During winter in Cape Town, the famous blue skies of Africa are often hidden behind water-logged dark-grey clouds that trail curtains of rain across the peninsula, causing erosion on exposed hillsides and widespread flooding in low-lying areas. In the last three months, our weekends had rarely coincided with a bit of free time and a…
One day in March, we hiked along the Silvermine Crags. A thick blanket of dark grey rain-heavy clouds was hovering above the city, and swirling around the tops of the mountain peaks in the southern peninsula. Luckily, the rain stayed away, and shafts of autumn sunlight eventually broke through the thick clouds and melted them…
At the start of May, longing to get away from computers, technology and deadlines by spending some time among shady trees and burbling streams instead, we went for a short ramble around Newlands Forest. As always, it was peaceful and serene in this old, well-established forest that is understandably popular among hikers, dog-walkers and trail-runners.…
At the end of April, after a couple of days of rain, the weather cleared sufficiently to venture outdoors, and we decided to re-try the river ramble in Silvermine West. We had explored this path in March, after long months of no rain, when it had been disappointingly dry and dusty (Silvermine river ramble and…
In September last year, we’d set out to explore the Hillcrest Path at Silvermine West, but we’d been caught out by the rain and the fog, and reluctantly did a u-turn on the mountain. Yesterday, however, was the perfect weather for hiking – relatively cool, a slight breeze, a bit of cloud cover, and just…
The day after I had had my head shaved for a good cause at the 2011 CANSA Shavathon, we decided that the weather was just too nice to stay indoors in front of the computer, catching up on emails and work. Quite Frankly, work would have to Wait. Notice the lower-case ‘work’ – putting it…
My goodness, what a whirlwind of a week this has been! We picked up mom-in-law Lissi (visiting us from Windhoek, Namibia) from Cape Town International Airport last Saturday, and spent a leisurely afternoon at home, giving her some time to relax before launching into a jam-packed program of activities.
“Help! Get them off me! Help!!” I leapt to my feet, almost splashing hot tea over myself as I thrust the mug at Richard. He was staring at me in amazement, as I swatted and flicked frantically at my legs, dancing on the spot, and squirming desperately to check the backs of my legs as…
Preamble “Hm, I’m not sure I want to tell everyone about this delightful place,” I remarked to Tuffy-Cat who was helping me to choose the photos for today’s blog(s) by climbing all over the keyboard and inadvertently (or perhaps deliberately? with cats, who knows…) clicking keystroke combinations that could’ve re-booted my computer. “If I do,…
A historical prelude When the first Europeans sailed southwards around the African continent and around the southernmost tip of South Africa at the end of the 15th century, they were searching for a sea route to India and the rest of Asia. They wanted to avoid the overland route across the Middle East, where they…
On Saturday morning, over a week ago now, we were rather keen to see more of the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve after the previous week’s wonderful hike to Sirkelsvlei (and, of course, to make good use of our new Wild Card). After consulting the map, we decided to tackle the slightly more strenuous…
Seeing that we were now in possession of our Wild Card, which we had bought last week, we decided to venture down to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, whose prohibitively high entrance fees (of R80 per adult) we had been most reluctant to pay. But our brand-new Wild Card entitled us to free…
As we’ve been going on so many hikes around Cape Town over the last few years, we thought that this year we would investigate the option of purchasing a loyalty card known as the Wild Card. This card gives you one year’s free (or discounted) access to more than 80 parks and reserves around Southern…
At the start of December last year, we felt like exploring Silvermine East a little more. To our delight, the weather was far more inviting than on the previous occasion we had visited the Southern Peninsula (see the story of our exceedingly wet hike to the Amphitheatre in November last year).
Ever since I had joined a group of friends on an extra-long hike from the Silvermine Reservoir, up to the Elephant’s Eye Cave and even further up to the top of the Constantiaberg with its VHF mast in July last year (see description of hike here), hubby and I had wanted to do the hike…
Grains of Sand 
You must be logged in to post a comment.