National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year

I must resurrect this blog and briefly bring it out of retirement in order to announce the 2016 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year!

The Grand Prize Winner is none other than Greg Lecoeur for this photograph taken during the Sardine Run off Port St. John's. We were there with Greg when he took this photograph! So exciting!!! We counted on Greg to document our experience on the Sardine Run and he came through big time!

Viewing the photographs from the National Geographic contest was something we looked forward to every year during our stay in South Africa, whether it was in Pretoria or in Cape Town. I will miss seeing them in person this year.

Congratulations Greg! Now back to sleep in Singapore ...

Exotic Oasis

with Award-winning chef Chantel Dartnall – voted SA’s Chef of the Year!

Eleven of us were honored with a private tour of the exotic Orient Hotel in Elandsfontein and six of us stayed on for the three hour degustation luncheon afterwards at its Belle Epoque-styled Restaurant Mosaic. (You other guys sure missed out!!!)

The Orient Hotel is an oasis of calm and beauty in the middle of the Francolin Conservancy on the outskirts of Pretoria. Vince and I had eaten there for Easter Sunday lunch and I was hoping to get back for another visit. And what a visit!

We were the only guests in the entire hotel. Chantal flew back especially from her retreat in Cape Town to open the Orient just for us!

We were led on a tour of the extensive gardens,

the celebrated Tienie Pritchard sculpture museum,

photo by Yolanda Macias-Cottrell

and the hotel's private screening room ...

WOW!

the patio balcony of the Marrakesh suite

We were given a peak into a few of the sumptuous guest suites!

Sommelier Germain Lehodey

We toured Mosaic's impressive wine cellar, one of the finest in the country, with some of the best and rarest wines from both South Africa and the world. Not surprisingly, it has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades including the Wine Spectator 2015 Restaurant Award for Best Wine Cellar in Africa.

Luncheon is served ...

... in the private dining room!

beetroot and sweet potato crisps decorated a branch

There were so many additional courses of amuse-bouches, intermezzos, and other treats, tastes and bites that we lost count!

Fish & Chips Mosaic-style

Mousse de Mer

A Creation of waterbuck venison, red ivory fruit preserve and sumac

Magic Mushrooms for dessert!

All I can say is WOW!

Cemeteries!

the cemetery in Jerusalem

I have a dark confession to make. I love to visit cemeteries!

Not all cemeteries. Just the cool ones. By that I mean cemeteries with history or famous inhabitants, beautiful grounds or remarkable architecture. I always check to see if there is a cool cemetery in any city we visit. Pere-Lachaise in Paris, Highgate in London, La Recoleta in Buenos Aires, the D-Day Landings Memorial cemeteries in Normandy, the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, the "new" Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem, the Novodevichy in Moscow and the Alexander Nevsky in St. Petersburg.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Boston

I am not macabre or anything. It's just that you can tell a lot about a city and the people who lived - and died - there by their cemeteries.

Autumn is the best time to visit NE!

The USA has some great cemeteries too. The simple and somber Colonial and Revolutionary War cemeteries in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, the grandiose cemetery statues and mausoleums in the Southern cities of New Orleans and Savannah. Forest Lawn in LA, Green Wood in Brooklyn and Mt. Auburn in Boston. The military cemeteries like Arlington National Cemetery and Gettysburg. (I especially like to visit cemeteries around Halloween - okay, that's a little macabre!)

Yet I hadn't visited any cemeteries in Africa since moving to Johannesburg ... until now when the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation offered a tour of the Braamfontein Cemetery as part of their program over Heritage Weekend. I had read about Braamfontein Cemetery in Lost and Found in Johannesburg, Mark Gevisser’s wonderfully written memoir about growing up in Joburg during apartheid and was eager to visit it myself.

The Cullinan family plot

Braamfontein is the oldest existing municipal cemetery in Johannesburg. There are many famous family plots there - like the Cullinan family plot  - and there are mass graves from some of Joburg's most notorious disasters - like the Dynamite Explosion of 1896. Most of the cemetery is broken up by religious denomination. Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, and the large Jewish burial ground described in Mark's book. There are even crematoriums and ash burial grounds for the Indian population as well. (I didn't see any Catholic graves but I assume the Catholics are buried in Catholic cemeteries. I must look into that.)









I didn't recognize many of the famous people buried in Braamfontein but famous graves are not the only reason I visit cemeteries. I like to look for symbolic elements on the older grave sites.

the clasping hands indicate a final farewell

flying hourglass = the swiftness of time's passage

the draped urn is a visual of the separation of the living and the dead

the dove indicates peace and purity; usually found on the grave of a woman who died young

angels are guides to heaven

a column represents mortality

a woman carrying a cross = faith

a woman holding an anchor = hope or eternal life

lilies = purity, chastity

lamb symbolizes innocence; they are usually found on the tombs of children

wreaths symbolize victory over death

We were warned not to visit the cemeteries in Gauteng unaccompanied. There was evidence of  squatters and the homeless in Braamfontein and it is dangerous to venture in alone or unguided.


 





 

So I am waiting for an escort to visit the Heroes' Acre Church Cemetery in Pretoria where along with the tomb of Paul Kruger, you will find the graves of Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Hancock,  two of the court-martialed defendants immortalized in Breaker Morant, the 1980 Bruce Beresford film set in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War.

One of the fierce women from the SH2015 Gaza Gray archaeological dig in Kruger happens to be a South African "cemetery expert" and knows exactly where their graves are situated. Maybe we can visit on Halloween, Leonie?

Hooray for Harties!

the view of Hartbeespoort Dam

Hartbeespoort, nicknamed "Harties", is a small resort town in the North West Province on the slopes of the Magaliesberg mountains and the banks of the Hartbeespoort Dam.

It is a popular place for holiday homes as well as day visitors from nearby Gauteng. Less than an hour (but a world) away from Joburg and even closer to Pretoria, Hartbeespoort offers a wide variety of activities and attractions including animal sanctuaries and outdoor craft markets.

Amazingly though my friend Ros, a lifelong Joburg resident who has been to some of the remotest places on the planet, had never been to Harties! (Isn't that typical?) So we took a drive out on a beautiful spring day for lunch and a little explore to rectify the omission.

I had not been to Hartbeespoort in a while myself. Vince and I would go out there often on weekends when we first moved to Joburg. The landscape is spectacular, there is lots to see and do and it is home to the Transvaal Yacht Club where we once belonged. But after we joined the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town, we ditched sailing on the dam lake for the more exciting two oceans of the Cape and said good-bye to Harties.

my ticket to ride

First stop, the Harties Cableway Experience, a gondola ride to the top of the Magaliesberg. On the weekends it can be a tough ticket to get but during the week, we just hopped on the next car up.

up, up and away!

overlooking the Transvaal Yacht Club

The view is gorgeous. It was a just a little too hazy to really claim to have seen Joburg way off in the distance, but I think we could make out some of the Sandton skyline on the horizon.

Back down on solid ground, we took a scenic drive through a carved out tunnel and over the dam bridge before heading to lunch at French Toast.

Hooray for Hartiwood!

French Toast is a cute little French bistro located on the former movie set of the 2015 Afrikaans film, French Toast. Rather than film all of the Paris scenes in France where much of the movie is set, producer and director Paul Kruger, shot them right here in Hartbeespoort on a recreated Parisian street.

The French Toast set and bistro have been open to the public for about a year. Ros was reminded of its existence by an ad she saw for the Hartiwood Food & Film Show last weekend. Ros had worked at Television SABC with the director Paul Kruger when he was a studio camera man and she was an editor there.

if you use a little imagination, you can almost hear the accordion music ...

the Eiffel Tower

love locks!

the Alexandre Cafe

The film French Toast opened in April of this year and as such is long gone from the theater. But they were selling DVDs of it at the little gift shop so I bought a copy for Vince and I to watch at home. It is an Afrikaans language film with English subtitles.

Even the menu at the bistro has subtitles. The dish names are in French and Afrikaans and the description is in English! Ros and I had a couple of salads and the food was good.

ooh lala!

It was a cute place, a nice little diversion and a good addition to the offerings at Hartbeespoort. I am anxious to see how well Hartiwood translated Paris to the big screen.