Day 51 May 24th Hermanus

Woke to a stunning sunrise this morning all reds, orange and pink over the lagoon, no major birds but wonderful silence, took the dogs down to the water for an early morning walk. Steve was not around so I had to find A.White auto by myself, wending my way around the detour and into the industrial area, Rik was off somewhere so I had to wait anyway, got talking to his partners daughter who is filling in for her dad who was the one who had the heart attack last week, what a talker she turned out to be, did not get a word in edgeways and know a hell of a lot more about Hermanus politics now than I did 30 minutes ago.

sunrise

our great spot

sunrise

Rik did an unbelievable job, fitted a new pipe on the radiator, reclamped all the clamps which were loose, Theuns will not be happy knowing that but clearly he did not tighten them as well as he thought he did, Rik then checked the gears and said they were fine they needed only to have the cable tightened to lift the clutch, spray a bit of oil to loosen it up and they are much better.

He also opened up the dash and discovered the indicator relay switch is wet and also comes from an Isuzu and is wired wrong, so over to George at the spares shop for a new switch and he fitted it for me, changing the fuse to a lower amp, so after 2 hours of working on the van and the minimal charge of R270, and I learnt a lot more about my camper and these VW combis in general, and some advice on changing my air filter to something more practical, lots of info and tips as Rik has his own converted combi, my mind was a lot more settled and we went off to the beach in a happy mood.

I parked in town and we went for a walk past the whale callers spot and the Marimba fusion, a lovely group of 4 black artists who come up from Cape Town to play on the beach front every weekend. The group is called ILITHA LELANGA which means 'sunbeam', a very West Indian sound, they come up by taxi and rely solely on donations so if you are ever in Hermanus on a Saturdy afternoon wend your way down to the foreshore above the old harbour and help them out. I had a horrible buffet at one of the beachfront restaurants, I knew I should not have eaten in a tourist spot but I did take about 15 rib bones home with me for the dogs so they got to enjoyed an afternoon snack while I lay on the grass and read.

sunset over the lagoon

Henks ten Khaya's

another hermanus beach

We went looking for Donovan on our way back to See en Sand, but he has moved from his spot, he had until today to move or face his van being impounded, no idea where he went.

The camp is quiet, all are out busy with things, they did get it spruced up a bit for a birthday party tonight, so we moved the van away from the braai area over to the other side facing the sea so we will have a different view in the morning.

The party was a bit of a bust as the mist came down and the 21 year olds, staying in the last two huts, ended up braaing outside the back of their cabins, I guess to keep warm and to be able to find each other in the heavy mist, the muted sounds didn't bother me at all, not what I would call a lively 21st.

Not a great view in the morning, mist is still heavy and slight drissle, we slept in until after 8, lazy morning, by the time we were up and about the sun was struggling to come through.

See en Sand in the distance

the mountain we climbed

I took the dogs out to climb the mountain, we followed the main road a long way, with three dogs on leads and a narrow strip to walk on none of us were very happy, I could not find a way up the mountain so we just crossed over the road and bundu bashed our way up the side of the mountain until we came out at the sand road we could see from the main road. There was a terrible fire here about 8 months ago, came over the mountain and burnt a stretch of fynbos for about 30km, the mountain side and fynbos is heavily fire damaged still, stalks and dry sand, we kept climbing straight up intent on getting to a peak with a good view of the town, I turned around and discovered that Lani was sitting on the sand road, she had not followed us, as we watched her she turned around and started trotting down the road back towards the main road with trucks and idiots coming into town at 150km an hour she would not last long if she hits that road, and we were way up the mountain with no way to call her, thankfully a cyclist came by along the road riding behind her, don't know where he came from, but I yelled out to him to please find my dog and turn her around and send her back our way, we then went charging down the mountain and as we hit the road and started after her, there she came trotting over the hill towards us, our friendly cyclist must have found her and booted her back. This dog is giving me heart failure. We kept walking along the path and came out at a tar road just behind See en Sand so we could have done without all our bundu bashing if we had gone left and up the mountain instead of going right and along the main road when we came out of the camp, would have saved myself some stress.

Drove into town looking for the library, which was closed, an internet cafe, never found it and the laundry, too busy to do our clothes ourselves, come back on Monday, so back home after an unsuccessfull morning.

I did get to seal my windscreen to stop further water damage to all my electric wiring under the dash, including my new relay switch. Lazy afternoon, walked down to the waters edge and met yet another local, JJ. Pelser, living in a fishermans hut, he has been given notice by the council to vacate nest week as this whole area, including See en Sand, is being developed, probably by some rich corporate with money making ideas, it is such a beautiful wild spot I cannot understand why it is not kept wild and turned into a weekend spot for braaing and fishing and kids activities like a cycle track or playground, not sure why every piece of land must make money for someone, it will be the end of the water birds on the lagoon which is already heavily polluted, so badly I won't let the dogs swim in the water, don't know how the birds manage to survive the smell and dirt, they obviously breed tough birds in todays world.

getting blown away at Grotto beach

my new spot out of the wind

walking the coastal pathways

I think the dogs are tuckered out, they don't want to walk any more, they have all plopped down in the camper and left me to go off without following me, I didn't think I would ever tire them out, but this is a lot more of an active life than they had in Johies.

The 21 year olds are still at it tonight, a good group of guys, all divers, but I don't think the noise will bother me if I go back to my old spot, I got to listen to their music, which wasn't too bad except they play the same songs over and over, but I prefer this spot and want the better view in the morning, we are all in for an early night it would seem, the dogs are out like lights, I want to try and get into the book the old man lent me, it sounds interesting.

Sleep well.

Did not sleep well, those buggers were up until about 4am talking nonsense, the rain came down early and the wind howled, we did have the protection of the bushes so it wasn't too bad and could leave the door open, didn't rain hard enough to test my waterproofing except for the windscreen which had water everywhere but none went in my dash, so that was a successful job yesterday and timeously done, but the roof may still leak who knows.

Slept in until 9 but was still first up, made coffee, read a bit more about the economic hit man, scary stuff, and then took off for the Blue flag beach at the Grotto, lovely wide white beach with parachute surfers, whatever they are called, miserable day, windy and drizzly but a few brave ones are out walking and we added to their numbers, the dogs were getting blown all over the place but were happy to be on the move. Next we popped back to Hoy's Koppie, got more info on it from Lorraine last night so we went to check out the two tombstones on top, did not make it to the top yesterday but nice climb today. The guy, Mr. Hoy, born in Scotland and Chairman of the railways, loved his fishing in Hermanus so he discouraged the introduction of the railway line coming to town, the old station still stands where the Checkers is, but if you sit there you'll wait a long time for a train.

The magnetic society has it's head office here for this reason, apparently the railway lines interfere with their magnets so they took advantage of the old mans power to use a railway free city for head offices.

Ended up in town trying to tap in to Wimpy's internet without going in to buy any of their cholesterol rich food, was not very successful even though I am parked a few cars away, they have their ducks in a row obviously and can keep their signal to withing their walls, will have to leave the dogs in the car and go and eat a scrumptious breakfast, had enough healthy meals in the last few weeks to afford a Wimpy mega. The meal was worth it and got to send out a few e-mails and some great pics of Hermanus and our present home at See en Sand.

Sievers point

another beautiful sunset

climbing Hoy's koppie

standing on the graves

what was going to be the railway station is now checkers

We hit Sievers Point on the way back to camp, great place to fish, I have been looking at all the names people have been putting on the plaques fixed to the many benches lining the beaches dedicated to the dead, all died in their 40's to 60's, the moral of this story is if you are planning to retire, don't choose Hermanus.

The sun came out and the day brightened but the wind kept howling and the temperature stayed low, my kind of day, went back down to the boat ramp for another walk, these dogs are walking about 5 times more on the road than they ever did back in Johies, no wonder they sleep like dead dogs at night, if they are ever called upon to protect me I think I might want to consider an alternate plan I don't think they'll even wake up.

This fresh air is killing me, off to sleep in our cozy camper.

Woke to a misty morning and slight drissle, cleared quickly though, headed into town and Nicols suspension parlour, he said it should only take less than 2 hours to fix the wheels, so we headed off for yet another jaunt to the beach, this time discovered a new one near the harbour and took a stroll along the coastal pathway, which looks like it may extend all the way to Cape Town as it does not seem to have an end to it.

looking for Dassie's

Steve Smut my West coast consultant

enjoyed this place immensly

Back to the industrial centre only to find that nothing has been done on the Camper apparently the parts were wrong, then they suddenly became right again, then slow progress, then no progress, went for yet another walk when I got tired of hanging around doing nothing, found Joe's pies and had one for me and a sausage roll for the dogs, back to Nicol's to discover that he had headed off to Somerset West on his Kwaka 1000 to fetch a part, back he came and some more progress on the camper, then finally the suspension was done and we moved her over to do the wheel alignment, only to discover that the back wheel is sitting at a 3,7 camber and is supposed to be around 0,5 so could not do the back alignment plus Nicol admitted to not knowing how to fix the problem. He said I need to go and see Tommy in Onrus on my way into Cape Town tomorrow, no sweat, R1200 later and 6 hours of hanging around we finally got to drive back into town to get the laundry done, a lovely lady runs the laundry, I paid her my bucks and loaded the machine and she offered to do the stasoft and put it in the dryer for me, thanked her for that and took the dogs off to the centre of town for yet another walk on the coastal pathway, this time encountering lots of Dassies on the rocks which got Josephine excited. I had to take her out of there in a hurry as I could picture a few dozen dead Dassies lined up on the beach and me in handcuffs, very protected here in Hermanus.

on the point

walking the beach front

When the guys heard I was leaving tomorrow, Steve and Marius invited me to join them in a farewell dinner, Steve was making his pickled mussels, he had fetched about 100 of them from the sea this afternoon, Marius had the bare makings of a curry but needed my help in sourcing onions, curry powder and explaining the steps to cooking a chicken curry, I never told him I'm a useless cook, we fried my red onions, added things we found in the fridge, a communal fridge, so no idea how long things have been growing in there, we found a tin of coconut milk for our stock, threw in someones potato and cut up a butternut along with some chicken, I made rice to which I added spices to give it colour and the end result was a delicious meal, or maybe it was just tasty because it's been awhile since I had a home cooked meal, have not cooked a a meal in the camper yet.

I found a scale in the bathroom and weighed myself, I think the scale is wrong, I was about 85kg when I left Joburg and this scale says 74, must be wrong, maybe not, I do feel lighter, slimmer, fit my clothes better, I guess if you don't eat much losing weight is part of the deal, or it could be the hundreds of beach walks we have had these last few months.

Cold and windy tonight, but slept fairly well, up with an overcast sky and lovely red sunrise, drove out of town after saying my farewells to everyone at See en Sand and headed for Onrus and Tommy's workshop, he had a look at the back wheel, I always thought that wheel was wonky but I had the wheel alignment done in Winkelspruit and they told me all was well, Nicol picked up the problem straight away and could not tell me how someone could do a wheel alignment with my front suspension being so bad and my back tyre so out of kilter, I am certainly meeting a ton load of idiots on my travels, or just ones out for a buck. Tommy says he thinks something is twisted and we need to lift the back wheel to a higher level before we strip her and see what the problem is, he suggests I go back to Nicol to do the job and he will come down once she is stripped and have a look, so we did an about turn and headed back to Hermanus and Nicol's, he said to bring her in at 7:30 tomorrow morning and we will have a look, just when I thought I was going to be on my way.

the kitchen and farewell dinner

my lovely view I never tire of

Just as well because I contacted Janis at Camp Africa where I was going to be staying in Cape town and paying with talents as she is on the community exchange because she said she spoke to the farm owner and he does not want dogs, I wonder why she couldn't tell me that last week so I had time to make another plan, is there anybody left out there today with integrity I wonder?

So we went out of town a bit looking for yet a new beach, really miserable day, cold, wet, windy, blowing like hell actually not sure what one would call it, windy does not decribe it, parked on a lonely beach at Sandbaai and went walking along the coastal path again, long walk this time as this place is wide open, rocks everywhere, fynbos and frogs, frogs and more frogs, those cricking sounds have to be frogs, they are everywhere here, must love this fynbos, back to the camper to hole up and cath up on some writing, the dogs are out like lights.

Driving out of town this morning I passed the detour and then one little town after another, just like the Natal coast, I think the houses on the cost are going to extend all the way to Cape Town, no more little towns apart from each other, just one long city from Hermanus to Town.

I found the library, which was open, and accessed free internet for 30 minutes so I could sent out a few e-mails and checked the community exchange site for some places to camp around the Cape peninusula, found one in Clan William and another outside Montagu, lets see if one of them can offer me a campsite, with the dogs, in exchange for talents, I have so many talents I want to spend them on something.

We spent the afternoon wandering along the path around town, the point in town is a well laid out parking area obviously designed for maximum whale viewing in season, so we parked there, made coffee, read, attracted attention and checked out the Dassies that were checking us out, they were not sure about the snake pictures and were keeping their distance, or maybe it was Josephine glaring at them malevolently.

So back to See and Sand where we werwelcomed like long lost relatives, felt like we were coming home, this time I parked the camper deep in the bushes, have no inention of having my world rocked tonight by this violent wind, with the weather taking a dive it is likely to be worse tonight, the pundits tell me it will be gusting at 120km an hour by Thursday, hope we are gone by then, or we will be fish food.

Cuddled in for the night in the warm kitchen, hot shower and book and bed, need to be at Nicol by 7:30, still dark then so hope my internal alarm clock gets us up in time.

Sleep well.

Someone wanted to know about our sleeping arrangement, so here it is!

It has changed slighty now that Slick sleeps elsewhere, I make up the bed, I have put my outdoor mattress into the bathroom along with a ton load of other rubbish, so that is packed to the gills and I hate having to get something out from there because it is quite a process to unpack and then repack, be that as it may, I now have only the campers bed made with a sheet and my pillow and the old camping duvet thrown over and then the blanket, very dirty blanket but every time I think of washing it I think of the dogs sleeping on it during the day, in and out with muddy paws, really, why waste my time washing it, so thats the bed.

my full bathroom, no room to piss in there

Then we have Pepi, the smallest one, who follows me around like Mary's little lamb, she always jumps up first and goes and curls into her little corner on the left, then comes Josephine, she has to scabble her way up the blanket as she is way to fat to nimbly hop up like her slim sister, I even have 3 continental pillows on the floor to help her get leverage but she still sometimes needs a helping hand under her bum, so she goes into the right hand corner, takes her awhile becasue first she has to lie in the middle and give me a dirty look and it takes a stern look from me to get her to reluctantly get up and move into her corner on the right. Lani used to lie cuddled behind Slicky but she seems to be missing him as she cannot settle and is forever off on a midnight jol somewhere, I spend half the night looking for her because she can't get herself back in the camper so she sits in a huddle somewhere shivering away until I find her, so now I pick her skinny little body up and put her between the pups and all three are now lined up against the back window. Then Lani starts to snarl and fight with the pups, Jos normally holds her own and ignores her but Pepi is shit scared of her mom so she tries to get away from her by getting deeper into her corner, so then I have to lift the blanket up so she can crawl between the blanket and the duvet and have some kind of barrier protecting her from her mom, now we finally have all our dogs in a row and I can lift up the duvet and crawl into the sliver of space they have very kindly left for me. Of course I must lie straight and still, if I roll over towards them, then I kick Lani, lie on Pepi and squish Josie and boy can they complain, if I lie the other way then I push Lani against the wall, she complains and wants to bite Pepi, who then tries to get into my bed, which as you can see is already too small so I resist all her attempts leaving me no other choice except to lie straight and be thankful I am not on the floor. This lasts for about 2 hours and then I have to get up to pee.

Sometimes, as Benny Griessel of Deon Meyer fame would often say, life is just not that simple.

But last night was a peaceful one as the wind went elsewhere and left us in peace, I was up with the sparrows and drove over to Ncol as the sun came up over the hills, left our baby with him at 7:30 so he could deal with the back wheels and the dogs and I took off for the beach, I thought I would be smart and walk the shortest route to the beach, turned out to be twice as long because we ended up at the harbour and had to detour to the start of the coastal path, but we took the path all the way into town, not that we realised we had walked that far until we actually got into town, lovely walk and all the dogs were up for it but got tired at the end of the 2,5km of winding sea views so we popped into the bistro on Marine Parade and sat on the patio and ordered breakfast, well tried to order breakfast but was waylaid by an elderly gentleman, who introduced himself as Peter and his labrador dog. 

For the next hour I did not get a word in edgeways, the man was up from Cape Town, or has a house in both places, not too sure, his wife is off in Dublin with the birth of a new grandchild and he is on his own with his dog, I think his wife just wanted to get away from his gabber, boy could the man talk. Politics and money were his favourite topics, poo pooed the hoy paloy for being snobs and talking about living in 'the village', some suburb of Cape Town I take it, but was quick to tell me that he lives 100m from Zuma in Rondebosch and has a house in Hermanus, not quite sure what his issue is with the hoy paloy, fianlly got him to shut up when he asked me when last I saw a newspaper headline, not for years I said, 'well' he said, 'I'll tell you whats in this one even if you don't want to hear', he says Obama is visiting, arguably the president of the greatest nation in the world and Zuma has failed to contact him about a meeting date, Helen Zille meantime has asked for a meeting and now she is being called aggressive or some such because she is pre-empting the President, so I piped up and said well I'm with Zuma on this one, in my opinion he should tell Obama and his Michelle to get back on their private jet and go right back to where they come from, we don't want anything from the supposedly great nation of the USA, as far as I am concerned they are putting more pollution, CFC's and noxious gasses into the air than the rest of the world put together, they go into underprivilaged countries with billions of dollars to help build the infrastructure and when these countries cannot pay back the loans, they rape them of all of their mineral wealth and resources making the rich richer and the poor poorer, they kill more animals inhumanely on a daily basis than all the world put together does and they are largley responsible for the incredible plastic soup in the oceans that are killing our marine life as the areas affected are as big as the USA itself, their youth is fat, lazy, unhealthy and illiterate, why would we want South Africans to follow their example, well my old man was a bit gobsmacked at my tirade, but the coloured waitress enjoyed it enormously. He really had his nose put out when I said as good as Helen Zille has been in getting the Cape into shipshape fashion, it is only for the white and the rich and if he doesn't believe me I suggested he goes and spends a night in Khayelitcha with no running water, electricity, decent housing, bad education, dusty streets, gang warfare, violence and drugs and then tell me what she has done for these communities. I paid and left at this point, he was pissing me off with his snotty attitude, he and his type are the reason I'm running away to the West Coast, so let me get on my bike.

We got ourselves off the patio and back onto the pathway and reversed our journey, this time much slower as it was hot and everyone was tired, stopped often to sit on a bench and enjoy the view, had to carry Lani much of the way, but as skinny as she is, she still gets heavy when it's hot, I was almost dragging the poor dog by the time we finally made it back to the garage after a 4,5 hour walk. Thankfully Nicol had made a plan and we only had another hour to wait before the camper was done, he lifted the back so the wheels now stand straight. So after spending yet more money, R990 this time, we drove off to the library to answer some e-mails an get directions from Kay to her place and off to buy some eats and go lie on the grass at one of the beaches chilling with my book for a few hours, getting into the Racketeer by Grisham.

Just had to say home James to the camper and she took us to Sand en See for what I am sure is definatley our last night, been getting the jen from the guys about the drugs and rave parties and zombie evenings happening in and around Hermanus, so after 8 nights of seeing all the pretty places it may be just the right time for us to be leaving, plus I am still thinking of those 120km per hour winds coming tomorrow, you see, this is why I don't want people to give me weather forcasts and read me newspaper headlines, I prefer to stay ignorant, it reduces the stress levels.

We did discover that not only is the Magnetic Society in Hermanus but the SANSA The South African National Space Association is also here, the mountains are littered with aerials, towers, antenna and long poles and can you believe it, I still can't get an 8.ta connection.

Josephine left Joburg which was full of rats in her little world, encountered plenty of monkeys along the way and is now getting to grips with the Dassies, boy do they drive her nuts especially as they have a very irritating cry, very much like a cranky baby, today I had to keep her on a lead much of the walk because she would take off after one and not realise that a Dassie can jump a long way from rock to rock but a dog , especailly a fat one, may battle and I could see her launching herself after a Dassie and ending up jumping off a steep cliff and shattering herself on the rocks below, I bet the Dassies were waiting for that to happen so they could have the last laugh.

Well the wind has picked up and we are sitting in the camper which now feels like its up on stilts, what a difference a few inches make, and I am planning an early night and an early start to sunny Cape Town, sorry, I think the sunny part is being a bit optomistic, but a girl can dream can't she. Nowhere to stay in Cape Town yet so we will have to take it as it comes, at least there is no pressing need to be anywhere specific except the first night with Kay and friends in Woodstock.

So cuddle up and enjoy the onset of winter, we are.