More mountain vistas.

One of the photos I took yesterday, looking west, north west. I cropped out most of the foreground to get the panoramic look.

Click to enlarge.

Those mountains on the horizon are about 100 + km away.

Some mountains for Gorges.

Gorges of Gorges' grouse, groused yesterday that the area was too flat for his liking. Well I thought I'd show him how mountainous it really is. Photography can be very selective and does not always show reality, yesterdays photos left out the mountains. The farm actually lies just to the right of center, towards the back of my header photo.

The first birds I came across were these two spur wing geese. They are not the prettiest of birds but very imposing, standing about a meter tall. In the middle distance a Swainson's spurfowl is scurrying away.

A cropped picture zooming in on the Drakensberg, Champagne Castle area, about 60 km away.

Sunset over the mountains looking west, north-west. The hill in the foreground is about 3 km away. I think I'm going to get some stunning sunset photos from this point, couldn't hang around today as I was 3 km from home with a rain storm approaching. Just made it home, and it's still raining now at 8 pm. 

The northern end of the farm with the Little Bushman's river running through the valley. I mentioned this stream in yesterdays post. This is a big farm and by the time we got home my dogs were exhausted and we only covered a small part of it. 

Exploring.

The dogs and I took a walk this afternoon to explore our new territory. This farm is big and intensively cultivated with all the fields irrigated by center pivot irrigation.

Click to enlarge photos.

Some winter wheat ripening. 

Some very curious calves.

"What do you think it is?" These calves found Bruno facinating.

"I'm the man!" This big guy also came to say hello.

Threatening skies and a fence line stretching to the horizon.

"The promise". A rainbow stretches across the sky.

A center pivot irrigation system stretching way into the distance. (this picture needs to be enlarged). The water for these irrigation machines comes from the Little Bushmans river that runs through the farm. To explore this stream is one of my priorities, fish that might be found in it are Natal Yellow fish, (scaley) and small mouth bass.

Some inside views of my new home.

Some Inside views of my new home.

Click to enlarge.

The spare room was the first room that started to look presentable, just to the left out of the picture is a huge set of built in cupboards, that reach to the ceiling. In the previous cottage the spare room was so small that this bed and the wardrobe on the right just fitted in with very little space to spare. 

The Italian leprechaun and I celebrated the move to the new cottage with one of our "braai's", (BBQ). We had one last week to say goodbye to the old cottage. In the platter a kilogramme of "boerewors", (farmers sausage) a spicy beef sausage. One of our supermarket groups holds an annual "boerewors" competition, with huge prizes, to see who can make the best "boerewors". Everyone hauls out great great grannies "boerewors" recipe to see if they can win something or to become the latest "boerewors" champion of the nation. Under the "boerewors" is a kilo of rump steak in a garlic sauce. Some bread rolls and a mushroom, tomato and onion "bredie", (stew) complete the meal.

Cat, the cat, watching procedings from the welsh dresser, Cat the cat just loves the new place and is as happy as pig in Palestine. Cat has a very imperious stare.

More pics of the house and about the weather.

Tuesday afternoon we were hit by gale force winds that continued right through the night and for most of Wednesday, for a while I thought hurricane Sandy had lost it's way. This morning the Berg was covered in snow and winter was back. At the moment a cold rain is falling, according to the weather people we have had more than three times the usual amount of rain for October.

Click to enlarge.

My new back yard, actually I share it with four other households. My cottage is just to the right of the swimming pool. The swimming pool has a net over it as there are a couple of small children here and it's only removed when there is adult supervision.

The front of the cottage, excuse all the untidiness outside . The pointy bit sticking out behind the cottage is the thatched roof of the "lapa", it has a back wall, place for a braai, BBq, and is an outdoor entertainment area next to the pool. I will post some photos of it later so you can see what it looks like.

New home.

Today I moved to my new home, a cottage on a farm about 9 km out of town. For several months now I've been looking for a place and at last I found it. It's quite a bit bigger than my previous place, the rent is a bit less but I guess  I'll be paying at bit more in fuel cost to get to work.

This is the view from the back, swimming pool just a few steps from the back door. There are four dwellings built around this central garden/lawn. Just behind me from where I took the photo is another cottage, the owners house can be seen just to the left of the cottage. Slightly to the left of the owners house is another small cottage, the owners son's house, (the original farm house) is just 20 meters off photo to the left. That huge black dog lying next to the pool belongs to the son. 

The family have been farming here since the 1850's.

I'll be posting more photos tomorrow.

Wagendrift da.

Took a round a bout trip home from church this morning so I could get some photos of the overflowing Wagendrift dam. "Wagen" is the old Dutch/Afrikaans word for wagon, a drift is a ford, and the dam was built just above where the old wagon road to the north crossed the Bushmans river.

Click to enlarge.

Photo from the northern side of the river.

This plume of water coming from the bottom sluice is known locally as the "roosters tail".

Zoomed in a bit.