Eight legged critters

Seeing that two of my "blog friends" have posted spider pics over the last day or so, I decided to do the same. I went digging for some spider pics and found two I took a little while ago.

This one I caught kind off unexpectantly. I was trying to get some nice pics of the water drops on the web when the little guy made his appearence.

Good ol' Daddy Longlegs sitting in a corner that we have neglected to dust for a little while.

I am on my way to Johannesburg for the annual Getaway Show. It is the premier domestic travel and outdoors show in South Africa and is on from Friday to Sunday. I am flying up tomorrow (Thursday) already to go and set up and will be back on Monday, so my next post will be then. So stick around. Just don't get eaten by the spiders.

British Settlers - The early years of Grahamstown

Grahamstown is situated about 130km east of Port Elizabeth. It is the biggest town in frontier country and the place where most settlers moved to once they were allowed to leave their farms. It started out as a garrison town named after Col John Graham. It was they sight of the Battle of Grahamstown in 1819. 5000 Xhosa warriors under the command of Makana gathered on the hill overlooking the valley in which the settlement were. The fort was manned by 350 British soldiers. Makana told his warriors that the bullets of the white man will flow over them like water. They broke their throwing spears and charged down the hill. The first volley of shots rang out when they were about 40meters away. Bullets did not flow over the warriors like water and the water of the Kowie River ran red with blood. During the battle the British were starting to run out of gunpowder. A woman named Elizabeth Salt walked from another fortified building through the Xhosa ranks with a keg of gunpowder hidden under her dress. The Xhosa thought she was pregnant and they would not harm a pregnant woman in battle. She helped the British to win a very important battle in the pre-Settler days.

When the settlers started moving into the towns, they went back to doing what they did back in England before they came to the Cape Colony. I Grahamstown a lot of the settlers built their house in an area known as Artisan Square. Their houses were typical Settler houses with two front windows, a door and a chimney. They look like the kind of house a child will draw.

In the old part of Grahamstown you will find white stones on a lot of the street corners. You will also find that the corners were designed at angles and not right angles. The reason behind it was ox wagons. When you have a wagon pulled by between 8 and 16 oxen, it was easy to miss judge a corner and slam into a house with the wagon. For this reason big "wagon stones" were put on the street corners to stop the wagons from damaging the houses.

In the centre of Grahamstown around Church Square there are a lot of the old shops of Grahamstown that still sport the facades of old. In recent years there has been one or two fires that have destroyed some of these buildings, but each time they were restored to their former glory. These buildings are still occupied by shops and businesses. In the one case of Burch's Outfitters, the shop still has one of the old money chute and cable system whereby money was sent to a central cashier for payments. Although they use modern tills today, it is still in working condition.

Giraffe

Today I decided to post a couple of giraffe pics. Both were taken at different game reserves and are different types of photos. Giraffes are facinating animals. The tallest mammal in the world with the longest neck, yet they only have 7 vertebra (the same as a human). To get blood up that neck and to the brain, they have a heart as big as a soccer ball. This poses a problem when they drink water, because dropping the head down could cause a sudden rush of blood to the brain. To avoid that they have a valve system that controls the bloodflow. Giraffes are also the youngest bungi jumpers in the world. The mothers stand up while giving birth and the babies fall the 2 meters or so to the ground which also snaps the ambilical cord. Lastly. What do you call a group of giraffes? The answer is at the bottom of the post.

A young giraffe eating in the Kragga Kamma Game Park just outside Port Elizabeth while his older brother is keeping an eye on the tourists.A couple of giraffes in the Schotia Private Game Reserve, about 50km outside Port Elizabeth, walking off just before sunset. The plant in the foreground is an Aloe Ferox.

A group of Giraffes are called... A Journey of Giraffes.

Flowering Kapok Tree

Although not taken recently, I want to show this tree. It is called a Kapok Tree and has a very spikey trunk. It looses it leaves when winter comes and then blooms before getting its leaves back. It has pink flowers and covers the whole tree, so whether you have one or many together, its a wonderful sight.

The tree before loosing its leaves

The tree in full bloom

Seen from a distance

Karoo Cactus

On our recent visit to Cradock we walked up Oukop, the hill outside the town. From the top there is a lovely view over the town. There is a wide variety of succulents and cactuses that grow in the area and this one I found very interesting.

Tractor's Twilight Years

In my series on the British Settlers I have posted about the village of Bathurst. In the village is the Bathurst Protea Hotel, a real country hotel. In front of the hotel in the long grass I found this old vintage tractor just as the sun was starting to set. It felt appropriate to photograph him in the sunset.

Hot Air Ballooning

A little while ago the Damselfly and me got to go away for a weekend without the Rugrats. Last year I won a weekend trip up to the Gauteng province, all expenses paid, and this was the first opportunity we had to use the prize. One of the activities we got to do was hot air ballooning at Magaliesberg with Bill Harrop's Original Hot Air Ballooning safaris. This man is a legend and we were lucky enough to actually be on the balloon that he was piloting that day. That morning they had 4 of their balloons up which gave me a great opportunity to get balloon pics.

Hot air ballooning at sunrise

Balloon reflextion in the river