Early morning mist on the mountain

Early morning mist on the Outeniqua Mountains.  The first thing I saw when I came out of my log cabin at Eight Bells Mountain Inn outside Mossel Bay.

Waiting for a bite

Fishermen on the beach at Dana Bay outside Mossel Bay during the late afternoon

Silver ocean

We have had a fairly mild winter with lots of summery winters weather over the last few months. Heading down to the Port Elizabeth beachfront a couple of weekends ago it would have been easy to think that you were sucked into some kind of time warp and spewed out in the middle of summer. The beachfront was just about packed. The only reason you knew it was still winter was that there was nobody in the (somewhat cold) water.

There was a cold front on its way and normally when high winds are forecasted the fishing boats sail into the bay to anchor just off shore to ride out the storm. The bright winters sun shining on the slightly choppy water with the boats gently rocking along made for a great photo opportunity.

Aloe silhouette

I took this pic on my whistle stop visit to the Gamtoos Valley recently. I couldn't resist sticking the sun behind the aloe and when I downloaded the pics I decided that I wanted to see it in sepia as well. I am quite impressed, even if I have to say so myself.

Sulphur Tuft mushrooms

When you see a scene like this you tend to want to sit down and just watch quietly to see when the pixies and fairies arrive.

These are Sulphur Tuft mushrooms. They normally grow on dead hardwood trees and can be up to 70 millimetres in diameter. The stems are 50 - 200 x 2 - 10 millimetres and join to other stems at the base. These I also photographed at Sleepy Hollow.

Angels praying

Angels bowing their heads in silence

And in sepia... not just because I can, but because I think it looks good. It gives it a certain something which the colour doesn't.

Shark Rock Pier in sepia

Last night we headed down to the beachfront for the annual Opening of the Season festivities. The highlight of the evening is a fireworks display from Shark Rock Pier at Hobie Beach. I will post a couple of fireworks pics tomorrow. We found a good spot from where we had a nice view of the pier and settled in for our wait until the fireworks started at 20:30. Just after sunset the view across to the pier was beautiful, and seeing that I had my camera and tripod on hand (duh!) I decided to take a couple of pictures.

When I had a look at the pics just now I wondered what it will look like in sepia. And this is what came out of it. I actually like the sepia view. It gives it a certain atmosphere (I don't know what kind, but it does have something to it).

And just for those who wonder what it looks like in colour, here it is.

Happy Halloween

Today is Halloween. Unfortunately Halloween isn't really celebrated here in South Africa which is a bit of a bummer because I think I would really enjoy Halloween celebrations. So here I am sitting in front of my computer screen with no trick or treatsters knocking on my front door, no pumpkin faces anywhere to be seen, no costumes and no sweets (ok, so the last one is because me and the Damselfly are both on diet and its going well) I had this very creative pic planned with my daughter and a plastic spider as my Halloween post and when we got home I could for the death of me not find the spider anywhere. Darn! That pic will have to wait till I find the little elusive eight legged critter. So what can I post that is Halloweeny? Well, seeing that my Halloween theme pics are a bit limited, here is a scene of the South End Cemetery, one of the older cemeteries around town. Happy Halloween everybody.