Calm Seas, a Fresh Breeze…and a Brass Bell

One of our favourite eateries is the Brass Bell restaurant in Kalk bay. Their website is: https://www.brassbell.co.za/

The ambience created sitting virtually surrounded by the sea is amazing. For an experience like that the food doesn’t even need to be that good. However, as it happens, the food they provide is excellent & very definitely worth the drive out to Kalk Bay. If you do decide to go take the following tip from me… reserve a table next to the windows a day or so ahead of time for an amazing treat of the waves crashing just a couple of metres away from you.

Unfortunately as per the title of this blog, I cannot guarantee Calm seas… but who wants that anyway – the waves are so amazing!

Laaiplek – Peace & Bustle Simultaneously

Laaiplek on the West Coast. It is a peaceful little town that hosts a place to break away from the rat race. Laaiplek Hotel.

With friendly staff and situated facing the Berg River as it runs into the ocean the hotel provides marvelous views coupled with good food. The rooms are few but quite comfortable. It is one of my favourite get-away places and never fails to satisfy.

Check out the slideshow of photos taken during our last visit here in March 2019.

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West Coast National Park

This week the South African National Parks Board has opened it’s gates to citizens of South Africa without charge – yes free entry! And just for this week apparently.

We decided to take advantage of this freebee and took a drive of about 100 Km to get there.

Unfortunately, from one aspect of the trip, we picked the wrong day. But in every other aspect it was perfect.

So what was the one aspect that was troublesome? The weather. It was overcast and cool and threatened to bring a few drops of rain – which it did later but did not last long and could hardly be called rain. However the overcast conditions were not ideal if one wanted to see the wild flowers. Evidence of wild flowers was aplenty but lack of sunlight left them prepared for cold and rain… poetically speaking – hatches battened down and all…

I did manage to get a few photographs when the sun peeked out for a few minutes near the beach. Also featured in the photographs is our 2 yr old grandson exploring the flower trail with grandpa.

The weather apart we really enjoyed the restful drive which ended with something we did not expect. A surprise gift from the ocean. Some whales were frolicking in the small bay called “Plankies Baai”. That was so awesome to see… I suspect that it was a Southern Right Whale mother and her calf playing together.

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Photography is fun too!

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Yes, it is not all business – photography can be fun too! One’s imagination is the limit. ok, so maybe you need a bit of technical expertise, and some knowledge of how to manipulate images using software, like Photoshop, Lightroom, … Continue reading →