The Langebaan skyline at sunset. I love the silhouette effect of the skyline, especially the outline of the roofs. It reminds me of a dessert oasis at sunset.
Category: <span>Travel</span>
Ok, so it was 2 sunsets in a row, however this pic is really different from yesterday’s pic.
This was taken at Langebaan, standing on the balcony of our holiday house, watching a west-coast sun setting over the lagoon. Even though winter is coming, we still get the best weather this time of the year, and it was just wonderful standing outside enjoying a wind-free evening.
Langebaan is a small holiday community about 100km North of Cape Town. It is home to the West Coast National Park, and (although I cannot confirm) the largest lagoon in the Southern Hemisphere.
I have been going there since I was a little boy, and I still find it to be an amazing place.
An amusing way to paint your aeroplane. Zoom in on the pic to find the finer details of commercial flight. Well done to Kulula for an innovative idea.
A wall at Planet Hollywood, Times Square. It contains a couple of hundred Gibson Guitars, mostly the Les Paul.
This is a fitting memorial to the famous Les Paul, who died on August 13 2009. He created the Gibson Les Paul guitar, which was played by almost every rock band in the world.
He also invented multi-track recording, which of course revolutionised the music industry.
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Here is a picture of Paul McCartney’s bass guitar – yes the original (or so they say)! It was on the wall at Planet Hollywood on Times Square, New York.
It just looked sad, rows and rows of discarded school busses, after spending years moving school children to and from school, ensuring that the child arrive safely at school, the old busses have completed their useful life. They have now been discarded, and left out in the elements to slowly rust away, and die a lingering and painful death.
We arrived in Calgary, Canada last night. However, we almost did not make it. We were flying out of Philadelphia airport via Toronto, but when we went to check in, it seemed that were were booked onto an earlier flight, but via Denver! There had been some miscommunication between me and the travel agent!
Thank goodness that there wa extra space available on the Toronto leg. So, 3 orchids to the very helpful lady from Air Canada that managed to sort everything out for us so that we could get onto the Toronto flight.
Calgary is a very pretty (and clean) city. Downtown has loads of great restaurants and pubs, mostly located on 8th Ave – Stevens Walk.
Calgary Downtown
We had dinner at the Unicorn which was a great pub. I was told that they do the best fish and chips in the world, and they were pretty fine. We will go back later this week.
Not to be missed is the Calgary Tower, a climb of over 540 feet, with a great panoramic view from the top. They even have a section where you can stand on glass, and look straight down – an adrenalin inducing experience.
A long way down…
View from the top of the Calgary Tower
We spent the day at the Baltimore Inner Harbour. I am told that the V&A Waterfront is partly based on the Baltimore Inner Harbour, and you can really see the influence; the below picture could be the V&A. There are loads of pubs and restaurants, as well as waterfront activities, such as boat trips and tours.
Baltimore Inner Harbour
The Inner Harbour is popular with both locals and tourists – many people use the area for jogging. Although since it was over 30 deg, they were a bit too keen for me! It was far more leisurely to spend the afternoon sitting outside enjoying a light meal and a couple of beers, which of course we did. We ate a a great outdoors pub called J Paul. They have been going for 21 years, and the food was really great.
Enjoying a drink at J Pauls
Like all big cities, they had a Hard Rock cafe, and a Barns and Noble – in this case housed in an old power station.
Today, we went boating with Carlos and Cathy on Chesapeake Bay. We didn’t make it out onto the bay, but we were on one of the rivers leading into it. Cathy is Patty’s sister, and Carlos her husband.
Carlos’ Boat
They have a (small) 40+ foot cruiser, which was really fantastic. After sailing down the river for about an hour, we found a quiet cove in which to anchor, and we spent the afternoon swimming and tanning on the boat. The water was really warm – about 25 deg C. It was a very civilised way to spend the day.
What I loved about the area is how unspoiled it is – hardly any development, and no litter at all. I have also been told that property price is $3m+, so I had better start saving.
Life is tough…
Isabelle in her lifejacket – I think that Eccles would have jumped over the side ages ago!
Two years ago, we visited a Decoy Duck Museum on the bay, here are the real ducks!
The day was finished off having dinner in a little town called Chesapeake City, drinking red wine and eating Maryland Crab Cakes, which are just the best. The crab cakes are basically what we would call fish cakes in Cape Town, but make with garlic and cream, served with garlic mashed potatoes, which were especially effective at keeping the vampires at bay!
The River
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