Eh Ama Takisi Driver

In South Africa, the scourge of our roads are the mini bus taxis. Although taxis fill the gap of non-existent public transport, they seem to be a law unto themselves and the traffic police seem helpless in their wave of lawlessness.

On this cold morning while getting some fuel into my vehicle, a taxi with a flat tyre limped into the vacant space next to my dowser. I had to smile along with the smiling faces of the taxi's advertising décor while the taxi driver pumped compressed air into the taxi's tyre while his helpless passengers looked on through misted up windows.

Rush Traffic

It seems that this cold of mine doesn't want to leave, no matter how much medicine and vitamins I swallow, this persistent cold is not making life easy for me. This morning I had to just force myself out of bed, put one foot in front of the other and get ready for the rush traffic. The rush traffic in Johannesburg is notorious but this morning it wasn't that bad. So much so that I even had time to snap away with my camera.

Cooking with Gas

Monday has come with the weekend now that it is over. Dive straight into my work head first and come up for air at the end of the day. I arrived home and it was already dark. Feed the dogs, kick my shoes off and start with supper. Uhmmm supper, it is a cold evening and something quick to cook for supper was the plan, spaghetti bolognaise on the gas stove. It will be alright in the end and if it is not alright then it is not the end.

Warm Cold Weekend

A cold snap hit Johannesburg this weekend but it didn't put a spanner in Matthew's weekend of relaxing with no thoughts of homework or exams. Here is Matthew and Skye watching some television first thing in the morning while at the same time keeping warm. I think it is a little too cold to get up but the only thing that would distract them from the action on the box is breakfast.

Wits under Ingress

This morning was an Ingress training run at Witwatersrand University. The higher level Resistance players helped some lower level players to get lots of Action Points or AP by taking out Enlightened controlled portals at Wits, linking them and making fields. Couple of Enlightened players popped round too make things a little more exciting. By end of the morning two players, including Gary shown above, reached Level 5 and I got to Level 7, yeah.

Pizza and Beer

It is Richard's birthday today and we celebrated with pizza and beers, nice. Another good thing about today is that Camera Tek sent me an SMS to let me know that my camera was repaired under warranty and that it is ready for collection. Let the weekend begin.

Be Water Wise

I am feeling a little better but still drained of energy. So during lunchtime, I needed to get some air and went for a short walk. Zoo Lake which is just down the road from our offices in Houghton became the perfect lunchtime get away for me.

Interesting what can be found if you just open your eyes. Tired up at the pier was these blue row boats with their Be Water Wise inscriptions reflecting in the water. It was tranquil around the lake for the moment while the Johannesburg traffic rushed around. It is nearly weekend and then it will get busy around Zoo Lake as Joburgers take full advantage to Johannesburg's perfect winter sunshine.

Welcome Home

I woke up this morning feeling very tired after what I felt was a restful night. As the day progressed, I started to feel that I was coming down with something. By the end of the day, I had a splitting headache and just wanted to close and rest my eyes.

Thank goodness, it is Wednesday, Hump Day, which means that it is downhill from here till the weekend. I arrived home barely incoherent. Jade, shown above, and the rest of my pack didn't know how down I was as they were just as eager to welcome me home. I suppose they must have missed me. Well it is some medicine, soup then bed for me. Now where is my nurse.

Flowers

I got quite a bit accomplished today. I started at one end and steadily worked through my work which was piling up. I was tired at the end and it was still home cell but the best part was supper at Sandy and Andy's home which I always look forward to. I was tired and still had to take a photo for the day so after looking around, I took this photo of some fresh roses in front of a painting of proteas in the entrance hall.

The Kettle

Yesterday, Eskom contractors were upgrading the electrical supply in the area around my home. No power for the day was okay since I wouldn't be around but when I returned home later to find that the contractors had hit a snag and they expected would be completed by seven, it wasn't okay.

Being that long without electricity meant that our reservoir ran dry. Seven came and went, still no electricity, no water, and this is not good. Luckily there was a five litre bottle water in the cupboard so this kettle came very useful for our comfort. The electricity was only turned back on just after nine but the pump did not come on.

I woke up this morning to electricity but no water. Not pleasant at all. Somehow in their haste last night, the Eskom contractors only switched on one phase to our property and it was the phase that didn't run the borehole pump. Note to self, buy some more water to replenish the emergency stockpile.

Tshwane

I found out this morning that my step dad was back in hospital after phoning my mom for Mother's Day. So now I had to make a second trip this weekend up to Pretoria but I wasn't planning to make the trip unproductive, Along the route I identified all the unclaimed and weak Ingress portals and so I set out for Montana Hospital. My first stop was Freedom Park overlooking Pretoria. After capturing all the portals there I ventured into the CBD where I took this photograph of the City Hall with the statue of Chief Tshwane. Eventually I got out to the other side of the mountain and did my official duties of hospital visiting.

Jet Fuelled Ballet

Forget Stof en Diesel, Mango, one of the South African low cost airlines, pulled the coup of year and presented culture to the 1 litre brandewyn, 2 litre coke and 3 litre Cortina crowds. We were left with whiplash as Mango choreographed one of their Boeing 737-800s with the SA Mzansi Ballet company at the Swartkops Air Show.

Although cold, we were wowed by this standing ovation performance of plane and dancers to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the South African Air Force Museum. Without government funding, these magnificent men and women do a gigantic job of keeping those old birds still in the air. Now back to the dancing, ahh those Cortina crowds sure enjoyed those leggy ballerinas in their short skirts, oh sorry tutus.

The only spoil of the day was his eminence Brian Emminis, who's every fifth word was his sponsor Breitling. Some say that he is a top class announcer but he came across as a self absorbed pompous old man who detracted from the show rather than enhanced it. With all the TV cameras around for the Mango event, Brian and his Breitling crew tried to ambush the dance routine by placing their Breiting branded Bentleys in the way. Such poor taste.

Beside his eminence, I would say the Mango, Mzansi, the SAAf Museum and the flying displays made the flying machines all beautiful again.

Green Fields

I rested awhile in the warm winter sun during my lunch under this huge memorial of the glorious fallen and the celtic song sprung to mind about the green fields of France. The words which are burned into me are to man's blind indifference to his fellow man, and a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire over you as they lowered you down? Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus? Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Jubilaeum Maximum

Ano Santo De 1950, the holy year of 1950, wasn't so holy in 1987 when the bell representing the holy year got entangled in the Bush War. I found this bell at the Hind Memorial, which was named after the 2nd Lieutenant Adrian Hind who lost his life in Operation Modular in southern Angola, during today's Ingress battles.

The inscription at the memorial states "During the campaign in Southern Angola, 61 Mechanised Battalion Group obtained a bell from one of the battlefields. The origin of this bell is unclear except that it was in the possession of FAPLA. The brass bell is adorned with the inscription 'ANO DE SANTO -1950' and decorated with ornate flowers and engravings, with the Christ crucifix. The bell was most probably removed from a church somewhere in southern Angola in the aftermath of the bitter civil war at the end of the Portuguese occupation."

If anyone knows anything more about the origin of this bell please let me know. The inscription continues... "FAPLA's 47 Brigade, advancing south of the Lomba River, used this bell to send signals to their battalions and to activate their stages of preparedness. During the attack in Operation Modular on 3 October 1987, 61 Mech Bn Gp destroyed 47 Brigade. To commemorate this historic event the bell was taken back to Omuthiya, 61 Mech's base in South West Africa (now Namibia). It was placed adjacent to the unit’s cenotaph."

It was during the battle of lightly armed cars against tanks were 2nd Lieutenant Hind lost his life. The logistic officer of 61 Mechanised Battalion Group, Major Maree, told this story to British journalist and author, Fred Bridgland about Hind "I can’t tell you how much courage it takes in a Ratel, driver and gunner, when a tank is charging towards them, to summon up the will to stop still for long enough to stabilise their firing platform and get their round off. A Ratel, like other armoured cars, can only fire from a static position. Of course, as soon as they’d fired, off the sprinted like turbo-charged hares. One of our guys died that afternoon facing down a T-55 in his Ratel. A 100 mm shell from the tank skipped up from the sandy ground and went right through the turret."

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Pius XII declared 1950, Jubilaeum Maximun, the great jubilee and all around the Catholic world, 1950 becomes the Holy Year. So now this bell cast to celebrate the Holy Year, used in war, taken with the spoils of war, now stands in a memorial in Johannesburg remembering the unholy Bush War of 1966 to 1989. In the time where war is peace, who will dare ring the bell announcing the start of the new Jubilee?

Warszawa Knoll

Being an old commonwealth country, we see more monuments for the fallen soldiers of great wars fought in Europe than this simple monument on a grassy knoll that I stumbled upon. The Warszawa Monument is tucked away in a forgotten park and thanks to the augmented reality game Google Ingress, I found it. This holocaust memorial remembers the city of Warsaw in Poland were many civilians lost their lives in the ghetto of Warszawa.

Overloaded

I am still struggling with a bug and didn't feel like the drive to work in the early hours of the morning. On the way in I saw this pick-up or bakkie as they call it in South Africa struggle on the road. It was overloaded and bulging at the seams with labourers. There must have been about fifteen labourers jammed into that bin. The back wheels were touching the wheel arches. Twice I witnessed the bakkie fail to stop in time and had to swerve to the side to stop colliding into a vehicle in front of it. One traffic police car drove right past it and it was not pulled over. I just stayed well clear of it as the week was still young.

Sunshine Reggae

Carl started with us on Thursday, and as I promised, here is a photograph of Carl, heng pan nail. Why Sunshine Reggae, well because I can, nah that is not it. On the radio last night, "Sunshine Reggae" by Laid Back streamed through the airways and it sort of reminded me of Carl in a ways. No Carl is not Jamaican mon but English with a London accent.

Monday and I am coming down with some flu bug. Maybe it is the medication I am on, but I am sure I am the only one who can understand what I just wrote above.

Three Men in a Boat

"Three men in a boat, to say nothing of the dog" is a book written by Jerome K Jerome in 1889. Why am I using this book in the title of my blog? Uhmmm, well, it is because I have met another Jerome and for the first time since starting this blog, I am putting up a photograph of another Jerome.

At Gary's year past Forty birthday party, I met Gary's other friend called Jerome, as shown in the above photograph with Gary himself photo bombing in the background. We had a lovely afternoon a Grary's place, socialising.

"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing." Jerome K Jerome

Lynda Body World

Lynda came along with Matthew and I on our quest to reach Level 6 on Ingress. Our goal was Wits University where there were a large number of portals in walking distance from each other. Lynda is shown above watching from the side as Matthew, hacked, attacked, deployed and linked the portals. It wasn't long and we were at level six.

To reward ourselves, we went across to the Sci-Bono Discovery Centre in Newtown to treat ourselves to the Body Worlds Exhibition. Matthew liked seeing the difference between a non-smoker and a smoker's lungs the best. One thing I know walking out there is that I need to exercise a lot more and lose some excess baggage. And that doesn't include dropping my camera at the outside photo area.

SimCity

Weekend is here after a short week. This weekend didn't come sooner as I need time to recover from my recent holiday. I have come to the conclusion that our cities have too much air, noise and light pollution.

Here is Matthew making the most of his weekend by diving into a game of SimCity with pizza and coke.

Litha

I didn't get much sleep last night after a wonderful time in the Wilderness. Even in the suburbs, the city is very noisy and now I am not used to it anymore.

Back at work I met Litha, shown above, who started working for National Positions on Monday. Carl started today as well but I'll post a photo of him another time. Anyway I am tired as I post this blog post so I will keep it short. Let’s hope tonight I'll get a better night's sleep.

The Traveller

Finally Anastasiya and my journey to Baviaanskloof comes to an end as we drove back into Johannesburg. We have had an overwhelming experience in the Wilderness and time has come to come back down to earth, work tomorrow. I will post all the images from the trip in an album on Facebook soon. In the meanwhile time to plan our next adventure.

Valley of Desolation to Nieu-Bethesda

The sun hadn't even touched the valley floor this morning when we drove out of the Baviaanskloof and turned north heading back to Johannesburg. We took it slowly and stopped at interesting places which we would have normally just fly past.

After breakfast at Graaff-Reinet we drove into the Camdeboo National Park and up the mountain to the Cathedral of Mountains were we wondered along trails enjoying the majestic views of the towering dolerite columns and of the Valley of Desolation below us. The Great Karoo stretched out into the distance and I imagined how the early settlers reaching this area found this semi-arid such an inhospitable place.

From Camdeboo we detoured into the Nieu-Bethesda valley which was the total opposite of desolation. Although it is in the early stages of revival, tourists are finding their way into the valley. I imagine artists, photographers and sculptors retiring here hoping to irk out a living till they die. Nice place to spend the day but I am not sure it is a place for me.

Somehow the raw beauty of the Baviaans wilderness area has burnt into my heart which the Karoo can't touch.

Zandvlakte tot Uitspan

It gets cold quickly here in the Baviaanskloof under the shadow of the tortured rock of the fold mountains. At Uitspan, the ladies are playing pool and the men are preparing the braai to barbeque some pieces of meat and rosterbrood while I try to recall the beauty of our surroundings in words, impossible.

It is not easy to get lost here if you stay on the single road through the Baviaans but somehow we lost Magda on the short hop between Zandvlakte and Uitspan. Magda rode ahead while Marlene and I rode slowly enjoying the scenery and stopping at the roadside stalls. Magda had turned around and somehow drove past us without seeing us. She then ran out of petrol and was stuck on the side of the road while we continued on thinking she was still in front of us. After a while we started to get worried and sent out search parties on the single road hoping not to find her down a cliff. In the meanwhile the farmer from Zandvlakte, Pieter, found Magda and took her back to his farm for petrol.

Finally we were all reunited and back on the only road through the Baviaanskloof. They say in Afrikaans here that the Baviaanskloof is hemel op aarde langs 'n slegterige pad (Heaven on earth long side a dreadful road). It is beautiful here with the majestic tortured mountains, if you have a 4x4 or a Vespa to get through. And the stars, wow, I haven't been under so many stars for a long time. In a way I feel it is a good place to get away from it all. I can strongly recommend the Baviaanskloof as a place to stay in at least once in your life.

The stunning toughest part is now behind us and tomorrow we will start the long trek back north.

Baviaanskloof

Finally the day has arrived, after we started planning a few years back while conquering Sani Pass in the middle of winter; we rode into Baviaanskloof on Vespas. Marlene on a 1979 Vespa P150X called Matilda and me on Anastasiya my reborn Vespa ET4.

After a stop at Kouga Dam we rode into the wilderness. At first the road into Baviaanskloof didn't seem so bad but the further we rode away from civilisation the worse the road became. After seeing a warning notice informing travellers to be aware of dangerous animals, I started wondering what sort of dangerous animals we might encounter. And must I stay inside the car; oh I am on a Vespa. Now there must be leopard around but surely no lions, that is when I started seeing elephant dung along the road and as we came across fresh warm elephant dung was deposited not even an hour before did I became nervous. The rest of this story will only be told round a camp fire, to protect the innocent involved. Okay with that out of the way, we were surely in the wilderness with hardly anyone around and where no one can hear you scream.

The famous Baviaanskloof river crossings at first wasn't very deep and we easily waded through them on the Vespas but they soon got quite deep in some places and the electronic parts of got a little damp. After a few blows of the hair dryer, we were on our way again. Let it be known that the two Vespas, Matilda and Anastasiya tamed the wilderness area of Baviaanskloof. Now to plan our next adventure.

Yes as we sit around the local famer Pieter and Magriet's dinner table at Zandvlakte, we eagerly chatted about our adventures past and of things to come while we hungrily tucked into some homemade boere kos. And as I write this post under a canopy of wilderness stars, it's quiet here in Baviaanskloof. It's lekker.

Soapbox to Gumtoos

Day two of the Great Baviaanskloof Adventure was the second leg of the journey down to the gateway to the Baviaanskloof, the Gamtoos Valley.

What should have been a quick five hour trip turned out to be the whole day affair. Last night I made the mistake of taking my medicine with the local water at Gariep. This mistake cause me to have a weak stomach from the get go and by end of the day in Gamtoos hopefully I can keep my supper down. Anyway the main delay in the start of the second leg was that this morning at !Gariep they held a soapbox derby down a hill into town. We couldn’t resist staying to take some photos.

Other than my weak stomach the rest of the journey was uneventful. No wait halfway there was a stop at the Daggaboer’s se Padstal which broke the dull flat scrubland. Here is Tinus and Marlene going in to see the dagga farmer. The scenery only improved once we drove into the Gamtoos Valley at the end of this leg. Now was time to mount our bikes and ride the winding roads into the valley.

By late afternoon we rode our bikes into the small town of Patensie and booked into the Ripple Hill Hotel. Although we are all very tired so far from the travelling down, the adventure only really starts tomorrow morning when we ride into the Baviaanskloof.

!Gariep

Let the Great Baviaanskloof Adventure begin.

I drove my Vespa Anastasiya over to Martin and Magda's home where we loaded the bikes onto the back of a double cab pickup and set out to meet Tinus and Marlene just before the Grasmere Toll Plaza.

The first leg is the boring one with a whole day of travelling in convoy down to the small town of !Gariep. Why the exclamation mark, well it is a San word for Great Water and was the original name for the Orange River on which the Gariep Dam is built on.

It was a relief to finally reach the great waters of the !Gariep. After unpacking we headed for the dam wall where we had sun downers and then went up the hill to the DeStijl Gariep Hotel overlooking the Gariep Dam, for supper. On the way there a full moon started to rise over the dam which was so awesome to watch. We ended up eating supper while this full moon shimmed over the great waters of the !Gariep. A perfect ending to a long day.

Dark Morning Fire

Winter has arrived; yes you can usually tell by the cold however for me winter is leaving for work in the dark and arriving back home after sunset. The cold weather I can dress warm for but not seeing the sun is the one thing I hate.

This dark morning while on my way to work, I saw these two chaps building a fire on a warehouse construction site to warm themselves up. Winter is not coming, winter is here.

Quiet Noma

I am so frustrated at the moment with my service provider, Cell C, that it is a pity that they have lock me in a 2 year contract else I would have told them what to do with their connectivity.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Trust Noma to be calm and quiet that I hardly hear from her anymore since the company moved her and Delia to the other side of the office.

Potholes

What I don't understand are the potholes and traffic lights in Johannesburg. Somehow our municipality gets it wrong all the time. These comrades were voted in by the majority so I suppose they deserve the roads, the service, the broken traffic lights, missing manhole covers, the mismanagement of funds and the etoll gates. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle class pay for a service that doesn't exist.

This photograph was taken this afternoon in Sandton, the financial hub of South Africa. I am so keen of planting some flowers in the potholes.

Space Boots

There are two people that I know that are wearing space boots, the first is a Resistance member who while placing the game Ingress was approached by two well dressed black men at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens who calmly pulled a gun on them. Fight or flight and my Resistance friend took flight. While fleeing, he had to jump down this drop and that is when he damaged his foot but he continued to run to safety.

The other moonboot wearer is Delia whose foot this belongs to. She recently had to undergo surgery to correct a previous injury. So now I know two hop-alongs. They make an effective team.