Forget the limerick “She sells seashells on the sea shore”.
How about “He shoots skyscapes at the seashore”?
The sunsets that I recently witnessed while on holiday in The Strand, Cape Town, were beyond spectacular.
They made me feel so small and insignificant when surrounded by what was happening in the sky as night slowly rolled across the ocean and crept towards the beach.
As beautiful as most of the sunsets were, there were 2 nights when the sun vanished behind the mountains of the Cape Peninsular without so much as a sliver of colour.
And this was sunrise over the Hottentots Holland Mountain range
I had checked to see what time sunrise was scheduled for. 07h33 was what my App informed me and sunrise was almost exactly on time.
Another day, another sunrise…
Sunset over the beach with the Cape Peninsular in the distance.
I sat and watched this fellow for about 40 minutes as he patrolled the shallows talking on his mobile.
I do hope that he had taken a moment to appreciate the beauty that was occurring around him.
My wife, trying to encompass all that she was experiencing.
Or was she trying to replicate King Canute in attempting to hold back the Atlantic?
For those who do not know the story, Canute set his throne by the seashore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not to wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person”.
The story is often attributed to Henry of Huntingdon’s Chronicle, written more than a century after Canute died. There is no earlier evidence that the King ever tried to command any waves. However, once told, the story became very popular, and there are a range of later medieval retellings of this story.
As seen on one of my morning walks through the back streets of The Strand.
The mountain range that was ‘hiding’ the rising sun is the imposing Hottentots Holland range
The range is primarily composed of Table Mountain Sandstone, and lies between the eastern suburbs of Cape Town and Somerset West and Gordon’s Bay to the west, and the Elgin Valley to the east.
Sir Lowry’s Pass is the only crossing, in the form of the N2 motorway.
Late afternoon and the beach was starting to fill up with young and old.
Sitting in our apartment on the 6th floor looking out to sea.
We were in a private apartment, owned by a friend, and therefore there are no pictures to be shared.
The silver of the sea contrasts with the silhouettes of the people on the beach.
In a way our holiday would have been very different if the wind had picked up and kept us indoors, but it was so perfect that I wanted to spend as much time on the beach as I could. Also, the challenge of photographing with a bridge camera was one that I gladly accepted.
A game of fetch. There were several dogs on the beach and I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the owners were carrying bags to collect poop.
Where I walk regularly in Delta Park in Johannesburg dog owners seldom, if ever, clean up after their dogs. On the occasions where I have called owners out, they have responded with rudeness and, in some cases, aggression.
The favourite response from the self-proclaimed privileged is “We are making work for those who have to keep the park clean”.
Time to say goodbye. A final sunrise before packing up and heading for the airport.
To quote the title of the fourth book of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from a trilogy of six books by Douglas Adams. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
We hope to return in September to celebrate two milestone events in our lives. But more of that closer to the time.
Travel is the proud winner of this prestigious award from the digital British lifestyle magazine Luxlife. The award is in the category Best Travel & Experiences Blog 2024 – South Africa
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