Photo blog

A few people complained about the last blog post that there were too many words. This Post is just a collection of photos I have taken and some captions. You can just look at the pictures and I hope you find the captions interesting too! Some of these photos were taken as part of my homework for photography class and some or just pretty things I've seen. I suggest you maximise your browser window to see full clear images and enjoy all 21 pictures.

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Bo-Kaap

I visited a district called Bo-Kaap. It looks a bit like Balamory, loads of brightly coloured homes. I was taking pictures of interesting doors as part of an assignment

Clifton beach

Cape Town is surrounded by beaches and as it's at the tip of Africa you can access the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic sea board is a lovely area of Cape Town and here you can see a sunny day on Clifton Fourth beach. My travel guide refers to it as a "beautiful beach for beautiful people" so we had to check it out. As you walk down the steps from the high road

, you pass entrance gates to lovely beach homes nested in the side of the mountain. I particularly liked the one in second photo with the pool overlooking the beach.

Rooibos cappuccino

I'm refraining from putting too many food photos in but i'm still salivating thinking about this Rooibos cappuccino.  Rooibos is the most popular herbal tea here, known in England as Redbush. I discovered how good it tastes with milk and then i found it in cappuccino form and decorated with honey and frothy milk, it was really amazing.

Lion's head

Lion's head is my favourite mountain and that is why it is the permanent feature in the header of my blog. It looks like a sleeping lion on top of a hill and it reminds me of the lion statues in Heaton Park! This mountain can be seen from all over Cape Town and I found it really interesting taking photos of it from different angles. A few weeks ago I climbed up it to catch sunset as we reached the top, we then walked down holding torches to lead our way in the darkness.

My lodgings

I'm staying in an area called Vredehoek which is in town in what they call the "City Bowl". The Bowl is defined by the mountain ranges surrounding it creating a natural border from the suburbs of the city. This is a view from signal hill and I'm living just by the 3 tall tower blocks which you can see here. I'm staying with a family who are old friends of my parents and they've been incredible hosts so far.

The sad reality of life in Cape Town is that everyone is anxious about security and crime is high. In a photography assignment to find "frames" for my images, I went looking for windows to photograph through to create these frames. This was near impossible as all the windows and doors are covered in bars. I decided to embrace the restriction and put my security bar pictures into my blog. The first photo shows the view from my front door across town looking over at signal hill. The second is the view from my bedroom window (also at the front of the house) looking out at Lion's head.

The house is literally built on the mountain and the back garden slopes up towards the top. This is the house with table mountain in the background. 

This is a shot I took at the end of my street as I was coming home around dusk.

Other mountains

Here are some of the other local mountains. The first two show table mountain from different angles, unfortunately I couldn't catch it cloudless but this formation is often referred to as the mountains "table cloth". The third photo is taken from the other side of Lion's head on the Atlantic sea board and shows mountains known as the 12 apostles. Finally we have Devil's peak which joins on to the side of table mountain and is right by where I'm staying.