Great Escape!

Endless views as seen on a day trip we enjoyed yesterday (7/7/2011)

Regular visitors to Driftwood Ramblings will know how much I enjoy any occasion when I'm able to accompany my husband on his field trips. Yesterday was one of those occasions, made possible through the kindness of our daughter, who came home to puppysit so I was able to escape for the day.

We left bright and early on what dawned as a perfectly clear and crisp winter's day. Our destination was Lambert's Bay, a little fishing village up the West Coast of South Africa and a 4.5 hour trip from home. We always avoid the nasty direct routes and choose the byways. If possible, we also return home via an alternative route, to make the trip that much more interesting and pleasurable. Yesterday was no exception although it did mean that we only arrived back home well after dark and we prefer not to have to travel after nightfall.  No matter, we had a most enjoyable day and succeeded in squeezing in a few spontaneous photo opportunities. Between us, we took in excess of 150 pictures, although quite a few of those were directly related to the site visit and so I'll not be including those here.

I, of course, invariably manage to sneak off on my own a bit to do my own investigations whilst my husband is busy with his own plotting, planning and sample collection where required, but yesterday I was numero uno driver once we reached our designated site.  There were 19 individual points to be investigated and it made more sense for me to remain in the driver's seat so we were able to move to the next point of reference on completion of each of the preceding ones. This ensured ease of operation and greater efficiency of time usage and, if I may say so myself, worked well and in our favour allowing for a bit of dawdling on the homeward run.

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Our first stop was for a late breakfast, as we'd only had a quick cup of coffee before leaving home. I was intrigued by the little 'coal shuttle' replica used at the delightful coffee shop, for storing wood, beside the fireplace where we were seated and had to get a picture while waiting for our order to arrive.

For those of you who expressed surprise that we get snow 'in Africa', I simply had to take this picture as proof that, indeed, we do! The mountains are very much in the distance, but there is a light crusting of snow on the peaks in my picture. We get a great deal more than this when we have our sudden cold snaps!

My husband drove there, as I tend to want to amble along and we had a deadline to meet, so I amused myself taking pictures from the passenger seat...

I'll allow the passing scenery to do the talking for the next few pictures...

We did stop now and then to get a get a couple of stationary photographs en route.

As we were working in Lambert's Bay, historically, a little fishing village, we simply had to buy fresh fish and chips for our lunch, which we ate overlooking the sea.

I was intrigued by the lovely wall mural above the open fireplace in the little restaurant where we'd ordered our lunch (as a takeaway option) and took a few photographs to share with you...

This was so beautifully executed, it really succeeded in 'tricking my eye!' The French call this type of mural art trompe-l'oeil, which of course means, "to deceive the eye"

This proved a delightful distraction while I was waiting for our order to be processed.

A perfect scene to enjoy whilst eating our lunch! Sadly, the once-thriving fishing industry collapsed in Lambert's Bay, due to overfishing and many people who were reliant on work at the large factory, are now unemployed. Our government has built several hundred RDP (redevelopment programme) houses to assist the poorest of the poor and a number of other social action programmes have and are being implemented to restore the lives of the townsfolk, whose existence depended solely on the fishing industry in this little village.

This was taken on our way back home once we'd completed the task in hand. We'd decided to return home via the coastal route, very scenic, but on quite a rutted gravel road. We were grateful for our 4x4. I would not have been happy to drive a sedan along that road.

We stopped at several spots on our way home, well knowing it would mean getting back after dark, but we wanted to make the best of the opportunity to get the most from our day's travel.

Salt marsh vegetation and algae in this blind rivermouth create a painterly landscape...

The gravel road turns inland after many kilometres of running parallel to the coastline.  Although sad to bid farewell to the seaviews, we were in for as much of a treat on the inland part of our trip. We spotted several ruins, which we stopped to photograph and we also went slightly off-route in order to briefly explore a quaint little village called Redelinghuys, which proved to have been well-worthwhile adding on the extra time it took us to do so...

Those of you who have been following my blog for some time will need no introduction to my fascination with ruins...as you will see, we had a marvellous time playing amongst these with our respective cameras!

Collapsed roof-beams posing spontaneously as a sculptural work of art.

Part of the fascination of ruins for me, personally, is viewing the world beyond from the crumbling windows...

Everything looks so green and lush...we had to traipse through shin-high grasses to reach these crumbling structures of old.

A little self-seeded bonsai adorns the top of this wall...

Whilst mosses grace the top of this one!

I could not resist capturing this quaint scene as we drove past on our way to Redelinghuys...

 

Street-side view of this enchanting Redelinghuys homestead! On first impressions, you aren't sure of what you've seen.  In our case, we did a U-Turn to come and have a very much closer look and, as it happened, to take plenty of pictures!

This is right out of the pages of a fairytale book!

I was totally captivated by the artistic flair of this muralist's work. If I'm ever in Redelinghuys again and have time, I'm determined to knock on this homeowner's door and ask if I could spend a moment chatting in order to find out who's behind such creativity! And to say THANK YOU for sharing all of this beauty with passersby!

I love the creative fencing used here. It screens a very pretty garden to which I would have loved to gain access!

This is the sidewall of a garage facing the street!

This house is up for sale. Anyone wanting to move to Redelinghuys for a quiet life? I'd already decided that, were I ever the new owner, I'd commission the artist down the road to add some magic to my walls too!

Yes, we went back AGAIN to view the enchanted house once more...who wouldn't have wanted to do so, again and again? This was absolutely one of THE highlights for me of our Great Escape, yesterday! I just have to share more with you...

The sunflowers and stonework aren't real...the little wooded poles and kerosene lamp are!

  

The owl on the perch is a clay model. The owl on the windowsill is painted, as is the window and this owl has left a mess on the wall, unlike the doves ;)

The doorway and cat aren't real...the broom is. The stonework is painted!

The porthold window is real...the cracks and chipped plaster aren't!

I had to zoom in to prove to myself these weren't real!

The loft door is real. The one below is not.

Sideview of the workshop.

This appeared to be the workshop. The open door is real as are the implements hanging on the wall to the left.

These doves live above the garage door...but they never make a mess ;)

The old bridle hanging on the wall is real!

From here on, a selection of pictures my husband took...I aspire to being able to compose pictures as well as I think he does!

Our trusty bakkie takes us wherever we want to go.

This old car hasn't been anywhere in a long time!

This kingfisher was actively observing the water below the telephone wires as were were driving past...

And that concludes this post :)