First lit 175 years ago

Happy 175th Birthday to this old place:

A sandstone tower 27 metres high, it was first lit on the 1st of March 1849, it’s been lighting the way around the dangerous Cape Agulhas rocks ever since (well, it took a bit of time out between 1968 and 1988, but we don’t mention that). From burning sheep tail fat (1849 -1905) to an oil lantern (1905 – 1929) to a petroleum vapour burner (1929 – 1936) to an electric light bulb (1936 – [1968 & 1988 – shhhh!] to the present day), it’s a National Monument, a Western Cape Heritage Site and an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Phew!

And as the sun sets in Agulhas this evening, it’ll be on duty again: its lamp and first order Fresnel lens generating 7,500,000 candela, flashing white every five seconds, piercing the darkness for 30 nautical miles (56 km, 35 miles).

Happy Birthday, old chap.

Quick sunset shot

Busy morning, and we’re off to Stellies for some wine tasting this afternoon, so herewith a very quick denoised sunset shot from the weekend in Agulhas.

I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations, and I’ve worked out that the image above isn’t going to win any awards. What is is going to do is serve as a quota photo for today’s blog post – just in case things get messy later.

Which, given the amount of wine involved, they may well do.

An experiment

Here’s a post which will mean very little to anyone except me, but I’m just conducting a quick little experiment to see if my daughter reads this blog. I know that she sometimes does, but putting a random post in here might just answer the question as to how often.

Sort of, anyway.

So if you’re reading this blog post and you know my daughter, please don’t contact her to tell her to read this blog post. That would ruin the experiment. I’ll know if she reads this blog post because she will tell me.

All I will need to provide is this image of a car in a Cape Agulhas car park, untouched by the magic of Photoshop…

…and I know that she’ll be in touch as soon as she sees it.

(Like I said, this won’t mean anything to the rest of my readership (even to the rest of my family), but MMIRIM, and it’s just one of those father/daughter bonding things that will ruin our relationship forever amuse us both.)

No hurry

We’re still enjoying some wonderful weather down at the Southern Tip, and there’s really no hurry to get back to Cape Town. Yes, school starts again this week, but it doesn’t start tomorrow, and so we can afford a little more time to relax before we head back home.

And so before I light the braai this evening, I’m sitting in the fresh air – which isn’t moving anywhere near as fast as it was last time we were down here – and enjoying a spicy Bloody Nora with some Chilli [sic] Infusion Vodka from Deep South Distillery. Because of the irritating timing of loadshedding this evening, we’ll eat late tonight, which means braaibroodjie starters to get us through until sundowners, and then some proper vleis a little later on. I can confirm that the rumours of rump steak and peri-peri chicken are not unfounded.

But in the meantime, it’s easy to relax when your biggest concerns are getting a blog post done and lighting a fire.

All good

15 days post-op for Colin the Beagle, and it’s good news. The stitches are out, and while there’s still a bit of healing to do, the vet is amazed by her progress. She’s putting weight on the bad leg, the good – ok, “better” – leg seems to be holding up well, and the biggest issue is now over-confidence and trying to do too much too soon.

She’s also lost a couple of kilos and looks sleek and mean, and the stitches coming out this morning meant that she could have a bath as well, which is something we’ve all been looking forward to.

Incredibly, with just two weeks gone, it’s like we’ve got our old beagle back already.

Thus, we’re off to Agulhas for a couple of days to celebrate, and walk – gently – around the village.
Check the ‘Gram and on here for updates.

Have a great weekend!