June 2012 – Blogs from Betty's Bay

The Harold Porter Botanical Garden shaped by horticulture, soon releases you into it’s indigenous wild mountain side and kloofs, the ancient home of baboons and leopards who apparently are re-establishing themselves in the Western Cape Overberg region. Over the last year and a half, there have been numerous recorded sightings from Gordon’s Bay to Grootbos.
After a week of violent storms had lashed the Cape Peninsula, suddenly, on Sunday morning, the air was still, the sky steely blue again, calling us out into the wild – and if we caught it early we would have the paths into the Harold Porter Reserve to ourselves and we left before breakfast. There was a remarkable chill in the air, wending our way upwards with the mountain side still in shadows.

Entering the Reserve early in the morning after the deluge.

All tranquility now and gentle reflections.

Wending our ways up the mountainside in the fresh morning chill.

Crossing the river – from the bridge over the weir.

The top of the opposite mountain side touched by the sun.

Fynbos regrowth after the devastating veldfires had raged through the mountains a few years ago.

Protea cynaroides regrowing out of its burned stems.

Fresh growth out of ashes.

Rushing down Leopard’s Kloof.

And to conclude this morning’s outing – a late breakfast on the deck in our own little wilderness.

With love from
Colleen & Walter
Betty’s Bay, Monday, June 11, 2012

A pair of peacocks – extended part of the family.

Our parenting days are well behind us, but every now and then we do a run of acting in loco parentis – and we always enjoy such occasions whenever and where ever they occur – in France, Germany or like now in Hout Bay. It makes us aware of our hard-won equilibrium, makes us rethink of how on earth we were able to keep our sanity more or less intact over all those years and always refreshes our admiration for present-day parents.

Baking ginger bread men and women. The first lot got burnt, unfortunately.

Parenting comes as a matter of course, for sure, but it seems so much more demanding these days. In our childhood days we walked alone in the dark to the bus stop for a 40 minute’s ride to school. In Colleen’s case she rode to school on horseback or in a horse-drawn cart. These days it involves complex logistical coordination. Transportation is an issue where appropriate infra-structure is missing. In preparation for hosting the Soccer World Cup in 2010 an integrated rapid transit system was initiated for Cape Town which is up and running and still being extended, eventually reaching Hout Bay.