We had rain again yesterday, lots of rain, (I'm thinking of moving somewhere drier, like British Columbia, or one of the NW Pacific coastal states of the US, like Washington state) with it came a sudden drop in temperature. Woke up this morning and it was freezing.
Went to school to do some work in the library, and we have a lovely view of parts of the Berg, (not called Drakensview school for nothing) and I snapped these photos.
Click to enlarge.
Snow in April, and it's still snowing in parts of the Northern hemisphere! Must be this global warming thing. View of Giants Castle with a light dusting of snow.
View of the Berg just a bit north of Giants Castle, slightly more snow. Our first snows usually only fall towards the end of May, so this is very early. Because of all the rain we've had people have been predicting a very cold winter this year. Who knows maybe they are right.
The cold front and almost 48 hours of continuous rain last week, also dumped a huge amount of snow on the Berg. I was only able to take these photos this morning as the Berg has been covered by a hazy cloud since Friday when it stopped raining, so some of the snow had already melted.
Click to enlarge.
I took several photos to make two panoramas. The one above shows Giants Castle on the far left, (the southern end of this photo).
This one shows more of the Central Berg.
Zoomed in shot of Giants Castle, 3000 meters. Some of my favourite fishing spots lie about 15km from the foot of Giants castle and it takes me almost an hour, on good roads, to get there. Gives you an idea of how far away I was when I took this photo.
Behind Giants Castle the Berg turns inland in South Westerly direction, then after more than a hundred kilometres turns southward again for several hundred more kilometres.
Snow on part of the central Berg at 3000 meters plus.
More towards the north, these trees in the foreground are about 45km from the mountain. Another cold front has moved in this afternoon after a balmy spring day when I went to work in a short sleeved shirt.
The Italian leprechaun and I took our monthly trip to Pietermaritzburg this morning. We travelled in his car, which is a Ford KA. Someone said the other day that it looks like a computer mouse on steriods.
Just before going onto the highway we stopped and I took a couple of photos of the snow on the Drakensberg mountains.
Click on photo to enlarge.
Not the best vantage point from which to take a photo. The front of the Berg is very steep,almost vertical, so not much snow sticks there. On top, which is a plateau, the snow will be several feet deep. On the northern slopes the snow will melt very quickly. Trout fishermen like lots of snow on the Berg, this will mean good stream flows in the spring, making for good fishing.
This photo taken almost from the same position as the one above shows a small section of the lake behind the Wagendrift dam. The dam is built on the spot where ox-wagons used to cross the Bushmans river in the 1800's. Hence the name. (Drift is Afrikaans for a ford)
Interior of the temple of Mammon. One thing that struck me was that the smaller the shop, the less goods it had on display, and the higher the prices.
We did our shopping, stopped at the Mug & Bean coffee shop, had a good breakfast and their bottomless cup of coffee, served by friendly and efficient waiters. The service can only be described as slick. The food very good and the coffee fantastic.
On the way out I took this photo of a small part of the parking lot. No one drives an old car any more, every car I saw was new. I must be the only person who drives a car older than 5 years.(actually mine is 28 years old).
In the background you see the hills that surround Pietermaritzburg, covered in plantations of SA Pines and Blue gums. These plantations belong to the municipality. Due to the fact that the town lies in a hollow it gets extremely hot and humid in the summer.
The N3 highway near Lions River. This part of Natal is known as the Midlands.
The last stretch heading home. The Wagendrif dam lies at the bottom of the valley on the left. Turn off to my cottage is on the left at the top, after turning left we turn right over bridge crossing the highway, then it's only a couple of hundred metres, and home.
Wagendrift dam, photo taken as we drove past. Note the uprights of the bridge railings slanted to the right. They are actually vertical. The Italian Leprechaun gave me a physics lesson as to why this happened in the photograph, not that I understood any of it. (I'm a librarian not a mathematician).
Today was one of those perfect winter days we have here in Natal. Blue skies, bright sun and warm. Last week was cold, overcast, with lots of rain, all the staff at school were walking around with long glum faces, complaining about the weather. We are not used to real winters here. I think tonight will be very cold though, clear skies means frost at night.
If tomorrow is like today it means good trout fishing weather. Think I'll bunk church and go fishing, give Mark's wiggle tail flies a try. Starting to feel guilty already, but I think I'll get over it.
