!

Anyway, best wishes for the holidays from South Africa!

November 11, 2006 by admin

Lunch with the hippos, weaving weavers and a cheetah with a shoe fetish!

A typical Sunday in East London Album

Living in East London can sometimes be quite exciting. The other Sunday, we decided to go to the nearby Mpongo game reserve and stop at the nearby Lion Park on our way back. Mpongo park has a special 3 course Sunday lunch which is served in the restaurant right next to a lake with three hippos. They also feed the hippos (some kind of bread) at 1pm. Lunch was decent and observing the hippos, turtles and birds definitely made the exerperience very pleasant.

While we were leaving Mpongo park, we noticed a weaver (bird) who had just started a new nest and was in the process of building it. It was fascinating to see this and we got some lovely pictures of the busy weavers.

On our way back, we stopped at the lion park. Apart from the lions, they now have a young cheetah (about 7 months old or so) that you can pet. It was a bit shy at first but once Karl started talking to it and it had some food, it became much more alive. The cheetah, named Chinx, loves to chew on feet. Luckily we put on shoes before our visit, otherwise we may have had some very sore feet!

Although the trip was only a few hours, it was great fun and we ended up with some lovely pictures of hippos, weavers and cheetahs´s. Click here or on the picture to visit the gallery! As always, make sure to check out the captions for additional insights!

October 15, 2006 by admin

First swim this season

The weather has been pretty odd this year. We have had some really heavy rain causing flooding (see also blog entry from August 4th) and then suddenly some very sunny days. Yesterday, Saturday October 14th, was one of those sunny days. And it got warm enough to motivate me to get into the pool!

The pool was quite pleasant at 23.7C (74.66F) and my first swim was therefore a very good experience. If you remember, last year we did not get to go into the pool until the end of October, and even then the pool was a couple of degrees Celcius colder. It is amazing how much difference two degrees makes in pooltemperature.

And today … well, of course, it is raining again! We will see what happens by the time we get into the real rainy season in December/January! At least the weather is predicted to stay above 20C (68F) for days to come.

September 10, 2006 by admin

A whale of a time in Hermanus!

The last weekend of August we flew to Cape Town for a long weekend (3 days) and visited Hermanus, which claims to be “the best land-based whale watching” location in the world. A very tall claim that we needed to check out!

The trip was amazing! The weather was sunny with summery temperatures of 26C/61F, after it had been miserably cold and wet for a few days. Hermanus is a nice town where you can easily walk around the towncenter and next to the ocean. The accomodation was great – we stayed at a self-catering apartment right by the ocean that gave us great views over the bay (If you visit the website – select the left hand section for 45 marine drive, not the right hand section for the Esplanade). And Hermanus MUST be the best place to see whales – we saw many, including some close to shore, some breaching (this is where they jump out of the ocean), some sailing (this is where they stick their tale out of the water for an extended period of time), some waving (where they stick one of their fins up and seem to be waving) and we saw some mothers playing with their youngsters! We also heard the whales making noises as if they were calling to each other.

This must be one of the nicest experiences we had, yet, in South Africa. Definitely worth a visit during whale season (July-October)!

As always, we had our cameras with us and took some great pictures of Hermanus and surroundings as well as the whales. Click here or on the picture to go to the album.

Hermanus Album

August 4, 2006 by admin

Weather havoc

Funny how the weather in East London works – we have had lovely weather for the last month or so (daytime temperatures in the 20’s (celcius), nighttime temperatures around 15 celcius) and then suddenly the weather changes. Lots of rain, high winds and cold weather created havoc. Have a look at two newsstories to get some ideas of what it means to have bad weather in the Eastern Cape (with pictures) (Update August 2013: newsstories have been removed at source).

By Monday the weather is supposed to be better again!

Wet ‘n wild

Last weekend we went to the “Wet ‘n Wild” festival nearby East London which is supposed to promote the wild coast. It definitely wasn´t wet and it was hardly very wild as it took place at Inkwenkwezi game reserve, which is really before the wild coast.

We visited the “country fair” which had some stalls, free game drives, some activities, etc. As usual, we had our cameras with us and got some interesting pictures. Click on the image to get a larger version.

One vendor was selling mirrors. Between the blue sky, the objects around the mirrors and the people, this made for some very interesting pictures:

A portrait of a Xhosa girl that was waiting for the game drive:

A Xhosa woman selling trinkets. The sight of Xhosa woman resting on the grass is quiet common. For example, we see this frequently when we leave our street.

July 22, 2006 by admin

Bushmain paintings, olives and Xhosa dancers

What is the relationship between Bushman paintings, olives and Xhosa dancers?

…. We saw all of these things during our visit to Alicedale when we joined the “Alicedale Adventure” as part of the Grahamstown festival. The “Alicedale adventure” was a whole day activity which involved a bushwalk to the Bushman paintings, a visit to the town of Alicedale, a visit to an Olive farm, a look at a Mohair factorz and a demonstration of some traditional Xhosa dances.

We enjoyed our time in Alicedale and took some lovely pictures of this event, particularly of the Xhosa people. Click here or on the image to have a look.

Alicedale adventure album

The Wanderers

The Wanderers blog

Author: admin