On Sunday night we had a small thunderstorm here in Cape Town and I decided to go and try taking a picture of lightning again. I got three successful pictures. I have posted one of the best.
The lightning struck behind Table mountain.
I had to catch up on some blogging tonight so there is a few posts directly after each other. I hope to get some more pictures soon.
I have gone up to Signal hill again this weekend to get a picture of the progress of the demolition of the stadium and this is how it looks by now. Unfortunately the weather has been a bit cloudy lately so it isn't one of the best picture. In this picture you can see that more than half of the old stadium has been demolished already.
This weekend past, the annual Cheese and Wine Festival took place in Franschhoek.
We have been going every year for at least 4 years. It is a huge event with hundreds of stalls with samples of cheese and wine. There are also other stalls like the Wedgewood nougat stall, that never seems to be able to have enough stock, since everyone always wants some of it. All the stalls have products to sell and usually at very competitive prices. This event runs over 3 days and is always very popular.
We always buy a bottle or two of wine, some cheese and some breads. Then we go an enjoy it on the grass in the sun. Unfortunately, this year it was very cold and raining intermittently. So we had to use the tents that they set-up. It was still great.
If you ever find yourself in Cape Town at the end of April, organize to go and go early. They had to close the gates for non ticket holders by the afternoon this year.
Well ,after a stressful morning trying to get the package to Germany we just used a new courier(FedEx). I am glad to say that the package made it to it's destination on time and with no fuss.
We delivered the package directly to the depot on Friday morning(Freedom day, a public holiday here in South Africa), since we had to have a new copy of the report printed and bound. The package got there this afternoon.
The saga continues for DHL though. After many phone calls, on Friday night late (after 21:00) we got a call that the package was back in South Africa. They wanted to know if we would like it delivered to us to to try and send it of to Germany again.
We told them that we have already used a different courier to get another copy of the package to Germany and that they could send the package back to us and refund us.
This morning they phoned to let us know that the package has been delivered in Germany and thus will only be able to refund us partially. I am sorry but if this is the way that they do business I will not use them again.
A couple of weekends ago we took a drive out to Houtbaai to take a hike up to Kapteins Peak. I found out about this hike from Mike Lundy's book Best Walks in the Cape Peninsula. The hike was not 100% accurate as per the book, but it was definitely worth it. The wind was blowing something awful, but that was probably a blessing in disguise, since it was quite hot.
As you can see from the panoramic shot, we had a spectacular view from up there. The second picture was just a couple of hundred meters in the opposite direction of the panoramic shot.
Tomorrow night Lark is playing at the Mercury Live in Cape Town. They have a very interesting sound; electronic, beats and some very melodic vocals. I will try and get the camera in tomorrow night and get a couple of pics. They have 3 songs on their myspace page. Listen to it and go out and support them.
I have posted my first attempt at "fixing" a picture of mine.
Hope you like ;)
In the last 2 weeks I have been in Johannesburg for 3 days and 2 days in Durban. Both times Cape Town has had heat streaks. I still love coming back home through.
Still no proper Internet connection :(
It has really been a while since I have had time to update the blog. I hope to get some more time soon. Last night we drove out to Bloubergbeach to go and have a look at the McNaught Comet. I got a couple of pics and posted 2 of them here.
I will go through the rest of the pictures at home and see if there are any other nice picture to post.
I have also started taking pictures of the Greenpoint Stadium that will be replaced with the new 65000 seat Stadium for the 2010 World Cup Soccer. I will try and post pictures of the progress.
Here you can see the entire area that will be used to develop the new stadium and surrounding facilities. All the green sports fields will be reclaimed and used. There has been a lot of protest of the people in the area against the development, but the benefit for Cape Town as a whole will out weight the complaints of a couple of people. I just hope that the public transport in the entire Cape area is drastically improved.
We made it safely back to Cape Town. We traveled approximately 3000 km in the week that we were away. I have seen parts of the beautiful country that I have never seen before. Unfortunately the weather was playing along most of the time to get pictures. As you can see on the picture here the clouds were rolling in for more rain. 
We stopped over in Graaff-Reinet on our way to Oudshoorn and I took a pic of the church in the middle of town.
We are preparing now for the new years eve party at a friends house tonight. I hope that everyone will have a great party tonight.
I hope to go out and get some more pictures soon to update here. Also have my 30th birthday coming up this week. Hope to remember some of it... ;)
We just had a huge thunder storm here in Pretoria. It rained 60 mm in
less than hour. There was some really close strikes. Tried to get some
videos and pictures. Will have look at them as soon as i can get to a
pc.
We just arrived in Bloemfontein. It is 00:00. There are some people
that drive like absolute idiots. I now understand why we have one of
the highest death tolls on our roads.We drove through a huge lightning
storm. It was amazing the lights al around us as we drove. The first
1000 km is done, another 700 to go. At least there is not as many
trucks on the road as usual and most of the traffic is on their way in
the opposite direction.
I have enabled the remote submit facility on my blog to update it why we are traveling.
I went to Cape Town International airport this morning to see my girlfriend off. She is going to Germany, to her parents for Christmas. It is going to be strange to not see her during Christmas. My parents and i are driving up to Johannesburg to go and visit my sister and the rest of the family.
I had the one panoramic pictures, posted previously, printed on A1 yesterday. i First mad a gloss print at Agfa in Canal walk and then tried to find a place where i could have the picture framed. After searching the entire Canal Walk and being told that no one can help me this year, I went to Duo Frames in Monte Vista. They are small but they know what they are doing. The woman i was dealing with was friendly and gave a lot of advice for future prints. E.g. If I print pictures that i want to frame, I should rather use a canvas print, because when a gloss picture is covered with a glass panel and the picture and the glass touch, you get "wet spots".
So last night when we went back to Canal Walk I had the same picture printed on canvas. Can't wait to see it framed.
I am following Emile's Blog where he is currently updating his blog with their travel stories as they tour through Europe. It makes for an interesting read. I hope you check in and read some of his humorous comments ;)
