By February, we decided that we should be a little more adventurous and took two short trips, to Arniston, east of here, and to Paternoster, on the west coast.

Arniston is a fishing village several hours from here, on Cape Agulhas, the most southern tip of Africa. We spent 2 nights in a bed and breakfast, wandered around the town, and then went off to Le Mond Nature Reserve.

Récemment on a décidé de sortir un peu plus, et on est allés à Arniston, à l'est, et à Paternoster sur la cote ouest.

Arniston est un village de pêcheurs, à quelques heures d’ici, prés du Cap Agulhas, le point le plus sud de l’Afrique. On a passé deux nuitées dans une chambre d’hôtes, a parcouru le village, et puis on est allés à la Reserve Naturelle du Mond.

Arniston - the beach, and a fisherman’s cottage – la plage et une maison de pêcheur.

Agulhas – the Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Indian on the other.
Agulhas – l’océan Atlantique d’un coté, l’océan Indien de l’autre.

Die Mond
Bridge over the estuary, leading to dunes, and to the beach with miles of sand, and no-one else! That's Harry in the photo.
Le pont sur l’estuaire, et puis la plage, avec des kilomètres de sable, et personne d’autre! C'est Harry dans la photo.

Paternoster
Also a fishing village, but very upmarket – a weekend place for people from Cape Town. We rented a small place right on the beach for two nights, ate in the restaurant next door, also on the beach. For a change we took a trip to a fossil park nearby, to see bones about 5 million years old. Then back for lunch and a bottle of wine!

Paternoster est aussi un village de pêcheurs, mais très chic – les gens du Cap y vont passer le weekend. On a loué une petite maison (appelle ‘J’aime la mer !) directement sur la plage, mangé dans un restaurant également sur la plage. Pour quelque chose de différent, on a visité un parc de fossiles, avec des os qui datent de 5 million d’années.

Finally, we went on an outing with our photo club to Signal Hill, in the centre of Cape Town, to photograph the full moon. I couldn’t do this with my small camera, but did get a shot of a colleague and the setting sun over Table Mountain – with its tablecloth, as so often here.


Finalement, une sortie à Signal Hill, au Cap avec le notre club de photo – en principe c’était pour photographier la lune pleine, ce que je ne pouvais faire avec mon petit appareil. Mais, ici une ami, et le soleil qui se couche derrière la Montagne de la Table, avec comme presque toujours, sa nappe

As a change from vineyards lunches, Harry wanted to do something completely different and sends the following report -
"23 February 2010

A pleasant hour and a half with Sebastian of Shootopia - http://www.shootopia.com/
at the Stellenbosch shooting range where I made holes in a paper target and demolished some blocks of wood and bricks.

The tools used were several Taurus revolvers; - http://www.taurususa.com/

.38 special, 4” barrel, .357 Magnum, .357 snub nose, .44 Magnum (of Dirty Harry 'make my day, punk!' fame), and a .454 Casull 'Raging Bull' – one bigggg mother!.

Pistols included a Sig Sauer 9mm, and a Glock .40 caliber.

I was pleasantly surprised to find I could still hit the target and actually managed a 5 cm group with the .357 Magnum.


I'd never shot Trap before but totally destroyed a clay or two.

I had so much fun that I went back a few days later to try the 38s in double action mode, which is more difficult to maintain accuracy because of the effort required to pull the trigger. I also made a 5 cm group with a Colt .45 which impressed me."