Tales from the continent

Jewish Rugby, Table Mountain, Global Warming,

treasure_hunter — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:17:00 GMT

Well the title only tells half the story as will this blog, the photos will again do these tales more justice than i can, and untill i figure out how to get some photos onto this thing you'll just have to take my word for it.

Safe to say i was pretty hungover after the wine tour but it was definately worth it. So the plan was i would have a quiet day, chill out at the hostel, feel sorry for myself and wallow in my self pity. Which almost happened, i decided to go outside for a walk with no particular direction or destination in mind, i have been doing this a bit recently and it has been leading to some quite extraordinary little adventures, more on that later, so long story short i ended up at the Jewish Museum here in Cape Town, why the jewish museum you ask, well one guess....they had an exhibition celebrating the contributions the Jewish Community have made to South African Rugby and in particular the Springboks.There habe been 10 Jewish springboks, the most notably being Joel Stransky who you might remember was the man who kicked the winning drop goal against the All Blacks in the 95 World Cup final, in fact he scored all South Africa's points in that game and wrote his name in the history books forever in doing so. Johnathon Kaplan who is the most capped referee in the world at the moment is also jewish, his story is quite funny, he was no good at rugby but loved the game so much that his mother rang up the Rugby Union and demanded her son be allowed to attend some referee clinics, the Union thought it was a practical joke and hung up on her, only to have the phone ring staright back, they eventually allowed him to attend and the rest as they say is history, he promised his mum that if he ever got to ref at Twickenham he would fly her over and give her a kiss outside the stadium gates, which he eventually did some 25 years later. The museum also showcased the trials and tribulations the Jewish people faced when arriving here in the mid 1800's after the discovry of firstly diamonds and then gold, it is however quite obvious that all immigrants to this continent faced the same challeneges, hardship does not discriminate and was not monopolised by the Jews, but they seem to have done very well for themselves. I was told not to take photos inside the museum but couldn't help myself once i got to the rugby section, luckily nobody saw me so no harm done there. Rugby is so very entrenched in the national physce here, and through this they have a tremendous amount of respect for all New Zealanders, they see us as a tough, uncompromising nation who are both humble in defeat and in victory and we thus carry alot of mana here, so us younger generation owe alot of the friendly interaction we have with the locals to the rugby teams of yester year who forged this great relationship with the South Africans, in fact in one of the freedom songs they have here they sing about Graham Mourie and his relinquishing the All Black captaincy because of his stance on Apartheid, freedom songs were songs sung by the opressed people in the townships, that made them feel they were not alone in the fight against apartheid, these songs are still sung to this day and resonate throughout the townships to this day.

Next day did exactly the same thing, got up walked out the front door and just started walking, it was a reasonably nice day so i found myself being pulled towards Table Mountain, the colossus that dominates the skyline here in Cape Town. Instead of taking the Cable Car to the top, i decided to climb it by foot, seemed innocent enough, but it didn't quite turn out that way. The walk to the foot of the mountain is about 1 hour from the hostel and if she looks big from a distance she is quite menacing when you are standing at the bottom looking up. The Notice said 3 hours to the top, i looked at my watch 1o'clock...plenty of time. So off i went the first hour was pretty flat and took me along the side of th mountain, the sun was shining, the views were spectacular as were the waterfalls you walk under, then came to a place named Platteklip gorge, this is where the real climbing took place. I started off o.k one foot in front of the other on about an 80 degree angle, 30 mins passed then an hour. I noticed the sun had dissappeared and assumed it was the mountain blocking it out, as it turned out it was the clouds from the approaching thunder storm. So 1 mintue walking in lovely sunshine and the next thing i know the clouds started rolling in, then the rain, then the hail and sleet. I kept pushing on up through the cloud line and got to the point where i could only see a few feet in front of me as the cloud was so thick, added to that i was soaked through to the bone and my legs were starting stiffen up and get really sore, i found a hiding place under the lip of an overhanging rock and managed to find some shelter from the elements, the rain wasn't so bad, but the wind.. it was freezing. I didn't know how much further i had to go and the longer i sat still it seemed the colder i was starting to get, luckily i had my thermal underwear on( don't get too excited ladies, in fact this for many of you girls out there is probably the highlight of the story, go on admit it, me in my Thermal underwear, what an image) otherwise i swear i would have froze to death. Anyway i had a couple of bannanas and a mandarin which i hoarsed down, and then had to make a decision do i wait for the weather to blow through or do i keep going, problem was i didn't know if the weather had settled in for the day or was just passing through, the weather here, especially around table mountain can deteriorate in the blinking of an eye, as i had just found out, not to mention i was starting to feel quite tired and contemplated just waiting. Luckily the energy from the bannanas and the mandarin kicked in and i decided to plough on up, i knew i still had a couple of hours to go and most of it was vertical. It was quite difficult from there because i could not make out any landmarks or see how much progress i was making because the cloud was so thick, my only hope was to just keep going. Then up in the distance i saw something metallic about the size of an A4 piece of paper, its metallic colour giving off a reflection that i so easily could have missed, anyway i got closer to it and then saw that there was writing on it which read " Cable Car 15 mins in that direction" you little ripper, after 4 hours, 15 mins was going to be a doddle. I had reached the top and was walking now along the flat of the mountain in which it got its name. But i still wasn't there yet and still couldn't see anything, i was concerned they had closed the mountain which is what they do in bad weather which would have meant me having to stay up there or climb back down, neither of which was very tempting. Eventulally i could make out a door, which said "Push to Open" i was pretty buggered and leant on the door not realising i had over done it and fell inside on the floor, when i looked up there were about 50 people sitting at there dinner tables having a meal in stone cold silence, you could have heard a mouse fart, i picked myself up and assured everybody i was ok, not that anybody actually seemed to care, but then again neither did i, i was just happy to be in civilization again, i walked around a little disorientated for a while and found the ticket booth and promptly brought a ticket to get down the mountain, i then jumped in the cable car and was safely delivered to the foot of the mountain.

Turned out i was quite lucky 30 mins later they closed the mountain and had all visitors vacate the place, if i had stayed any longer i would have had to have found my own way down either that day or next day in the morning, because i hadn't told anyone i was going up no search party would have been sent either, in future i think i might tell someone before i go climbing. The Mountain itslef is 1020m high and weather wise very unpredictable, it claims lives every year, 8 have died this year alone trying to climb it and many more have had to be rescued especially what they call J.A.G's (Just another German). Ignorance is bliss, if i had known that i might have thought twice about climbing it. So it was back to the hostel for a nice hot shower a nice meal chased down with a glass of red, safe to say i slept like a baby that night.

Next day i did a champagne sunset cruise, i think i was the only person on the boat by themself, everybody else were in groups or as couples, so i probably looked like a bit of a wally, sitting there with my glass of champagne watching the sun sink down through the sky.

Next day i was asked by the owner of the hostel if i wanted to go and protest against Global warming outside the state government, unfortunately no tear gas or riot squads with this one, very peacefull and quite lame really, some people just don't know how to start a good riot in the name of peace and global harmony.

Well bit tired now, will write again soon, went to a Currie Cup( South Africas National Rugby championship) game at Newlands stadium with my South African mate Brendan, went to the casino, climbed lions head and some other cool stuff that i will write about later. I head off on my 42 day overland tour tomorrow so i am pretty pumped for that.

Take care verybody and will write soon,

Wine Tour...

treasure_hunter — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:21:00 GMT

Woke up today and the sun was shining, looked up at table mountain and there was just a hint of cloud on it, what the locals would call the table cloth. Today i am getting picked up to go on a wine tasting tour of Stellenboch, the mayjor wine producing area of South Africa, there are over a thousand wineries in the one area and i am aiming to visit everyone of them. Was picked up at 8.30 by our guide Bruce, don't know his full name he might have told me at some stage but after drinking my own body weight in wine last names seemd like insignificant details. So we picked up our other passengers a young couple on there honeymoon Mike(UK) and his wife Elese, Mike(Canada) and Igor from Bosnia, oh and me from N.Z, quite a mixture, sometimes when you go on these sorts of things the people who make up the tour can have a big impact on how enjoyable the whole thing can be but as i found out i had nothing to worry about.

So all the formalities out the way, you know what i mean... "hi, whats your name? Where are you from? how long have you been here? and off we go. The first winerie we stopped at was one of the oldest in the region named fairviews, it was owned by a jewish man who had brought it from a dutch man in the early 1700s, wine was introduced here by the dutch, when they first arrived here in the mid 1600s they brought with them grape vines and planted them on arrival, it took about 3-5 years for the first bottle to be produced but they haven't stopped since. We tasted about 6 wines and many different cheeses, the people here were really very knowledgeable about their wine and i have to say about there Rugby, as soon as they hear you are from NZ Bang!!! off they go, they know all our Super 14 teams and players, and i'm not just talking the whites, the black South Africans know just as much and have very educated and strong opinions on the whole thing, i was caught a little of guard, but soon made up for lost ground, remembering also we had just lost to them a few days before so i was fair game.

We left Fairviews and went to the first Black winerie owned by the blacks, and run by the blacks, its all part of the program to get them on an even playing field with the whites, not just in wine production but also business, education sport the whole thing. The wines here were pretty average but they have only been at it a short time, the whites have a 350 year head start, but it was great to to see them making a fist of it, and the place was beautifull, in fact all the wineries were amazing, they all had large Swiss/Austrian like lodges with restaurants that overlooked the vineyard, big roaring fires, and i mean big roaring fires with different game fur, skins and pelts adorning the walls, very masculine and very warm and inviting, you could just imagine back in the 20's all the men returning from the hunt having a cognac, and a cigar and sitting around the fire talking about the ones that got away, while the women prepared the big meal for everybody. All up we visited 5 Wineries and to be honest i cant remember the names of the last couple because by that stage we were all getting pretty carried away with the whole thing having a great old time, Mike(Canada) was writing a wine blog on some wine web site and had a notebook and pen out the whole time writing notes, so this encouraged the wineries to give us more, and to also crack open some of the more expensive stuff that they wouldn't normally open for a tasting, i later found out from Mike that that was just a front and he was just writing it for his own journal, but he had heard that it was good way to get extra tastings etc, safe to say me and Mike(Canada) got on like a house on fire, in fact we all did, Igor probably didn't know what he had got himself into because he was the only one spitting the wine out after the tastings, where as we were all drinking it, he eventually cottoned on and started drinking it and about 1 hour later was staring to slurr. We then stopped at a big Game lodge for lunch where i had some Sprinbok, yep thats right Sprinkbok, and i thought Australia was the only country that ate its national eblem, anyway to get through the guilt of it i just thought of the Rugby and proceeded to poplitely ask for 2nds. By this stage the wheels were starting to fall off and Bruce had resigned himself to just watching and laughing, i have not laughed so hard in a very long time.So another couple of wineries later and we headed back to my hostel and i invited everyone in for the "Braai" or a S.African BBQ, so we all had a great dinner and crashed out, i was absolutely buggered, oh we also stopped at a bar on Long Street, that had a roof bar with themed american style trailers from the 50s, all with bathroom bed, couch etc, we later found out its where you take someone you have scored in the bar below and can book the room/trailer for the night, its not a house of disrepute its just a rooftop bar with themed trailers, unbelievable!!!. Well that was the wine tour, more exciting stuff to come, bye for now.

White South Africa's Dark past.

treasure_hunter — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 15:42:00 GMT

Has the heading suggests the last 2 days i caught up with South Africa's dark and opressive past. Firstly i went to Robbin Island which was settled by the dutch in 1652 and was eventually converted into a prison a year later in 1653. The name Robbin is dutch for "Seal" so its english translation is Seal Island, safe to say there were a few seals on the island back then. So to get to the island you take a 30 min ferry from from the port of Cape Town,the sea was quite rough but luckily the boat was big enough that no one came down with sea sickness, unlike the shark cage diving where just about everybody was hurling over the side of the boat.As you get closer to the island you can see the guard towers standing out against the skyline and thats when the aura of the whole place really starts to set in. Where we disembark from is exactly where the black prisoners of years gone by landed on shore to to face there uncertain futures. We were picked up by a bus and taken on about a 40 min tour around the island, takling in the the Leper's cemetery, the guards quarters for them and there families and the island church. We finally arrived at the prison where Nelson Mandela and thousands of others were imprisoned over hundreds of years, there was a dark, mysterious energy about the place that told you a lot of suffering had taken place here, it reminded me alot of Dachau, a concentration camp just outside of Munich. We were met by our escort who was a former prisoner of the island at the same time as Nelson Mandela, he told us of the abuses that went on in there both physical and mental, the political prisoners were thought more dangerous than the murderers and rapists and thus were treated accordingly, no windows on the cells, just bars, these cells were very exposed and very windy, they mmust gave been very cold. They were only given a mat to lie on the floor with and 1 blanket... very tough. Outside is an area where the prisoners could exercise, Nelson Mandela started a little garden which is still there today, while he was in prison he covertly wrote his book the "long walk to freedom", and to hide it from the guards would bury it in his garden behind some grape vines which you can still see today. From there we went to the cell where he spent a majority of his imprisonment, all up he was impriosoned 27 years, 18 of which were on Robbin Island. Cell # 7 D-section, prisoner number 466/64 thisnumber if you look closely enough is on the South African Rugby jersy on the shoulder sleeve. The cell itself consisted of a matress on the floor,a hand basin and toilet and a window with a view of the exercis yard. From here we then made our way back to the docks and caught the ferrie back to Cape Town.

The Black Township of Langa, is situated about 20 mins from cape town, and it is like landing on another planet, lots of corrugated iron, lots of rubbish, filthy is the only word to describe it, i think the photos will sum it all up, better than any words can, these people were forcibly removed from there homes and re located to these townships which literally means to be shipped to a new town. Only recently have they had electricity and even then only parts of it have this luxury, lots of children running around, everything is different, the colours the smell, the sounds the people everything, it is not for everybody that is for sure, you feel very vulnerable and very lucky and almost guilty for how good we have it back home. I was taken to a school where the children, sang me a couple of songs, and then went through the alphabet, annd the days of the week etc, all in english to i might add pretty good considering the were all about 5 years old, they were very cute though, they keep running up to you for hugs and high fives. I was then taken for a drive to an area where a young american girl was killed by 7 boys back in 1987, she was kicked and beaten to death, what the boys didn't know is that she was doing alot of charity work for the township was due to fly back to the states the next.

After NelsonMandela was relaeased and became the president of South Africa he set up a Truth and Reconciliation court where the victims and victimisers could meet and seek forgiveness for there crimes, if you were forgiven by the family you could be released from prison. When the family of the american girl asked the boys why they had killed her they answered simply that it was because she was white, the discussions continued and the family forgave the boys for murdering there daughter, the boys were released from prison, the family set up a charity in the daughters name and appointed the boys as senior members of the charity, they are out there veryday raising money and awareness of the plight of the people in these townships. Not everybody was forgiven for the atrocities committed during apartheid for some the pain ran too deep, but this process was one of many needed for the people of south africa to start rebuilding there lives and there country. I was then taken to the District 6 museum which is a museum not far from where i am staying and this is and area where many coloureds were uplifted and relocated and then the whole thing demolished, its hard to put into perspective but its like someone coming in and telling the people who live in an area the size of Broadbeach to get out and then they flatten the whole place, there is only grass and rubble there now,quite amazing. So that was a wee peak into the otherside of South Africa, and there was a feeling you were only scratching the surface. Well its off on my wine tour now and tonight the hostel is having a Braai which is a South African BBQ lots of meat!!! i should have worked up an apetite after tasting wine all day.

Destination Africa complete

treasure_hunter — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:22:00 GMT

Have arrived safely into Cape Town. The trip over here was pretty uneventfull, had window seats on both legs of the flight so that was quite good, Singapore Airlines are fantastic, i could never fly with another airline again, except Air New Zealand of course. So arrived in Cape Town around 10am and arrived at the hostel about 11am customs etc was really quick, so checked in and then decided to book my tours before i spent any money, so yesterday i went to the cape of good hope which is the most southerly part of Africa and where lots of ships got wrecked over the last 400 years, this trip was absolutely amazing, firstly we went to an old fishing village first settled by the dutch back in the 1600s and took a boat ride out to seal island, and there were seals alright thousands of them, got back on shore and headed a little further south to false bay and Simonstown where we went to a penguin colony and got close i mean real close you can actually touch them, after that we went and watched some whales breaching a little further around in the bay, then we headed down towards "The Cape" as we were nearing the cape of good hope..Baboons!!!! ....... Baboons everywhere coming up to the van with there little babies they were really cute and if that wasn't enough there were ostrich's with there babies as well, you wouldn't belive this place, there is wildlife everywhere, where else in the world could you see Whales,Seals, Penguins, Baboons, and Ostrich's all at the same time?.

So that was my first full day in Africa, unbelievable!!!!

For my second day.........

I have just arrived back from shark cage diving!!! absolutely fantastic, got picked up at 4:50am( more about that later) and headed off for a 2 hour drive to where the boat is, had a warm breakfast there waiting for us so that was nice and then out we went, it was unbelieveable, they drop you down into the water in these cages and bait the Great white sharks with what they call chum, but what we call burlie, lots of blood and fish heads etc, then these huge sharks come write up to the cage, we had 11 of them absolutely amazing wait till you see the photos its undescribable a cross between amazement/fear/awe/ all rolled into one, they are amazing creatures.... some of the sharks we saw had big hooks hanging out the side of them from where people have treid to catch them, very sad. They come write up to the cage like there trying to stare you down very scary, needed an undie change after that one.The Swell was massive i mean massive, none of the other operators went out, cause it was so big, but not a cloud in the sky, or a breath of wind, the Atlantic ocean is a completely different kettle of fish(excuse the pun) to the pacific, its a different colour and its thick i have never seen swell this big and i have spent some time on the water.

Anyway thats it for now, have tomorrow off, need to recover, am going to watch the All Blacks South Africa game at the local with my All Blacks jersey on so that should be interesting, especially if we win.

Then on Sunday i am going on a wine tasting tour to Stellenboschand then on monday i am going to a black township to help out for half the day and then im going to Robbin island to look at the prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. So its all go go go, am looking forward to my rest day tomorrow.