Day 61 Bloubergstrand

We were smart last night, parked against the wall with my bum facing the sea so the wind hit us from behind and not sideways on, this was a bit better and instead of being bounced around like a matchbox on stilts, it was more like a boxcar of chickens. We did weather the night of hefty storms and violent winds, had to get out in the cold to tighten the cover on my plug connection a few times or face losing it.

The Ou Huisie and we are parked on the left a bit hidden

a tribute to a child who drowned here in 1911

So we woke to a clearing sky and managed a walk before hitting the road north, came into Melkbosstrand took another walk under sunny skies, wow am I glad I am doing this trip more from an ecological point of view than anything else,when we live in Joburg or anywhere where we have a nice house and paved streets and shopping centres and all the amenities and services and home comforts, it's hard to take the pundits seriously when they predict an end to the world because of our continued need to destroy our forests, deplete our resources and poison our waters, but this trip has shown me forests that are now barren land, rivers that stink and are disease infested, poverty in beautiful areas where a natural lifestyle would be easy to build, seas that are so full of sewage and factory waste that the only bird life are the seagulls eating the dead fish, if ever I needed a reinforcement on my idea of building a natural lifestyle, this trip has been it.

coal lined Bloubergstrand

dirty river and worse foam, smells awful

Melkbostrand and it's filth, poor birds seem to like it though

The Bloubergstrand beach is littered with coal, Melkbosstrand is littered with dead fish, the river here stinks so badly I don't want the dogs near it, poor Pepi has the runs this morning and as I know it cannot be her diet I can only imagine it is something she picked up on the beach or the water they drink on our walks.

So we are heading up the coast to !Khwa Ttu and are planning to be in possession of lots of info on needy San  communities up north that I may be able to live with and start building this permaculture lifestyle I have always wanted, no idea whether I can or if anything will grow but I will be happy to give it a try, the alternative is not worth thinking about.

sunny skies in Melkbosrand