This is Table Mountain. Snapped mainly for the benefit of Silas and Caleb, to compare and contrast with the Go Jetters version. I actually thought I might go through my stay in Cape Town with it obstinately shrouded in cloud, but it eventually emerged during a brief and welcome spell of sunshine, in proof that Grand Master Glitch had not managed to do any lasting damage to it. (To those without children under the age of 7, sorry, I know this makes no sense!)
SInce my last instalment, I have spent a lot of time photographing and cataloguing lantern slides. As that is not particularly exciting for most people, instead I'll focus on my visit to Cape Town yesterday. From my luxurious accommodation at the V&A Waterfront, I travelled into the city, stopping first at the South African National Gallery. A couple of hours here took me through an impressive array of artworks, from 16th Century Dutch masters, through works by Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederick Watts, through to apartheid-era works of resistance and disruption, and contemporary pieces seeking to express the nation's current hopes and fears.
A couple of pieces that stood out to me were Helmut Starcke's The Muse of History (2001), and Alistair Findlay's Land (1991), in which from one angle the colours of the ANC are visible, and from another those of the South African flag, bordered by an earthy frame. The first picture picks up on the interactions and inequalities between early Dutch settlers and local Khoi inhabitants, and the representations of those encounters, while the second highlights the land as locus for ongoing issues of possession and dispossession, ownership and allegiance. Unfortunately, the gallery shop is closed at the moment, so I wasn't able to get prints of any of the artworks, and the vigilant staff prevented any sneaky snaps.
After the gallery, the national museum. An interesting temporary exhibition on Darwin from the angle of his (little recorded) visit to the Cape, and amazing display and explanation of San rock art, dating back around 32,000 years, were supplemented by a quick tour round the fossils, whale skeletons and plethora of stuffed mammals. I then took a saunter through the Company Gardens, planted by early settlers in the mid-17th Century to provide fresh produce to Dutch East India Company ships en route to the East, but my cultural enthusiasm was definitely waning by this time. A return to my room, and lists of lantern slides, was suddenly welcome!
Heading east now, to Port Elizabeth, Port Alfred and Grahamstown, but more of this in the next update ...