Three Karoo Heartland icons

Three Karoo Heartland icons, all in one picture.  

Big open sky, Karoo koppies (in this case Koffiebus and Teebus outside Steynsburg) and the good ol' reliable Windpomp.

Vrystaatse Vlaktes

I have come to love the wide open spaces of the Karoo Heartland in the Eastern Cape but just haven't been able to get used to the, what we call in Afrikaans, Vrystaatse vlaktes.  Vrystaat is the Afrikaans name for the Free State, South Africa's central province while vlaktes is an very descriptive Afrikaans work for wide open spaces stretching for miles.  The wide open spaces, or vlaktes, of the Free State is very different from that of the Karoo Heartland.  Driving along the roads of the central and southern Free State you often feel like you are in the middle of nowhere where nothing grows about knee high.  I'm not insulting the Free State, please don't get me wrong.  I'm just saying that, like with wine, I just haven't been able to get used to it.  I found the most beautiful Afrikaans poem called the Vrystaatse Vlaktes in die Somer just to make up for it in case somebody feels insulted.  

The picture was taken just off the N1 in the southern Free State about 50 kilometers north of the Gariep Dam. 

I haven't participated in Skywatch Friday for a very long time and I think it's time I start sharing our beautiful South African skies on a regular basis on it again.

Karoo storm moving in

The Karoo is known as blue sky country.  That means when the thunder clouds start to pack together after a hot day there is lots of sky to watch the approaching storm in.  Like this one I witnessed just after leaving Cradock on my way back to Port Elizabeth.  I can just smell the drops splashing down on the hot tar road again.  Its one of my five favorite smells along with the smell of cut grass, fresh bread, the ocean and a damp forest.  What's you favorite smell?

 

Angel weather vane

Usually you would see a chicken, and in particular one who doesn't lay eggs, on top of a church spire.  Every now and then you do encounter a different one and that was the case with this angel weather vane on top of the Dutch Reformed Church in Robertson in the Western Cape.

 

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Mackay Bridge silhouette

The Mackay Bridge in Colchester outside Port Elizabeth silhouetted against the afternoon sun, ideal for a Skywatch Friday post.

Slangkop

Looking up Slangkop Lighthouse in Kommetjie on the Cape Peninsula

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Walkway remains

Nature doesn't take nonsense from us people.  Sardinia Bay in Port Elizabeth has a problematic dune that just doesn't want to stand still.  A couple of years back a walkway was built across the dune to make it easier to get to the beach.  But as soon as the walkway was completed the dune started swallowing it in until this short section was the only bit left.  Vandals, probably looking for wood to braai with, did the rest after people were unable to use it anymore.

Cracked sky

About a week or so ago the afternoon sky was filled with the most beautiful cloud formation.  Although I missed taking a picture of it at sunset, I did see on Facebook that a lot of other people did get some stunning ones.  What I did get a photo of was what looked like a crack in the cloudy sky. As if the blue sky tried to muscle through the clouds.

Reaching for the sun

There are a number of exotic trees in Settlers Park in Port Elizabeth that has been ring barked so that they can die and probably be cut down at a later stage.  On a walk through the park I thought this makes for a nice picture with the tree's branches (arms?) reaching towards the sky and in particular the sun.

False Bay skies

The sky is one of nature's most amazing canvasses and can be painted in so many patterns and colours.  The skies during my quick visit to Cape Town may have been grey and dreary, but the view across Three Anchor Bay from Sea Point towards Green Point had an appeal of its own.

Same picture (well, actually the very next one I took), but with a different crop and converted to black and white.

Angel shining

The Angel Statue in Grahamstown is an Anglo Boer War Memorial depicting an angel standing over a fallen Boer soldier.  Initially I wanted to try and get the sun on the angel's head as a halo, but I had to stand in a busy street to do that.  Looking at the picture afterwards I realised that having the sun on the dying soldier gives it even more of a spiritual meaning as well. 

Statue halo

The sun forming a halo on the head of the Dutch Language Monument in the Eastern Cape town of Burgersdorp.  Would have been awesome if the statue was an angel, but alas she doesn't have wings.

3...2...1... BUNGY!!!

I decided to post something slightly different for this week's

  

post.  Rather than looking up, we are looking down.

The 451m long Bloukrans River Bridge in the Tsitsikamma spans the gorge of the Bloukrans River on the boundary between the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.  Completed in 1984, the bridge forms part of the N2 highway between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town and is 216m high making it the highest single span arch bridge in the world.  But all of that is probably pretty insignificant to any regular person out there.  That's to say people really wouldn't have given much notice to the bridge if it wasn't also the highest commercial bridge bungy jumping site in the world.

Yes, you heard me right.  People pay good money to fling themselves off the bridge with nothing but an elastic cord tied to their ankles.  Ok, so its a bit more complicated than that, but I'm not going to go into the whole science of bungy jumping.  For those who want to know more I have one word... Google.

Look carefully and you will see the bungy cord hanging down below the bridge with something at the end.  It kinda gives you a better perspective on high it actually is.  A jumper accelerates from 0 to 100km per hour in 2 seconds and with a recoil of 140m it means that you actually get “two jumps” of over 100m.

Looking closer you will notice that the something is somebody who probably by now have a massive post bungy grin on his face.  Did I do it? Hell no!

Enjoying sunrise

Having only two nights in Plettenberg Bay and with lots of rain about, the chance of getting a beautiful sunrise over the bay was very slim.  I still set my alarm early enough for the first morning to head down to the beach for sunrise.  There were clouds about but enough sky peeking through, so the odds looked good.  One drawback though was that I didn't have an object to put in the foreground.  I did have my tripod though, so it was a case of focus, press button and 10 seconds to get into position.  Somebody looking down from the houses next to the beach must have had a good laugh at this guy running up and down the beach.  This is one of my two favorites.  The other one I'll keep for another time.

Sunrise at Shark Rock Pier

A golden sunrise at Hobie Beach in Port Elizabeth

Aloe and mountain silhouettes after sunset

The view from the top of the Knysna Heads are stunning in all directions.  Unfortunately I miss judged myself with the sunset as it set to the left behind the hillside and I had nothing to show for my trip up to the top.  Oh well, I enjoyed the beautiful view across the Knysna Lagoon towards the mountains in the back anyway.

Although I didn't get a sunset pic, the silhouettes against the dusk sky is my contribution to Skywatch today.

Total lunar eclipse

Last night we had the opportunity to observe not just a total lunar eclipse, but also a relatively rare central lunar eclipse in which the center point of Earth's shadow passes over the Moon.  The last time a lunar eclipse was closer to the center of the earth's shadow was on 16 July 2000 and the next central total lunar eclipse will only be on 27 July 2018.

Full moon rising

 The eclipse started at about 20h22...

 ... with the moon disappearing more...

 ... and more...

... and more... 

... until there was just a sliver left. 

 I changed the setting on the camera slightly to take in more light and show the moon after the last moonlight disappeared.

The reason the moon looks red during an eclipse is because although the sunlight isn't hitting it directly anymore, some of it still get reflected (or bent) by our atmosphere to hit the moon.  My scientific knowledge is a bit limited, but the internet tells me that the more atmosphere that sunlight travels through, the more the blue and green parts of the spectrum are scattered.  The sunlight hits the atmosphere at a shallow angle and is carried through a lot of atmosphere until it’s redirected out onto the moon “hiding” from direct sunlight. The red end of the spectrum is all that can get through that much interference, so the moon in total eclipse appears reddish in colour.

This makes for the ideal Skywatch post this week.

Knysna yachts sunset

As I have said in a previous post, I tried to get a different sunset pic each night during our stay in Knysna.  On this specific evening I headed down to the Knysna Quays to see what I could find there for a sunset scene.  The yachts at anchor in the little harbour made for the ideal foreground.

This one was taken a minute or so before the first one.  Both ideal to post as my contribution to Skywatch this week.

Knysna Lagoon Sunset - "Great Ball of Fire"

I really like sunrise and sunset pictures, but don't get out nearly enough to shoot them.  We spent 5 days in Knysna and I made it my mission to find a different spot every afternoon for sunset.  The first picture is just a straight forward "sunset over the water" picture and unfortunately I had no subject to put into the picture... 

... but for the next picture the Paddle Cruiser was going by and I zoomed in to get the pic.  The result: "Great Ball of Fire!"

I haven't linked a post to Skywatch for so long and I'm nearly a day late, but here goes.

Dragon at rest

The Dragon at is rest.  The Drakensberg mountains can wip up magnificent storms when the dragon wants to, but when its taking it easy on a sunny day, its one of the most beautiful parts of South Africa.

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