The Whale Tale

About a week ago we went for a drive along the coast to look for whales. We saw a bunch of gorgeous views, as usual.






We found some beach treasures.



We drove past a baboon.




Oh, and we bought ourselves a plate of roast duck.



But most importantly, we saw a southern right whale. It was kind of far away, but if you squint, you can sort of see its tail on the bottom right in this photo.




Here's a bigger version.



Melissa

Van Riebeek's Hedge

This is a segment of a wild almond hedge that was planted in 1660 by Jan van Riebeek. Van Riebeek, the first leader of the Dutch East India Company's settlment on the site of present-day Cape Town, hoped that the hedge would prevent the local San and Khoikhoi people from coming in and attacking the European settlers. I doubt it worked. It didn't prevent the settlers from moving further inland to attack the Africans, either.


This post is dedicated to Sommer Browning, who asked me to post more history of the Dutch East India Company.

Melissa

Proteas

Before we moved to Cape Town, I had never seen protea flowers. Here they're everywhere. Apparently most of the flowers in the Protea genus can be found in the Cape Floral Kingdom, and a few others are scattered around the southern hemisphere. It's the middle of winter here, so it's not peak season by any means, but we saw all of the flowers below in an afternoon walk today.

The first three pictures in this series are from the same plant. I think they're three stages of development of the same flower.






Melissa

Now You See It...

This little guy likes to hang out in our front yard. He's pretty hard to find because he mimics the color of the flowers on his favorite bush. He didn't seem to enjoy being photographed.

Melissa

A New Vegetable

We recently discovered a new food called "waterblommetjie", which means "water flowers" and is pronounced roughly VAHT-er-BLUM-ik-kee. They grow wild in fresh water on the Cape penninsula. These waterblommetjie fell into a pot of soup shortly after this picture was taken.

Melissa

In Good Company

This garden has been a garden since 1652, when employess of the Dutch East India Company planted it to help resupply passing ships. It is still known as the Company's Gardens.




This is the biggest aloe tree we've seen yet.

Melissa

Up the Table

It was a clear day in Cape Town.


But it was cloudy on top of Table Mountain.



Which is where we went.



From the top, we could still see the city. Sort of.



The landscape was beautiful.



The plants were strange.


The cliffs were invisible.


The sun was occasional.



Melissa and Andy