Winter has it's perks... morning breaks later. While on my way to work, fighting through heavy traffic, I stopped over at a high point of the area we live in to take a photo of the sunrise.

The mountain range in the distance is known as the Boland Mountains. "Boland" is an Afrikaans word meaning "land above". The Boland region is a area of the Western Cape, inland from the sea and thus higher in altitude than the more coastal regions. Some of the towns in the Boland are Wellington, Paarl, Robertson and Worcester.

I spent about 10 minutes taking different shots in the crisp morning air. By the time I was done and had headed down to the main road, the traffic had miraculously disappeared. It was a beautiful morning.

Kerry-Anne and I have decided to sell a hotel room that we bought a few years ago. We took a drive out to the Strand area this evening to snap a photo or two for advertisement purposes. While framing the hotel, the sun was setting behind me presenting this awesome panorama. It's winter here, so the air was crisp and only a hint of a sea-breeze was lapping at the water - I now have more photos of the sea than of the hotel ;).

False Bay was so named by early sailors who often confused it with Table Bay (which is on the other side of the Cape Peninsula to False Bay). This large bay is somewhat protected from the open ocean and sports some of the Western Cape's warmer waters. In the Strand area, bathers are able to walk out into the ocean for fifty to about a hundred metres (depending on the tide). These family beaches' waves are generally not too big, so surfers best give them a miss, but it's seriously fun for kids and their parents when it comes to body-surfing.

I guess this says it all... it's not the greatest quality photograph but today I just didn't have the energy to fiddle too much. I slept most of the day away - Kerry returned home at about 16h00 with the life-saving batch of supplies above.

Fortunately so far she seems to have been able to get the better of her sore throat and sneezy nose through liberal doses of vitamins - I haven't been quite so lucky, and it's off to bed with a hot-water bottle for me.

We got some of that rain today, by the way. At last it really feels like winter.

We watched the sun set from a vantage point on a huge granite bolder in the suburb of Brackenfell. Even though we could not see the sun dip below the horizon, the colour the sky and light through the clouds was beautiful.

The hill that you see in the distance is known as Tygerberg Hill. We've, in the past, walked up the hill several times. From the top, the entire Cape Peninsula sprawls out before you - Table Bay visible on the one side and False Bay on the other. It was the favorite place of a good friend of ours who died tragically a few years ago - I think we'll remember Nicholas whenever we see this hill silhouetted by the setting sun.

To give you an idea of it's size, the V&A Waterfront mall in the Table Bay Harbour reportedly has more than 400 shops and over 80 places to eat, ranging from take-aways to superb restaurants.

Kerry-Anne and I love walking in and around the mall - even though we don't go there with the intention of shopping. There are hundreds of unusual items to admire and the atmosphere is light and airy, buzzing with tourists and local residents alike.

I don't believe that any visitors to Cape Town miss out on a trip to this place. If you have, I'd be keen to hear what happened to make you miss it.

Don't you just love harbours at night? Well now, I don't mean ones with big old oily tankers, although they have their appeal; I mean ones with sailing vessels, pleasure liners and the like.

Cape Town Waterfront is really beautiful in the evening. Especially on crisp clear windless nights like this one. The quays are lined with attractive boats, contrasted with industrial-looking harbour cranes, all reflecting beautifully in the water. I picked this photograph over others because of the intrusively blue Victoria & Alfred Hotel that stands out from the black night, making it easy for guests to find.

Kerry-Anne and I had dinner with friends at the City Grill in the Waterfront this evening. The food was good and our waiters were just awesome tonight, reminding us of our stay in Paris last year, where we found the waiters to be at the top of their game.

The particular area where I took the photograph is close to where we had our meal, and is lined with several classy restaraunts boasting a huge variety of food. They're a little on the pricey side, but the food and atmosphere are just awesome.

We joined the local gym late last year in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle. I started off swimming and although it was fun I found that the necessary high percentage of chlorine started to make me feel a little queasy.

Kerry attends Pilates classes and these days I'm back to walking the treadmill and playing with the circuit machines. I don't know that I'll ever be one for standing in front of huge mirrors admiring my biceps as I do arm curls :).

The gym, owned by Richard Branson, is in pretty good shape *heh heh*. The equipment is kept in good nick and the facilities are always clean. To the left of this picture is a set of huge glass panes looking in to the swimming pool area. The gym also has a healthy fast-food take-away/restaurant and a free-to-use Internet cafe.

All in all they make the best of a place few want to be.

The city surprised its tourists today with a wonderfully warm and sunny autumn day. We decided to go up Signal Hill, where we were thrown into the midst of "tourist central" - we had endless entertainment watching people posing for shots of themselves with Table Mountain or Lion's Head in the background.

Signal Hill (from where I took this photo of Table Bay Harbour) is known for its Noon-day Gun, which has been fired as a time-keeper at noon each day for the last 200 years.

I can remember that when I worked in Cape Town's CBD the sound of the gunshot rumbling over the city each day marked the arrival of lunch-time :).

Taken from the balcony of the building where I work, this photograph is a typical sight in the Cape Town area. These guys are busy with construction around a newly developed upmarket apartment complex and shopping area. It looks to me like they are working on some kind of canal or rain-water overflow system. This particular area has a number of small but very deep dams surrounded by new apartment blocks and elegant restaurants.

Today South Africa celebrates Freedom Day, commemorating our first fully democratic general election, held 13 years ago. I found the photograph displayed in this picture about four months ago, discarded amongst some rubbish bags that I walked past in the upmarket suburb of Camps Bay.

We believe that the photo must have been taken on or around 27 April 1994 and shows ANC supporters celebrating their right to vote, their release into freedom, and the imminent victory of their political party.

The ANC is today still South Africa's ruling party, with Thabo Mbeki, successor to Nelson Mandela, at the country's helm.

If anybody knows who may have taken this photograph, please post a comment so that we can credit them.

It's 22h46 and we've just come back from the movies (went to see Mr Bean's Holiday).

Judging by the comments we received on yesterday's post, it seems as though you folks love butterflies - so, at this late hour and in the absence of something more exciting, here is another butterbug (courtesy of Grant again), this time sitting on its dinner, a lovely juicy-looking banana.

This post is for all of you in the northern hemisphere as you celebrate the arrival of spring. It was taken a few days ago by Grant (a friend from work) while on a family trip to Butterfly World.

Butterfly World's attraction is the warm butterfly enclosure housing hundreds of free-flying butterflies. As a visitor you can walk among the butterflies and, reportedly, have them flock to sit on you if you wear the right perfume.

Isn't this one just beautiful?

In the words of Bono, “It’s a beautiful day.” Today’s weather was warm and the skies were blue with streaks of (what I believe to be) cirrus uncinus clouds painted across the sky (unfortunately not seen in this photo).

Sonstraal Dam is substantially larger than what can be seen here - but is, as you can see, home to many ducks and geese. If you look carefully, you'll see our family sitting way back under one of the trees, enjoying a picnic lunch!

$1000 to the first person who guesses what this is. Ok, no, seriously, these must be as common as rain - so no prize. Kerry-Anne was shopping for new clothes, I was bored and thought that the rest of the world may, perhaps, want to see what paid-parking meters look like in South Africa. This one is in a popular shopping centre in Cape Town's northern suburbs. (Oh, Centre Security marched me off to the back-office with "You need permission to take photos sir!" - it was fun).

To show off the beach a little, today we're posting another photograph from Llandudno. The village of Llandudno boasts some of the most expensive property in South Africa.

As you can see, the houses are built on a slope. The streets wind in a seemingly unpredictable pattern amongst the houses, and access to the beach is quite tricky since there's only a very small parking area. This means that most visitors have to park quite high up the hill, away from the beach. Our visit was worth the walk though!