I'm not a Jazz fan, not by a long shot. For some reason, perhaps because of watching too much television, when I hear "jazz" I think of a smoke filled bar with a lady hanging onto a mic accompanied by a piano, sax and double bass. So when I was invited to Cape Town on a blogger tour which included the Cape Town International Jazz Festival I wasn't too sure what to expect. Jazz? Festival? Me? That's going to be an interesting…
Regular followers of my blogs would know by now that one of my strange travel quirks is historic cemeteries. On a recent visit to Oudtshoorn in the Klein Karoo I decided to revisit the Kerk Street Cemetery in the town for a closer look. The graveyard is an old one with most graves having disappeared over the years. In some cases there are headstone that look like they stand in the middle of nowhere and in other places you can see a grave mound…
I haven't done a Random ... post for ages and these two church towers have cropped up, ideal for a Random Church Towers post. Roberston Dutch Reformed Church tower Montagu Dutch Reformed Church tower
A waterfall nymph at the Rust en Vrede Waterfall close to Oudtshoorn. I would really like to encourage visitors to Oudtshoorn to do the little detour to the waterfall when they are on the road to or from the Cango Caves. It took me years to finally go there and I'm so sorry that it did cause it truly is a very special spot.
When I was in primary school we did a tour to Oudtshoorn and one of the places we were supposed to visit was the Rust en Vrede (Rest and Peace) Waterfall. The visit was cancelled due to bad weather and I've always wondered what I had missed. When I started working as a tourist guide about 15 years ago I noticed the turnoff and sign to the waterfall on the way to the Cango Caves, but as it wasn't included in any of…
Late afternoon on a windless summers day in Montagu in the Western Cape...... paddle boating on the Montagu Caravan Park's dam
Succulents on top of Cogmans Kloof with the British Fort in the background
The view of the road through Cogmans Kloof outside Montagu from on top of the tunnel
On top of the Cogmans Kloof tunnel outside Montagu stands an old English fort built by the British in 1899 during the Anglo Boer War. The fort has a great view of the approaching road and kloof through the mountains and one can immediately see why the British chose the spot. To get to the top there is a steep little path from across the road from the parking area and after a couple of minutes of huffing and puffing you get…
Cogmans Kloof outside Montagu is one of the famous landmarks on Route 62 through the Klein Karoo. The Cogmans Kloof Pass passes through a poort (a poort being defined as a path through a mountain range) which runs through the Langeberg between Ashton and Montagu. The first white farmers in the area were allocated farms from 1725 onwards and the original road through the poort was a dangerous one alongside the Kingna River which incorporates eight hazardous drifts. To get around Kalkoenkrantz…