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Hermanus
has had the wettest September in 48 years.
According
to the Magnetic Observatory, 136.5mm of rain fell, which is nearly
three times the average of 47.2mm over the last 52 years.
Last
year, 19.5mm fell in September - very little, but enough to delay the
rebuilding of our home here.
The
year before, only 7,2mm fell in September.
Wednesday
October 13.
The
September crowds have gone, and this place is back to being
near-paradise. Especially as my golf 'came
good', momentarily, on
Monday when my score dropped from the mid-ninties to 88 - including
two double bogeys and a fresh-air chip! But golf is verboten in this
diary. I mention it only because, after 18 holes of golf and three
beers, I went for a seven-km walk-run-scramble along the rocks and
paths and beaches along the cliff. Felt very fit. . . until next
day, when I could hardly walk.
Today
I found new things to explore only five minutes from my door.
Not
having the dogs allowed me to climb the rocks in the inlet beyond
Kraal Rock to our West. On a still day, with unusually docile waves,
it feels like a little Greek Island on the promontory that I shall
call Dippers Point. You
walk up a rough path of crushed shells through some scrub, then step
down the rock into clear, still, blue sea (on this day at least).
The spot is protected from the waves by a long flat island-rock
often covered with birds.
I
tried to climb along the cliff-face, with a drop to rocks and sea,
but my heart stopped when a dassie jumped out of a cleft, right
between my legs. A few yards further on, the ledge petered out, over
the sea. I explored the rock from another angle, then set off across
the boulder-strewn shore which has been virtually blocked to
cliff-walkers. It was half-way between tides, but the sea was calm
so there was place to scramble between the waves and the 'No
Tresspassers' signs. The
shore is not particularly salburious here, for there are several
concrete drains running into the sea and rusted pipes strewn about.
You have to climb over some cliff-edges. What really made me mad,
though, was the 'private'
swimming pool built-up with a sheer, ugly, concrete wall to above the
highwater mark. It is surrounded with 'No
trespass' signs, though
the pool itself trespasses on the shore-line.
The
concrete wall is unclimbable, but I found a way down the rocks beside
it and scrambled on to the next obstacle - another promontory of
rock, fenced off at the top, and a 'private'
concrete sea-pool further on.
Two
people headed across lawns down to the shore where I was. 'If
they tell me Im
trespassing, there is really going to be a row,'
I thought. . . but they moved away, and launched two rubber boats on
the calm sea. I scrambled round the last fence-post on top of the
rocks (the late Gavin Relly's
border) and back onto the interrupted public cliff path.
The
stretch of coastline I had just covered is all rock and boulders;
attractively rugged, but otherwise not very pleasant. Rotting seaweed
and sea lice scrambling among the stones. Still, a walk-way could
be constructed here, as it has been in other awkward places. I think
it a scandal that the shore shouild be 'privatised' for more than a kilometre in this key area.
If
the Relly's sell their
land, then that may be the moment for a campaign to open up the area
once again.
Sunday
October 31
Whatever
happened to October?
The
days run into one another, and I cannot recall whether we were on the
Caldeon road this month where the highlight was seeing wheatears and
larks and other birds flitting over green,green fields with a
backdrop of blue, snow-tipped mountains.
More
white flowers have burst out in great bunches on the cliff-top,
submerging others that dominated in August/September. The most
dramatic of the October flowers are the white 'ever-lasters'
with rings of gold at the hearts of their stiff white petals.
After
weeks of calm seas, the waves suddenly started marching in on October
29, at Spring Tide. They must have built up in heavy storms thousands
of miles away, for we have had only south-easters around the coast -
and they flatten the seas in this bay. Instead the seas came
pounding in. Waves sprawled over The Barricades below our windows
where the rocks stand 20 feet tall and had been dry for months. I
watched surf fling itself over the rock-face to our left and cascade
down its sides in a hundred sparkling white waterfalls. Suddenly one
wave exploded against those rocks and fired a pillar of water
perhaps 30 feet above Die Gang!. A fisherman on the topmost rock
disappeared from sight, and I thought I'd
never see him again. As the wall of water fell, however, there he
was, dripping wet. Instead of retreating instantly, he stayed to
reel in his line frantically, then headed for his car above the
bushes. I think the full weight of that wall of water must have
shot up between him and me, and that he received only the spray, as I
have done once or twice in that area. Ted Evans, a Hermanus 'swallow'
who spends six months each year in the south of France, was on a
bench behind Die Gang when I walked by. We could see the white walls
of water reaching right to the top of the cliff as he told me that he
knew of at least one fisherman who was knocked off that high,
seemingly unreachable pinnacle years ago. The angler was never seen
again.
Today
the sea is calm again, leaving only corridors of foam on its back as
a reminder of the heavy seas. Half the sky is filled with mist and
grey clouds - possibly trailing showers over the Atlantic. But the
other half of the sky is blue, with the sun dazzling the bay. It's
hot. The mountains behind us, appear cool, however, their crowns in
mist, their sides filled with green sunlight. A couple of whales
are breaching out their, leaving great fountains of spray as they
belly-flop back into the sea. I notice that this month they seem
particularly fond of sailing
that is, standing on their heads with their tails held
perpendicularly above the water, about the height of a double-story
house.
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