Saturday 28 August 2021

 End of August - end of winter - right?  Wrong!

After two days of fairly consistent downpours resulting in just over 75mm of rain, we woke to a very cold morning with lots of snow around. There was even a sprinkling of snow on one of the really low mountain peaks close to us - this shot taken from our patio. First time in four years that snow has hit this peak!

So we set off early to see if we could find some decent falls. And what a correct decision that was! Straight onto the N2, over Sir Lowry's Pass, and as we took the turnoff to Grabouw, we were treated to the following sight, and knew it was going to be a good morning:

A short while further along the road to Theewaterskloof, we stopped for the next shot.

As we reached the first proper sighting of Theewaterskloof, I took the panoramic image that starts this post, plus the following to show just how far down the mountain the snow had fallen.

At this stage we decided to go home via the Franschhoek Pass, and that also turned out to be a good decision! Here are some photos taken along the way, on both sides of the pass. It's worth mentioning that at the top there were hundreds of vehicles parked in legitimate parking areas, as well as illegally on the side of the road, encroaching onto the driving area. Added to that was the fact that visibility was absolutely minimal with the low cloud that had descended onto the pass. But it was a small inconvenience and did not at all detract from a wonderful drive.

Our only poor choice during the morning was to then finish off the trip with coffee and photos at the Postcard Cafe in Stellenbosch, as we knew there would be some spectacular snow views from there. But unfortunately the cloud was so low and the rain so heavy that we could only juts make out the snow areas, and so gave that a miss.

Theewaterskloof Dam

 

On Saturday, 17 July 2021, Jacqui and I took a leisurely drive along the N2 towards Caledon, and then turned off on to the beautiful scenic R43 to Villiersdorp, where this year's canola fields were just starting to show themselves. We wanted to view the dam from the wall side. The above shot was the first view we had.

It brought back memories of that horrible time not that long ago when the words "Day zero" were on everyone's lips. It had been forecasted that Cape Town would run out of water during April 2018, though luckily it didn't happen. Just in case anyone doesn't remember, here are two images showing what the dam looked like in November 2017, albeit these were taken from a different viewing angle to the images taken this year.

Back to July 2021 - a short while further and we came across the area of the dam wall where the water overflows when the dam is full, and saw the wonderful sight below - the dam at 100% capacity and overflowing! Long may it last!