October Blog

Looked after Thomas and Alex the other week. We each did a life-size head in clay, no model or references.





Alex finishing off the eyes; she's at the age (9) where she can see something is wrong but can't fix it easily. She asked for a bit of verbal help, whereas Thomas (6) didn't want any help at all.







This is Thomas' head in the first stage of having a plaster mould made.



Here they are in concrete: mine, Alex's, Thomas':




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John and me resting in a smallish kloof. The camera was set up next to a small stream, still running even though the rains have hardly started. This was a very nice shady spot; very welcome in the baking hot, dry area we were hiking.

Thomas, Rita and Yvonne scrambling up part of the lovely walk we did recently: a good 6 hours of: hiking, climbing down to a kloof (gully or gorge), along another rocky kloof and up another one - back on top and back to where we started. The only footpath was on top. I was surprised Thomas did so well, and even more surprised when he wanted to do more hiking the following weekend. He slept all the way home.

last month

Sheila and Rita posing for a photo when this great elephant almost ran them over. We really have to try to be a bit more careful, after all this is Africa.
Sheila, our niece, spent 4 weeks with us - unfortunately it is Winter, so it was quite cold. But, we found a few things to do:
The Rhino park - lots of animals, a few fibreglass models near the entrance, lots of lions, tigers, many different buck, warthogs, ostriches, plus lion cubs to play with, and a nice reptile room. Sheila wouldn't even look at the snakes: culturally terrified of them.
Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, - nice geology display rooms, a nice history of life on earth: origins and animal kingdom classifications explained.
Maropeng - a newish museum of human origins near Sterkfontein Caves (which have yielded human fossils) and the area has had finds of more human fossils than the rest of the world put together.
Gold Reef City - plenty of exciting rides...
and of course... shopping.

Went to a Rhino park and saw a few young ones with mothers. I really like this shot.

Then Alex and I started a painting. Next week we should get to complete it; she's really looking forward to it.

Hiking recently in the Free State, on a game farm. We were the only people there, which was nice. Evenings and breakfast spent around the fire... not too cold, and enough game to keep us alert.

Some small game near the braai spot:

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This Blog's main purpose has been overtaken by Flickr's photo-sharing aspects. But, I'll try and update this site once a month with a few of the month's highlights and try to find something interesting to share from the Internet.

May 2009 entries

Busy busy busy.

Quite pleased with my table-saw. My electric saw fits in the table and turns it into a table-saw. Now to do a bit of jigging to ensure wood is cut straight. All made with off-cuts - even underneath switch, double socket, chain and plug were reused. Chain is to hold a weight.

Then to make something, thinking of making a delux CD cabinet. Unsure though how many more CD's I'll be getting. After all, now it's easy to buy music online and download it to the PC. Here in S.A. prices are R10 for a song or track and R100 for all tracks on the CD. So that saves having to buy the CD for just one or two wanted songs. Sometimes if a CD has long tracks it's cheaper to buy all the tracks seperately rather than the CD-all tracks. I'll be trying that way soon with a couple of rare George Formby tracks I haven't got, but feature on a recently published CD.

Table-saw:

Holhoek hike

Some pics from our hike in the Free State at Holhoek.



The lodge: 3 rooms with 6 bunk beds, main building had 40 beds, a nice kitchen and braai area, nice toilets and showers - a very nice place.



Top: cave where some Boers lived hiding from the British. Living wasn't so basic as they even had furniture with them.

Centre: A lovely cave (overhang) near the end, there's even a track for a 4x4 wheelchair to get there.

The trails have quite a nice varied route. Walking along the base of the sandstone overhangs, past caves through bush, along the top... and well looked-after log ladders and bridges. For some of the exposed bridges a bypass can be done.

A few Bushmen rock paintings.

Bernie acting on the worst looking bridge. It was still very secure.

A very young Praying Mantis, probably only 10mm long.

Cables

Cables, so many cables. It's a nightmare.

PC cables - standard: screen, speakers, keyboard, mouse, router, phone.

Added to that are cables for: scanner, printer, hi-fi, hi-fi speakers, turntable, external hard-drive, headphones and mike, camera card reader, camera battery charger, cell phone charger.

PC work area is as big as a door - in fact, it IS a door - yet I need more space. Has anyone come up with a neat solution for cables?

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NOW this is an amazing optical effect: These lines are all parallel and straight; hard to believe.

And this one moves:::

These were found on: http://www.skytopia.com/project/illusion/illusion.html

Some good ones there.

Holiday in Namibia

We recently saw Katie Melua in concert. Very good. She's a UK singer and had a hit recently with 9 Million Bicycles in Beijing.

Last week I went with Yvonne and the kids for a bit of a hike, had a dip in our favourite pool (in that area). .. I'm standing.

Painting a plaster primer to the new addition to our house. The ceilings are in and painted, roof all complete.

Then before all this we went on Holiday - for a change. Namibia; Rita's first trip there. A few problems at the border. My bakkie's licence had expired (I didn't get a renewal) so the friendly cops gave me a small fine but took an hour to do that. Rita didn't need a visa but the official didn't know that so he had to contact the embassy at Windhoek, that took yet another hour. But once all that was settled we were on our way.
Long dusty roads, a busy road would have 5 cars a day...!! Very dry areas, very scenic.

A Social Weaver's nest. If there are no trees around they use the telephone poles. The birds are the size of a sparrow.

View from directly underneath. These nests are very tight. We found a broken piece at one of our camps and it was hard to tear apart. I don't know if they use spit or someting to hold the grass together, but it was surprising how well-bonded it all was.

Sossusvlei is a spectacular area in amongst the dunes of the Namib dessert. A road runs to the highest dune and area around - 60k long from the entrance gate and campsite. It's tarred now, which is a pity - it welcomes hundreds of tourists. Last time I was there with brother Cliff we were the only people in Dead Vlei. This visit had 4 by 4s transporting people the last sandy 6-7 k for R100. We didn't know the price but walked anyway - we like walking. In Dead Vlei there were at least a hundred people.

No rain in years yet this delicate flower seems to enjoy the sun.


An Italian tourist stopped barefoot Rita to ask her if she wasn't scared that the insects would bite her. She almost laughed, but was diplomaticaly polite.

Beetle tracks in the sand at Sossusvlei.

We went to Namibia to do The Naukluft Trail. It's only open in Winter, as it's too hot in Summer. trouble i s, in Winter it's too cold at night. We had our -25 ° sleeping nags and a small tent to help keep warm, as the shelters are half-walls with a raised roof. We were fine, the others got quite cold. I'd done it before and wanted a better night's sleep.

First day of our hike had some splendid views. Just as well as the uphill was very tiring. It was extremely hot and we knew the only water would be at the shelter where we'd stop for the night.

We camped out in the open a couple of times. We had to take a short-cut back to the start on day 4, which turned out to be a 2-day hike with no water whatsoever. I only had 1.5 litres for 2 days. Boy I was glad to get to a stream that second afternoon.

So many photos taken on this trip...


One of the few tar roads we travelled on - by choice (our friends wanted to ride on as many dirt roads as possible on their off-road bikes). All the tar roads here are as straight as this - good job the scenery is varied.

Fantastic scenery.

I hadn't seen this signpost before, and we didn't see any zebras on the roads.

Sesriem Canyon (near Sossusvlei) - cut by infrequent river water. It only rains every few years or so, and sometimes this canyon is half full of water, like 2-3m deep. That must look nice.

Sesriem Canyon again. Bernie and Rita.