Cape Town Daily Photo

Whisky Live Festival

2009-11-08T20:56:10Z

Sazerac Rye Whiskey

Mandy from brainwavez.org invited me along to the opening of the 3-day Whisky Live Festival at the CTICC on Wednesday evening.

Although there were plenty of people at the festival it wasn’t uncomfortably crowded. There were plenty of whiskeys (and whiskies) to taste, and even a few other bits and pieces like lovely dark chocolate and Lynchburg Lemonade (at the Jack Daniel’s stand).

Mandy and I sat in on a whisky appreciation class with a master distiller from Glenmorangie, took the tour through the Jack Daniel’s truck, drank plenty of whiskey, and sat down for a breather in the FNB VIP lounge (where we ordered virgin cocktails from Liquidchefs, just to help clear the mind a little).

If you missed the festival you could still catch it in Johannesburg from 11 to 14 November, and since Cape Town’s weather is so grey and rainy, perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to skip our lovely part of the world next week in favour of the warmer weather in Jozi.

And Mandy took a notebook and pen along, so visit brainwavez.org for the full details about our evening at the festival.

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Canal to the Waterfront

2009-11-08T19:28:44Z

V&A Waterfront canal at night

In a post about the Westin Grand Hotel a few days ago I mentioned the canal that leads from the hotel and the CTICC to the Waterfront area. And voila, here you have it!

The canal is known as the Roggebaai Canal, and apparently water taxis depart from the Westin Grand Hotel every hour on the two-kilometre, 20-minute trip. From the hotel, the taxi takes passengers under the freeway, past a fresh sea-water waterfall, and then past the City Lodge Hotel. After the City Lodge the taxi heads on under more bridges, past the West Quay offices and under two lifting bridges, through the marina lock, and then to moor at the Two Oceans Aquarium.

The one-way trip costs just R20 for adults and R10 for kids, and as soon as the weather clears up, we’re definitely going to take the trip! Take a look at the route map that I’ve plotted on Google Maps.

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Cloudy skies at sunrise

2009-11-08T14:11:13Z

Cloudy sunrise

The morning sky was filled with nasty grey clouds, and yet the breaking sun made everything look beautiful – beautiful enough that, even though I was running a little late for work, I dashed outside in my jammies to catch this photo.

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Rubber buffer

2009-11-08T13:25:59Z

Rubber buffer

Imagine the size of the car! No seriously, I think these tyres are the kind used on those hugely-oversized mining vehicles (see more here).

These mammoth tyres act as a buffer between docking (or moored) boats and the harbour wall. My car’s tyres cost between R800 and R1200 depending on the brand, with some luxury 4×4’s tyres costing 4 or 5 times that price. I wonder what these tyres would cost and hope that the harbour sources used tyres from mining companies instead of buying them new – it’s a great way of recycling rubber!

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Harbour cranes

2009-11-08T12:31:00Z

Harbour cranes

My dad retired from work many years ago, but back then one of the things that he use to do was inspect the harbour cranes to ensure that they were kept in a good working condition. He use to climb to the end of the jib (the part right at the end of the arm from where the cable extends downwards) in all kinds of weather. If you’re familiar with Cape Town’s weather you’ll know that this would mean that on occasion he’d climb out there in high winds and even rainy weather – and apparently, even tough the cranes may look perfectly stable from the ground, when you’re up there they bob about a bit like a rodeo bull!

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The Pumphouse

2009-11-07T15:23:35Z

The Pumphouse

Paul mentioned The Pumphouse in a previous post about the V&A Waterfront. Built in 1882, the building originally housed the dynamo that powered the first set of electric lights in the Table Bay Harbour. According to Eskom’s website, there were sixteen 2000-candlepower arc lights at first (you can read more about the use of arc lights in the 1800s here – it’s pretty fascinating). The Harbour Board’s report to the Cape Colonial Parliament for the year 1882 said that the light “… proved of great service, not only in minimising accidents, but in facilitating the working of vessels at night.”

More recently, in the 1990s, The Pumphouse was a popular pub and live music venue, one that it seems a lot of people have really fond (if somewhat foggy ) memories of. The reason the building is called The Pumphouse, by the way, is because it contains the pumps used for draining the water out of the Robinson Dry Dock.

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Procreation

2009-11-05T18:53:55Z

Carrying kids

Stats SA estimate that by the end of the year the Western Cape (the province in which we live) will hold about 11% of South Africa’s total population. That’s about 5.4 million people! An interesting fact that I’ve noticed is that many young couples (such as Kerry-Anne and myself) don’t yet have kids and many aren’t planning on doing so. I wonder if this is a world-wide trend.

I’m dedicating this blog post and photo to all the parents of Cape Town and the surrounding areas who’ve had kids and are thereby ensuring the circle of life in the Cape. I often marvel at parents’ ability to deal with screaming babies, hyper-active toddlers and the plain naughty kiddies. I simply don’t know where you find the energy and how you manage to do this – respect!

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