With that landmark reached, here’s one I like from the horribly aborted Last Hurrah 2010 tour.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but suffice to say that the World Cup helped quite a bit. As has Katrin Müller-Hohenstein’s bottom, which – depressingly – remains my most viewed photo from the tournament. Depressingly because it’s rubbish (the photograph – her bottom is lovely). Here it is again with ex-German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn looking on.

But I digress. Often.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my photos, thanks. If you haven’t, now would be the perfect time to start as I begin my journey on the path towards 200,000 views.

Wow – I said that like it was a good thing. Meh – it was fun evening: good food, good company, crap music.

After yesterday’s near miss when it came to getting up the West Coast, today’s return journey was rather unexciting, tinged with heat, more heat, a lack of sleep, some heat and a mild hangover.

Passing Koeberg

Mrs 6k drove and I looked out of the window at the scenery passing by at *cough* 120kph. This grey one sums up how I’m feeling this evening – distinctly lacking colour.

The bread is made, the uniforms are ironed and it’s back to school for our two tomorrow. Back to some sort of normality here too – but right now, I need my bed.

On Christmas morning IanVisits got up early and took pictures of an almost empty London.

And then he wrote about it on his blog:

London is never silent, not even at 3am, but on Xmas morning, it is almost silent. The background drone of aircraft approaching Heathrow has gone, and away from main roads, the streets lack the sound of car tyres rolling over tarmac.

My favourite image is this one of a deserted Waterloo Bridge:

You can see the full set here. And you should note that this isn’t the first time IanVisits has visited London on Christmas morning. He did it in 2010 and 2008 as well.

Photo © IanVisits on Flickr.

If you want it as yours, please feel free, by downloading the original here (handily in 16:9 format).
And – assuming I remember – I’ll try to prevent any staleness and stagnation by giving you something new to look at behind your each and every month.

Top of the list was the Moerse Farm Stall in Napier, which regularly almost entices us with its promise of “Flippen Lekker Viskoekies” & “Sexy Warm Brood”. (“Flipping Lovely Fishcakes” and “Sexy Hot Bread” to to the uninitiated…)

The actual farm stall bit of it is great, with all the traditional fare on offer: rusks, bread, milk tart, etc etc (but sadly, no FLVs, which had sold out already). The place was also filled with homemade placards of famous and inspirational quotes and quirky anecdotes as well.

This one – typical of the dry sense of humour of Manie Kriel, the owner (who also warned Alex only to pet Rosie the dachshund with his left hand, since he would need the fingers on his right hand to hold a pen when he went back to school) (Alex, not the daschsund) – caught my eye as we returned to our hectic urban existences.
But it was the nursery at the back that was so very unexpected: what an utterly amazing oasis of coolness and calmness in the 38°C heat.

    
The plants were healthy, happy (you could hear them singing), colourful and cool – awesome value too, especially when compared to Cape Town prices. Should you wish, you can sit in the sun (or the shade) and enjoy scones and coffee amongst the flowers before continuing your onward journey.

    
And – if you don’t want to miss out on the hugely popular ”Flippen Lekker Viskoekies” & “Sexy Warm Brood”, simply ring ahead (028 423 3440) and place your order on the morning of your trip.

Our next stop was Dassiesfontein, which impressed me less. It’s bizarre, completely mad, and a stop that you really must make just to experience the eclectic nature of the place - rusks, biltong, antiques, leather goods, wood-burning stoves and ovens, a small restaurant, a tiny bar, cheese, chocolates, wine, and even a large range of chandeliers.
There’s no doubt that it’s a well-run and slick operation, but if this is SA Farm Stall v2.0, then I’m not going to bother upgrading. It was soulless, commercial and dangerously expensive – a far cry from our friendly, personal experience in Napier earlier in the day. If, as Dassiesfontein claim, they “represent the spirit of true South African hospitality”, then this country is in more trouble than we thought.

That said, I’m looking forward to enjoying a glass of the local “foot stomped” port (ABV 20% *whimper*) and some of the homemade cheese we bought there. And I’m glad we popped in, but I won’t be hurrying back.

Depending on how good the port is, obviously.

Not the entire world, obviously. That would require a ridiculous amount of time and effort [and money - Mrs 6000], but the residential cruise ship and playground of the rich and famous.

She is in Cape Town for the New Year before heading north for Lüderitz and Walvis Bay in Namibia and then back past Cape Town and the Southern Cape bound for Durban later in January 2012.

With penthouses going for around $14,000,000 [a cool R115m], maybe Mrs 6000 has a point about The World being a bit pricey, but with only 165 residences and over 200 crew, it sounds like you get decent service.

It’s also very, very nice to look at. Get down to the V&A Waterfront and avoid the rather hectic security near the jetty to have a gander.

Follow The World on MarineTraffic.com by clicking here or see some more photos here.

I know. I’ve been scarce.

And I have absolutely no excuse, save for the glorious sunshine and the glorious beach (literally) a stone’s throw from the front door. There’s copious alcohol available as well, which has led to some late nights under the stars, far from the madding crowds and maddening light pollution of Cape Town.

I’ve got a robust, yet annoyingly slow GPRS connection tethered from my cellphone (3G doesn’t reach this far into the wilds), which doesn’t really fit with the traditional fisherman’s cottage we’re staying in, but I love the juxtaposition of old and modern – especially when I have access to the internet.

The days have been spent catching millions of fishes and crabs in the rockpools and enjoying braai meat, beer and conversation in the evenings and I could happily live this way forever, until I missed the amenities and hustle and bustle of city life. Which will be about another 2 days, I reckon.

I’ll see you then…

You may note that the quality of the images decreases steadily as more tequila is added to the photographer. This all happened on Saturday evening. Sunday was understandably unpretty.

If you want to have a look at individual images – here’s the flickr set. You are, of course, welcome to help yourself to any snaps you want.

While it was a awesome party and a damn good night out, I can’t help but pop in a mention for Goodfella’s, who turned up at the wrong place at the wrong time, couldn’t find us and actually asked us to drive to meet them. Much comment on twitter about how we should be using 1ForTheRoad - we’ll be looking into that. And Mrs 6000 will be looking into cancelling the expensive corporate account she manages with Goodfellas.

A small amount of detective work led me to more photos as part of this flickr set.

Oooh – I bet Paternoster simply can’t wait!

I got a few great pics of sunsets while we were away this last weekend. Here’s one of them optimised for quota photo usage:

The original is here and there are more sunsets and other stuff in my November 2011 flickr set.
It was a ridiculously busy month.