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Cape of Good Hope

December 28, 2012

Part of the Table Mountain National Park, Cape Point stretches south of Cape Town at the bottom of the Cape Peninsula that forms False Bay's west shore. It is downwardly crowned by the Cape of Good Hope which was created along with many universal landmarks during my youth's early reading years. The Cape might have long lost its title of southernmost tip of the continent to neighbor Cape Agulhas*, but literature, it seems, inspects geography through a romantic lens and hope is better than needles so it was the Cape of...

Cartwheels over Lesotho, Part 7 - Stalking the Mountain Zebra

May 25, 2010

Out of Rhodes by mid-morning, we drove lazily through patchy fields, their freshly plowed soil dark as coal and contrasting strongly with lush green vegetation all around. In Barkly East, the dirt road was left behind and with it, all driving worries. We drifted north to Lady Grey and Aliwal and then plunged directly south on the wide N6, picking up speed and making up for a slow start. Cruising towards the sea, we realized we hadn't booked a campsite at Addo Elephant National Park - a potentially fatal oversight on a...

Cartwheels over Lesotho, Part 2 - Once Upon a Time in Nieu Bethesda

April 16, 2010

From Beaufort West, we drove steadily east and as our morning unfolded, the Karoo's unflinching dryness mellowed out and slowly gave way to encouraging traces of vegetation. By the time we'd reached the town of Graaff Reinet, two-thirds into our daily leg, green had appeared all around us in a surprising display of tenacity. There had been much rain recently and we were witnessing its almost instantaneous effect on the landscape. Roads were flanked with high fluid grass waving in the wind and fields had turned from barren...

Cartwheels over Lesotho - The Teaser

March 11, 2010

It's been weeks since we came back from the road. With so much to do in Cape Town, including flash training sessions for the Argus Cycle Tour, I've only had moderate amounts of time to sort out the many pictures taken and throw a few ideas on paper. But it is all taking shape. Some might remember that in early 2009, Marie and I set out for a memorable road trip up the West Coast of South Africa, into Namibia's incredible Namib Desert, across to southern Kalahari and back to Cape Town. I then wrote a series of 9 stories...

Cool runnings

February 11, 2010

I had meant to post more often about the running routes I've discovered but as always, time is running out (pardon the pun) - we are about to hit the road. But let's see... The most memorable runs were the Good Faith Trail Run on the 12 Apostles and A Hot Morning Cruise Across Cape Point. The 12 Apostles trail run was 18 km long and took 3:20 hrs, starting steeply above Llandudno, following the top of the Apostles on the back of Table Mountain, cutting across to the reservoirs, joining the jeep track, descending to the...

South African update

January 31, 2010

34 degrees of latitude south. Very comfortable bottom tip of the African Continent. South of us, I was thinking today, is a maritime void that drops all the way to Antarctica. Ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas probably do so in an affectionate fashion, keeping land in sight, wary of open seas. Nearby, they know, the mighty Atlantic and Indian Oceans collide. And the skies over there, where no landmass remains, are surely empty too, exempt of air traffic; why would there be any? This is a space that leads...

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