A Hike and Some Flowers

A while ago Frosty and I had an awesome weekend hiking up Table Mountain and then we took a family drive to try and find some flowers in Darling with his brother and brother's girlfriend (it was overcast and there weren't many flowers out), but we did manage to find a stunning orchid farm and spent the morning walking around. And we had the cutest puppy join us for our day out - here are some pics.

View half way up Table Mountain

Pretty scenes at the top of Table Mountain.

The Conebush Protea (I think).

Frosty at the to of the mountain

Karoo Prinia

Karoo Prinia in black and white

Orchids from Duckitt Nurseries.

Orchids from Duckitt Nurseries.

Orchids from Duckitt Nurseries.

Orchids from Duckitt Nurseries.

Having some fun at Duckitt Nurseries.

Having some fun at Duckitt Nurseries.

Happiness is... running through long grass so fast that your ears stream out behind you :)

Biomimicry Course Assignment 1: Naturalist Lens

Assignment 1: Naturalist Lens

Where is your place? Did you name it?For this first observation I sat beneath a tree in the gardens of my block of flats (see picture below, it's unfortunately sideways, so you will need to turn your head). I found a bunch of busy ants that looked like they were scouting out new places to live and perhaps excavating a home within the trunk of the tree. (See my writing below)

What is 1 thing that you noticed during your observation that you’ve never thought of or seen before?When listening to the wind, it blew in a periodicity that emulated the sound of waves at the beach and I wondered about the "frequency" of wind gusts - are they regular, are they similar to the periodicity that we find in ocean waves? 

What was the hardest part about doing the observation for you?Finding the time to get outside to actually do the observation as it's been an incredibly busy week.

Black and White Photography

One of my friends, Sean, challenged me to post 5 black and white pictures just before I went on holiday last year. We've both been taking more of an interest in photography and it's been great to see some of the awesome images he's been taking! I took a while to complete my pictures (holidays were way more important) but along the way I've learnt a bit more about making a black and white picture look good which has been pretty fun. I also ended up using a lot of my holiday pictures in this black and white challenge, and so I think it was worth the wait.

My favourite black and white photo(s) are the ones that I took of water falling into a silver container while we were camping. I used the rainy day as an opportunity to learn a bit more about my camera and (after some post processing in GIMP*). I was pretty chuffed with the end result. I originally only posted one of my raindrop pics for the challenge, but I decided to show them both here as I really battled to choose between them!

* Please bear with me as I'm starting to experiment with adding a watermark to my images!

Night Time Photography

Over Christmas and New Year, I was away at Balloch and I spent some of the time learning a bit more about my camera and how the different settings interact. I had such fun doing this and on some of the evenings I experimented with night photography - here are some of my favourite night pictures that I have taken straight from my camera*.  

Trees at night with a long exposure, large aperture,
relatively high ISO and a flash.

Mountains with clouds at Balloch.
A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

Balloch mountains at night, with fast moving clouds.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

Balloch Cave at night.
A long-ish exposure, large aperture and relatively large ISO.

Camping at Balloch, with the tent lit up at night.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The moon in fast moving clouds.A long-ish exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The night sky surrounded by rocks and trees with fast moving clouds going past it.A long exposure with high ISO and large aperture.

The one thing I learnt while playing around with night time photography is the importance of your ISO setting. This number should be quite high in order for your sensor to sense as much light as possible. 

Don't forget that a high ISO setting can lead to grainy pictures, so play around with various settings in the high range. When combined with long exposures (anything from 10 - 30 seconds) and a large aperture, again to allow for maximum light collection, you should be able to take some pretty decent pictures at night. Finally, make sure you use a tripod or put your camera down where it won't wobble, otherwise your pictures will come out blurry.

If you are interested in staying at Balloch, here are some details:
    website
    facebook page

* I'm learning about GIMP as I go along and once I've done some editing I'll display some more pics, with edits.

How To Build A Self-Watering Flower System

Remember when I told you I was growing Basil (along with some other herbs)? Well, so far so good, they're all looking healthy and I have even managed to get a jar or two of home made pesto out of my basil which has been delicious!

Just before we went on holiday, Frosty and I decided to build our own "self-watering" plant system in order to (hopefully) to keep our plants from dying while we were away. 

Granted, the first attempt culminated in a completely imploded water container (the plastic was too soft). Our second attempt was a lot better. We're still seeing a bit of suction on our water container, but at least there was some water in the container when we left - now we have to just hope it lasts.

Here's how we built ours: 

So, this is what you'll need:

1. Some sort of water container (we used one of those hard plastic 25 litre containers, but glass or metal would probably be better). It should come with a spare lid that you can use and dedicate to your system.

2. Enough piping to reach all your plants.

3. Female pipe adaptor and "L" connector.

4. Various "T" pipe connectors (depends on how many offshoots you need to make).

4. Some plumbing tape.

5. Something to heat up the pipe (optional, but does help).

6. Your plants all need to have shallow bases.

7. Something to rest your container on, once it's been put together.

This was our first attempt - you can see how the plastic bottle has collapsed into itself. It wasn't particularly successful for a number of reasons. We think we put the bottle too high off the ground and the plastic of the bottle was too soft. Effectively, the water going out sucked the container into itself as the container was too soft to suck air back into the container. 

What is meant to happen is that the container needs to be strong enough to let some water out and then suck some air back in, up the pipe and into the container once the water drops below the level of the pipes in the plant bases.

This was our second attempt, which was a little better (and will hopefully mean the plants survive while we are away!).

We positioned this second container much lower than the first one and also got a container that was made out of slightly harder plastic. You can see there is a bit of collapsing, but not as much as the first container!

We are heading back to Cape Town on Sunday, so hopefully our makeshift water system will have helped our plants to survive while we weren't there. I'll let you know the outcome when I get back!

Weekend Cycle and Camping Trip

A blended picture I made of our cycling group picture and
a few of us in action.

This past weekend a friend of mine organised a cycle around Cape Point with an overnight stay in Kommetjie - this was such a great way to spend a weekend, especially since the weather held out for us and we had beautiful views for our entire ride. 

We started off at 7.30 from Rondeboch and took a very chilled cycle past Kirstenbosch, Hout Bay, up Chappies and eventually ending up at Soetwater Camp Site in Kommetjie. After stopping off for a delicious breakfast about 3/4 of the way through our ride, we got to the camp site at about 12.30 and spent a great afternoon setting up camp and watching the ocean (which was way too cold to swim in). 

The following day, we left at around 09:30 and cycled all the way through to Kalk Bay where we stopped off for some amazing ice creams and then had a drink and bite to eat before catching the train back home. 

All in all, a really great weekend outdoors enjoying summer!

Group pic

Everyone admiring the beautiful sea view

Frosty playing with his bike

Camping At Kogel Bay

Last weekend, a bunch of us camped for a night a Kogel Bay, which is just past Gordon's Bay. Half our group met at our house on Saturday morning, we packed up two cars and set off for our camp site. 

When we arrived, it was a little windy blowing gales. So we set up all our camping stuff in the wind and just as we were finishing off, our neighbours decided to start their generator so that they could play some pretty average music (loud enough to drown out the generator!) and continue with what looked to be a very drunken weekend. Needless to say, after a group huddle and a quick discussion, we decided to move our campsite to a slightly more windy, but much quieter site. But at least it was far from our neighbours with their terrible music - definitely a decision that made the rest of our weekend much better!

Most of Saturday was spent chilling, with a bit of a beach session before we started a braai and spent the rest of the evening chatting, playing a tune or two on the guitar and trying not to be blown away.

On Sunday morning, most of us were awake early and after a cup of coffee, we went down to the beach to see the sun creep across the waves once it had risen above the mountain behind us. After a quick breakfast we packed some bags with water and snacks and spent an amazing day on the beach - the water was swimmable, the sky was blue and the weather ideal for a day on the beach.

Blanket over the mountain

Early morning sea view

Sea and mountain view

Sunrise at the beach

My friend Jono taking pictures for Giraffe Toes photography
You can check out his website here (and order prints from him if you like!)

Windy waves

Bright blue sea anemone

Colourful sea anemones

We found a friendly puppy on the beach who just wanted to play!

Catching frisbee

Playing at the beach

Intense games of frisbee took place

Some info on Kogel Bay Resort Camp Site:

• It's about 70 km from Cape Town to Kogel Bay Resorts and the drive is about an hour from Cape Town (depending on traffic through Somerset West).
• The camp site is pretty basic, with no electricity, but comfortable enough for a night or two.
• One thing to keep in mind is that the guys bathrooms (so I was told) were all open showers. I'm not sure if it was just this block, or if all blocks are like that, but if you're a guy and not used to boarding-school type open showers, you may want to find another place to shower...
• The cost is around R140 per night for one camp-site.
• Each camp-site fits up to 6 people and up to 2 cars.