More Museums in Cape town

Visiting museums has become one of my favourite pastimes recently. As the time for Andy and I to leave Cape Town approaches, I been discovering lots of fascinating places, and enjoying some wonderful trips out with Hendriette, Jaco and Helena.

We visited the Cape Town Holocaust Centre, which is similar to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, but much smaller:

On the stairs, leading to the museum, some beautiful patchwork of appliqued and embroidered Jewish symbols are displayed:

Next door is the Jewish Museum, which is very modern. It has an unusual spiral staircase, which is only supported at the top and bottom:

This photo was taken from a postcard I bought at the museum.

A Jewish Synagogue on also on the site. Jaco had to cover the top of his head, as is customary for males entering a Jewish Holy place. Paper caps and prayer shawls were available for communal use:

In the synagogue, this replica of a candelabrum from the Yad Vashem museum, remembering the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, was displayed at the front.

On the same day we revisited the Iziko Museum, which has huge skeletons on display:

This is the mouth of a very large great white shark - scary!

And this is a replica of one of the large dinosaur skeletons, found in South Africa.

Another day we visited the National Gallery, also part of the Iziko Museums. Part of the Sasol Wax Art award, this unusual display, made entirely of wax paper, depicted a bedroom and bathroom:

I hope you can see the straws used to make the sink taps and also for the base of the toilet.

These are examples of the work of another finalist in the wax art award:

Another section had sculptures made of scrap materials:

This life-size horse was made from weapons and armory...

...and this working model of a lion chasing a tourist was made from unrolled drinks cans.

These museums surround the 'Company's Gardens', where a statue of Cecil Rhodes is siuated. As my maiden name (name before marriage) was Rhodes, I just had to pose beside it:

Die Strandloper - Seafood Restaurant

Mark Gallardo, Andy's colleague in CVC Miami was here recently. He came with us on the West Coast weekend, although he had only just landed in Cape Town, following two night flights (to London, then to Cape Town), so I don't think we can, in any way, blame Mark for the dismal success on the fishing trip.



By way of compensation, during his week here, we visited a seafood restaurant which is also on the Cape West Coast, but much nearer to Cape Town. Die Strandloper is not posh! Terms like 'rustic', 'rough and ready', or even 'makeshift' are more appropriate.

As you can see, there is no permanent stucture, just tents, made from fishing nets, situated right on the beach.

The cooking takes place over open fires and is served either straight from the fire or in pots, like these:

There's no washing up as paper plates are used, together with no knives and forks: mussel shells serve just as well:

There's no waste either, scraps off our plates are just tossed to, what must be, the best-fed seagulls on the West Coast:

Entertainment is provied by a guitarist who circulates round the tables, singing requests:

There's even an amusing weather forecast:

And the food, of course, was delicious. Crayfish twice in one week can't be bad!

West Coast Weekend

The last weekend in January was spent on the Cape West Coast of South Africa. We travelled to the Elands Bay near the Cederberg region: an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The purpose of the visit was to fish in 'Verlorenvlei', which means "lost marsh". It is in fact a huge natural lake, formed when the estuary closed to the sea. Recent rains opened it for the first time in 12 years, making the water more brackish than freshwater.

Andy caught ten like this small carp, all of which were thrown back as they were too small to eat.

Brigitte was far more hands-on than I was, I'm afraid. This fish, Oliver caught, was probably the largest of the day, but still too small to braai.

Our host, Brink, took us to see the house that his great-grandmother was born in, near to the 'vlei'. Her great-grandmother was one of the first German immigrants to settle in this area, in the late 1700's. The cottage is a traditional cape cottage, with a thatched roof, often referred to as a fisherman's cottage.

Elands Bay is popular with surfers and the high-tide mark was littered with interesting shells, just right for beachcombing. The next morning, very early the men returned to try to catch some sea fish.

This juvenile shark was found trapped on the beach and released back into the sea.

Elands Bay is on the crayfish trail, but those who dive for them must hold a license. There are very strict rules about how many can be taken at one time. Brink's brother caught these crayfish, the only seafood that was eaten that weekend!

But this glorious sunrise, more than made up for the lack of fish.

Paintball Africa

Paintball Africa is the name of the place where 17 of the staff from CVC South Africa went last Saturday. It was really good fun, despite some fear and trepidation from yours truly at the outset, which transformed into courage and near recklessness during the course of an afternoon!


It must have been the hidden stress of trying to keep the event secret from Andy, or maybe some latent aggression I wasn't aware of, which needed an adrenaline boost to kick it off. I was also having a little trouble with my camera on that day, so the following photos have some strange lines across them.

However, this was the whole group before we started:

Andy and me in some none-flattering protective clothing:

Andy after one of the games:

Stocking up on paintballs, ready for the final, 'last man standing', game, which Brad the man in the middle, won:

As we went into this last game I went round giving out paintballs, to various people who had run out - talk about arming your enemy with amunition!!

Back in Cape Town

We are now back in Cape Town, after spending Christmas and New Year in the UK. Our night flight was delayed at Heathrow for two hours, making an already long flight even longer.

As the plane was coming into Cape Town I took this photo of Robben Island, much closer and from a different angle to the one on the outward journey. The view across to Table Mountain was not so clear as that day before Christmas:

Cape Town is a very windy place, especially in the summer. The South Easterlies are very strong and therefore windsurfing and kitesurfing are both very popular sports. The best place for these wind driven sports is Table Bay, which is also a popular spot to watch the sunset.

However, the last few times we have visited Table Bay at the end of the day, it has been almost too windy to get out of the car. We venture across the wooden walk ways only to have our legs stung by the sand, as it is blown along the beach. The expedition lasts about two minutes before we cannot stand the battering, hurrying back to the car for shelter.

So this photo was taken from the car, but shows seven kitesurfers taking advantage of the winds with the wind rushing over Table Mountain in the background:

World Jigsaw

While we are abroad, our dog Lady is being cared for by my niece, Naomi, and her husband, Matt. They are also house-sitting for us, so when we return home we stay with Andy's mum, only three miles away.


However, Naomi and Matt were going away for a few days, so we stayed in our house from New Year's Day until today. We had invited some friends from Burnley to stay too, so we enjoyed some long walks with Lady, played some games and did a 3-D jigsaw of the World. Here is the completed puzzle, which sits on a cardboard ring for stability:

The puzzle builds up from the South Pole, with the North Pole being the final, very tricky piece to insert. It has a trapdoor, to help it to be put in place:

Happy New Year - 2008

I hope that 2nd January is not too late to wish everyone a "Happy New Year". The new year came in quite uneventfully for us. Just Andy and I and his mum waited up to see the New Year in. We tried to send text messages to Adam and Peter, and then regretted doing that as we had a message at 2.30am announcing the delivery of one of them! Since the 2000 celebrations there seem to be many more fireworks locally, so for about 15-20 minutes there are bangs, so we usually wait until these have died down before going to bed, but by 2.30am we were sound asleep.

We watched the countdown from London on TV this year, and saw one million pounds go up in smoke at a spectacular fireworks display, along the Thames River, with the London Eye as its centre piece. I can't help feeling that it was a huge waste of money, but I will probably be considered a kill-joy. Fireworks are incredible displays of colour, but surely they only need to last a few minutes - not 20 minutes!