Tablemountain on The Singemonkey

April 03, 2023

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:55:47 +0000

Last Tuesday at my bird count with Jane. It’s been a miserable anxious week with my boy cat Crumb missing without trace since last Monday. We did see a bittern after the count though, which is still an absolute treat.

March 26, 2023

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 11:01:44 +0000

Winter is sweeping in early this year. It’s been a bit dreary since late February.

March 12, 2023

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 08:54:38 +0000

It’s been a few moons since my last windmill to blockhouse walk. And wouldn’t you know, the windmill is complete. Fully restored at last. Ok maybe they still have one sail to raise.

It was the Cape Argus cycle race - which I’d forgotten. It’s South Africa’s most prestigious race. I’m a what? A bicyclist rather than a cyclist. I have mixed feelings about the sports cycling community. They are arguably a hindrance weirdly to bicycles being prioritised as a mode of transport. But the distaste for them frequently goes dangerously too far.

October 29, 2022

Sat, 29 Oct 2022 10:20:53 +0000

Well I’m sure you’ve all just been dying for another of my blockhouse walk photodocs… I had a cold and was waiting to come right before re-embarking on exercise. Hopefully the fact that I’m typing this rather than lying dead from a stroke means I waited long enough.

For the first time I decided to listen to music on my walk. Well… you add that mountain feeling to those music feelings and you can get pretty close to ecstasy, no lie. I had some thoughts:

October 10, 2022

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 20:53:48 +0000

Leucodendrons, @kanesnaps tells me. A very pretty and delicate protea that looked quite spectacular in spring profusion, painting the entire mountainside yellow.

September 16, 2022

Fri, 16 Sep 2022 08:50:29 +0000

Hail Eos, goddess of dawn (that feeling when you realise you’re the cultist 😂).

I got to see a pair of lovely Boubou shrikes right by the path and said, “Hey Boo.

September 11, 2022

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 11:24:28 +0000

The cultists apparently don’t come out if there’s a danger of rain. Instead of their shouting and wailing there was a choir of frogs. About as loud but less chaotic. I did encounter a pleasant old Zionist on the way down. But since that’s the biggest religious denomination in South Africa - if I recall correctly - he couldn’t be called a cultist.

September 03, 2022

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 09:58:37 +0000

A walk in the clouds. I had a cold for a couple of weeks so this is the first time I’ve been up in a good while. It’s spring in Cape Town and the evidence was everywhere. In the last pic you can see that work on the windmill is progressing nicely. I was pleased to hear the old familiar hollering and moaning of the cultists.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:40:15 +0000

This is from a few days ago when @withoutaleaf and I were up on Plum Pudding Hill. I just wanted to post this to remind myself of this handful of mature silver trees that survived the fire. The trunks were scorched but they came through unlike most.

I mentioned that silver trees are hard to photograph. It’s because the top side of the leaf has a gorgeous metallic shine thanks to a profusion of fine hairs. But the underside is a deep green. In photographs this usually gives the impression that they’re a kind of grey green tree. But up close and personal, they’re just spectacular.

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:30:52 +0000

Second mountain expedition of the day. Kane (@kanesnaps) led Junko (@junko28a) and me up Kalk Bay at a blistering pace. I worked out it must be over twenty years since I last went up this route. And that’s a shame because it’s so lovely. The vegetation and landscape transforms so quickly - you’re rapidly surrounded by the most varied and beautiful fynbos - and the contrast between the white sand and the acquamarine of False Bay is a balm for the soul. And so lovely to share the mountain with much loved people. Second time in a week!

July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 09:44:20 +0000

I’m heading out thaddaway this afternoon for a different bit of mountain. Pic 2: cork trees really demonstrating why that bark we find so useful evolved. The fire swept through them but all survived in their protective coats. These aren’t indigenous trees but I hope they preserve a couple of the big ones. Pic 3: to my delight, @withoutaleaf joined me on my mountain jaunt the other day. She pointed out the profusion of silver tree saplings that are coming up everywhere after the fire. I’d managed not to notice. Fire is, of course, part of the protea life cycle - hence the name. I can’t describe how beautiful silver trees are. And they’re hard to photograph for a number of reasons. But in real life they’re like something Tolkien and Doctor Seuss would come up with by the fireside after several glasses of wine.

July 19, 2022

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 20:56:26 +0000

Just after dawn at our bird count site on the confluence of the Liesbeek and Black Rivers. We’d just seen a Giant Kingfisher in the willow next to that date palm. The developers are flouting their court order to stop claiming they can just ignore it while they appeal. They seem confident that the courts will bow to their robber-baron capitalism destroying aboriginal heritage and sensitive environments. Let’s hope they’re wrong. People are getting pretty sick of these people ramping up their destruction just as we’re understanding how far it’s gone already.

July 16, 2022

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 13:29:52 +0000

A perfect winter’s day here in Africa.

Update on the cultists: I saw a few close up and they seem very nice. I’ve started to find them reassuring. I also encountered some coming down from above Rhodes Memorial (I inferred they weren’t hikers as one seldom hikes with a large black hardcover book in hand). If people are going to be religious, I think incorporating serious physical activity is a cracking idea in our sedentary society.

July 09, 2022

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 09:42:21 +0000

A bit of a gloomy morning. They’ve begun restoration of the windmill after last year’s fire.

Despite being a Saturday the cultists were out in fine form on the lower slopes, clapping erratically as if to banish devils. I find them rather comforting now.

July 04, 2022

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 08:53:10 +0000

Missed the mountain on the weekend thanks to weather. Got up long before dawn to get up there early. Was delayed by minibus taxis blocking the green light. Hurrah for private enterprise over public services! Got there though.

No cultists on a Monday. I found I somewhat missed them.

Thinking of my sibling who’s experiencing impaired vision due to COVID - a rare but not undocumented effect. Covid is real, it’s still here, and it’s still a serious disease. Holding thumbs.

June 26, 2022

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 09:28:59 +0000

I got to the mountain well early and got to see the first light hit Devil’s Peak. And yet I passed people coming down as I was going up. There’s a whole community of very fit people of all descriptions up there.

It’s nice being proper fit again. I think there’s a threshold of fitness beyond which most exercise becomes much more enjoyable - challenging rather than trying. But it’s not easy for most people to reach that in systems that relentlessly encourage sedentary living.

June 19, 2022

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 10:45:05 +0000

I tried ascending past the blockhouse after a comment from @suhairsolomon until the scramble gave way to an alarming verticality and I thought I should check the route and come back next time.

Notes: the lower slopes are dotted with cults - usually with one person shouting excitedly. But the one I passed closest to were spread out about 4m from each other all saying different stuff rapid fire. As Buffy The Vampire Slayer put it: “Note to self: Religion… freaky.”

June 18, 2022

Sat, 18 Jun 2022 12:37:30 +0000

Newlands Forest was mighty damp after the huge amount of rain we had last week. To cross the streams with dry feet I had to do some tricky hops on slippery rocks. I amazed myself by managing to cross three of these rain gorged torrents without falling in.

A second mountain biker alerted me to their presence with a bike bell. That makes two… ever. It’s such a tiny, inexpensive object but it conveys so much respect to the other mountain users. Most of them though, are not well-loved by the rest of us. I have a bell on my bike just for getting myself around, let along tearing down narrow, twisting tracks. Sport riders in Cape Town need to be better.

June 11, 2022

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 10:18:49 +0000

The memorial to ruthless imperialism and capitalism. Even sharks respect power - it’s a really basic thing to revere. It’s much more appropriate to a sophisticated primate to revere kindness and cooperation.

Well, at least people can enjoy the free public space and every generation of kids can ride the scaled down imitations of the Trafalgar Square lions - none of them thinking for a moment about a dusty old Victorian narcissist.

June 11, 2022

Sat, 11 Jun 2022 10:10:53 +0000

Despite having some expensive sunglasses ruined by the wind ripping them off my shirt and skidding them - lenses down - for 50m across a tarred road, the irritation I woke up with couldnt stand up to Table Mountain Park at dawn. This has to be among the best city parks on Earth.

I’m not quite fit enough to run up the steep mountainside to the “King’s Blockhouse” (a grandiose name for a very tiny little fort) so, since I was scrambling anyway, I could take my camera. I was remembering how this seemed like quite a big hike even as a teenager. I was clearly very unfit then.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 18:01:45 +0000

This ruined cottage was an irresistible moonlight attraction when we were teenagers. And the wall was a seat where we could climb up and pretend we were vampires.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:58:02 +0000

The pines have their own charms though. When you’re raised on European culture and JRR Tolkien - and our spectacular African scenery is just the backdrop to life - it was easy to romanticise this slightly exotic landscape. But it doesn’t really belong here and as such it lacks the intense diversity of our native biomes. The one upside though is that it provides a living for fungi from Europe which extrude bizarre fruits out of the ground and bark after rains.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:51:23 +0000

The native forests of Table Mountain. Dense and ringing with the calls of forest birds - unlike the bare alien pine forests that still linger on some slopes.

May 28, 2022

Sat, 28 May 2022 17:47:18 +0000

My camera battery charger has been rediscovered. So I took it for a long walk in the woods on the mountainside this morning.

It’s really striking how many more birds you hear when you leave the alien pines and enter the indigenous forest. Now that I recognise the eerie, jaunty call of the Sombre Bulbul, I can hear that the forest is lousy with them.

I also spotted a Cape Batis.

July 31, 2021

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 10:23:16 +0000

We were in Walmer Estate yesterday to pick something up. It’s such an attractive neighbourhood - #notaninvitationtogentrifyit This hair-dresser, corner store is a reminder of the vanishing corner stores that used to be ubiquitous in Cape Town. We call them Cafés for some reason - although we often pronounce it ‘Kaif.’ I have no idea why. You couldn’t buy coffee in them usually when they were everywhere when I was a kid. This hairdresser has supplemented its advertising with a graffito of a very strangely proportioned young man.

July 14, 2021

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 12:48:22 +0000

Another dawn by the Black River, looking to the confluence where the Liesbeek joins it. I’m still waiting for my new lenses because Fedex is a garbage company. Hopefully soon though. If I’d had the wide lens I could have included the full rainbow that went along with this scene.

July 06, 2021

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 11:44:27 +0000

No otters down by the river. But great flights of ibis - including two flocks of Glossy Ibis; about a dozen each.

Might be getting new lenses for the little XE1 today. Excited about that.

January 20, 2021

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:24:58 +0000

I’ve joined a tiny bird group to monitor the presence of birds where the Liesbeek River meets the Black River. Once a week we go out to this spot on the Black River in the morning and spend 5 minutes noting every species we can see and their numbers. Yesterday was a two kingfisher day with a trio of Pied Kingfishers fussing just on the right edge of the Liesbeek mouth and a Malachite Kingfisher I didn’t see (I was taking notes and, when I thought I saw it later, was asked if I wasn’t looking at a Morning Glory flower - I was 😂). Despite being an urban river system, it’s bursting with wildlife.

January 25, 2020

Sat, 25 Jan 2020 20:55:26 +0000

A boat heading into the sunset - a rather tedious metaphor for mortality.

January 25, 2020

Sat, 25 Jan 2020 20:53:48 +0000

I’m having one of my oldest and dearest friends, @furiousgreencloud, to stay. It’s always been too long. I’m having a knee issue so we took the cable car up and skulked among the fynbos on a beautiful windless evening atop the mountain.

November 10, 2019

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 08:53:46 +0000

Another Sunday morning kibble run for hangry kitties. This time in summer.

September 29, 2019

Sun, 29 Sep 2019 10:54:43 +0000

90s bois. Set the camera up in the grass. Push the little lever. Wait for the mechanical whirl to end in a click. And a day in 1996 is captured in grainy, squinty glory. What were we up to on plum-pudding hill that noon? Digging. Just another madcap Gareth scheme.

April 26, 2019

Fri, 26 Apr 2019 17:00:24 +0000

This is our last autumn in Ash Street. We’ve lived here since 2007. Without any plan in that regard we’ve both lived here longer than either of us has ever lived anywhere else. We’ll miss wonderful neighbours but it’ll be good to be moving… a full 3 or 4 blocks away.

September 11, 2017

Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:29:28 +0000

Great white #pelicans on our #walk the way to #lunch. Like #galleons under #sail. We also saw a #malachite #kingfisher - our little #jewel with #wings.