Hout Bay a Fisherman & a Painter

When going to Hout Bay from the city bowl you can choose to go via Kirstenbosch and Constantia or via Camps Bay. Both drives are equally scenic and beautiful, one green and one blue. Driving through Constantia there are old massive trees towering above you almost right along that drive and the road climbs for quite a while before it goes down to sea level at Hout Bay. As you go up you catch sparse glimpses of the Constantia valley below which reveals itself between foliage, branches, trunks and twigs and the Kirstenbosch mountains looming above on the other side. It feels as though you're travelling through thick green forests and with the window of the car open the smells are rejuvenating, fresh and ionised. I felt that if my lungs could speak they would shout a joyful 'thank you' for all that health-giving oxygen. I breathed and breathed and breathed.

Going via Camps Bay is a totally different experience of high, winding roads overlooking a great expanse of seemingly eternal, continually changing ocean, horizon and sky. Exhilarating! Then past Camps Bay there are little, yet exclusive and luxurious (and frightfully expensive) coastal suburbs all along the way to Hout Bay.

Cathy and I drove there via Camps Bay and we decided to stop in Llandudno as she had not been there either. Llandudno is another exclusive, luxurious beach-house suburb right on the ocean with each house built high up to maximise the uninterrupted views of the sea and it's myriad of moods. Someone told me that Cliff Richard has a house there, don't know if it's true. The beach at Llandudno seems to go on forever, and because there are no shops in Llandudno, seems to attract less people. The way down to the beach is a green tunnel with a little path, very quiet, and as it was very misty there that day, quite eerie. The misty beach was grey as was the sea and the houses could just be seen between swirls of mist, quite enchanting. We walked along the beach for a while but soon wanted to get back to the car as we were both feeling a little unsettled by the sheer quietness and mistiness of the place.


After the mist, clouds and stormy weather at Llandudno, we arrived to a brilliant blue sky in Hout Bay, and that's what Cape Town is all about, change, change, change. Before exploring, looking and wandering around we needed food. So, off we went to the second best fish and chip place in Cape Town (first is Kalk Bay, but my opinion only!) Overlooking the sea and rocks you eat your fish and chips from a paper packet at a wooden table with opportune, screaming seagulls hovering over you, very, very close, to try and snatch whatever they can, fingers included! We were however very good at keeping our lunch safe and gobbled up every morsel. They didn't get anything from us!

Others though were more giving and sharing and even went so far as to hold out their food to the gulls most unselfishly

Tummies full and feeling content we strolled around a bit and then walked to the jetty to look at all the fishing boats. There was a shirtless fisherman on one of the boats fixing his nets and when I asked whether he'd mind if I took a picture of him. He asked if he should put his shirt on and I quickly replied: "no, no, don't worry", wanting to have an authentic picture of him but then feeling a bit embarassed by my seeming keenness to have him topless. Oh well, life is full of misunderstandings!

We had our portraits sketched by a long-haired, rather grubby but interesting-looking man wearing tatty clothes. We all chatted while he was drawing us and he turned out to be a singer and martial artist. The drawing though was awful and he'd drawn us so that we both looked exactly alike except that he'd added a few lines around my eyes and mouth and made my hair straight, but although we thought that he probably should stick to singing and doing martial arts, it was fun to have our picture done.

Then, as the day aged and feeling tired and 'walked out', we headed back to the car and looked forward to the drive back. We both felt that it was a priviledge to have such beautiful places to go to whenever you feel like it.

We went home feeling happy and blessed.