A short stroll in the Helderberg Nature Reserve

Partly cloudy, overcast day. Decided to take a short slow walk around the dam at the Helderberg Nature Reserve.

Light breeze blowing, from the north,  and it was bitterly cold! When I arrived, there were quite a few cars in the parking area, but when I left about an hour later it looked like the drivers and passengers all had the same idea as I did - enough! Time for a warmer environment!

There's not much going on in the reserve at present - season changes are due soon and things will brighten up, but we have typical winter scenes right now - not much colour and subdues tones. However, there were still some worthwhile things to capture. And one good thing about the overcast conditions - the shady areas offered nice dark backgrounds for the subjects.  

Herewith a small selection of images.

The weather conditions

The mountains

The dam

A splash of yellow

A new life emerging

Wind-swept protea

A Cape Robin showing the way

Various lichen varieties

A final splash of colour

Vergelegen walkabout

 

Monday morning 25 May2026. Went for a stroll around the beautiful Vergelegen Estate. Such a beautiful day - cool, with not a breath of wind. In fact, sitting on a bench in the wetlands section, with the sun filtering through the trees, the only movement was a leaf dropping gently and slowly from one of the trees. Heaven!

Anyway, here is a small selection of some of the images I took during the walkabout.

The breakfast show

 

We normally enjoy at least a cup of coffee on our outside patio in the mornings. There used to be much more activity in the past when we had a bird feeder that we filled with wild bird seed, but the guinea fowl and turtle dove and rock pigeon domination put an end to that. We now just have a mild sugar-sweetened water feeder. And this does a suitable job of drawing in the performing actors.

Here are a few of the visitors we have:

That was scary!

The Kingston Trio

Breakfast time

Don't think they'll see me here

Busy dressing

Do ya wanna fight?

Bad hair day

RGB Palette

Morning stretch

I like that!

Website

Thanks to the fabulous Slickpic Team (the team@slickpic.com) I finally have a website, where I can share some of my favourite photographs with family, friends, and anyone who may be interested.

You can access the site here: https://robminter.slickpic.site, or via the Portfolio link above.

As an added and totally unexpected bonus, I received an email from them with their latest "Photography News", dated November 10, 2025. Here is an extract from the newsletter:

An upside to all this is that after a long layoff, I am hoping to go back to publishing a few more blog posts. So let's wait and see! That's the plan, anyway.

APSSA Honours

 

On Sunday afternoon, March 5, 2023, I received an email informing me that my application for the Associate Photographic Society of South Africa honour, APSSA, was successful!

This after a terrible attempt about 3 years ago, when I really had no idea of the quality expected, an attempt in July last year, and finally this attempt in January 2023. Of the 15 images submitted in July last year, 9 received acceptances, and these acceptances stay valid for a period of 2 years. So I had to find or take 6 new images that would blend into the panel and get them accepted. Thankfully this last attempt succeeded.

There is a panel of 12 judges who sit and evaluate one's images. In order for an image to gain acceptance, at least 8 of the 12 judges have to rate it as being to the required level. This applies to every image in the panel of 15 submitted. On top of it all, the total panel has to be in harmony and flow smoothly when the images are viewed one after the other and as a panel as a whole! So it's not easy, but very rewarding when it happens.

I have a number of people to thank for helping along the way, especially Evelyn Gibson, Kim Stevens, and Nicol du Toit - these three were the leaders of an "Honours" group in the Western Cape for the July submissions, and finally to Jill Sneesby, for her invaluable insight into the selection of the final 6 images.

My successful panel can be viewed here.

Bon Accord Farm Cottages 2

 

Early morning view from the patio

Please click on the photos to bring up larger versions.

I recently celebrated my 75th Birthday. My lovely wife, Jacqui, treated us to 3 nights away at what has turned out to be our favourite place away from home - Cottage No 2 at Bon Accord Farm Cottages in Montagu.

It was as, if not more, beautiful as our first visit earlier this year - which you can read about here! This time, however, the effect of the recent rains can be seen from comparing the two main photographs.

This visit we spent most of our time in and around Montagu, except for a short trip out to Barrydale - 62 kilometres away along the R62! I will shortly do a separate blog post on our visit there - we had a specific destination, and spent most of our time there - a fascinating place!

An added bonus for us was that this time we got to meet Elsje, the owner and manager of all the cottages, and she treated us to a delightful extra large bowl of her Mom's home-made soup and a fresh loaf of bread. Totally appreciated and a great help in combatting the cold weather!

Most of the birds that visited were the same as last time, but we did have a visit from a bokmakierie (photo below), whose distinctive call could be heard from a long way away, plus a green sunbird (also below).

Otherwise, here are just a few views of the farm and surrounds to end off with. The photo showing the moon was taken on the Saturday morning after the recent blood moon. The third photo shows a small section of the tango (a late-harvested seedless mandarin) fruit trees, while the colourful vygies just show a very small section of the plants that greet one upon entering the farm.

Bon Accord Farm Cottages - Montagu

 

As part of our annual break, we spent 3 days in Montagu. As is normal when we go away, I used https://www.safarinow.com/ to find suitable accommodation, and went through a large number of possible places to stay. Our normal preference is for a self-catering unit with wi-fi, a shower, and, especially, either a king-sized bed or two single beds.

While it might sound simple, the places available fulfilling these three requirements are few and far between, but at least Safarinow supplies really good descriptions of the properties and what they offer, whereas their competition normally falls short on detailed information.

We decided on a place that we hadn't heard of before. It looked and sounded great, and one of the three cottages at Bon Accord Farm Cottages was the final choice. And that was the best decision we've made in a long time!

We chose Cottage No 2, and it turned out to be where the owners' first lived when they came to the farm. It was beautifully equipped, with everything one could ask for. The photo below shows the living area as one walks through the front door. The patio outside is huge, running the full length of the cottage, with a braai place and complimentary bag of wood and firelighters ready and waiting. The photo at the top of this post shows the magical view from the patio, though it doesn't quite do it justice!

I have not included photos of the rest of the inside, but there are two bedroom with en-suite bathrooms (one full and one with shower only). The main bedroom features a queen-sized bed, and the smaller bedroom two single beds. All are equipped with electric blankets.

I can honestly say that it is the best accommodation we have experienced during the many years that we have travelled locally on holiday. Most of all, I have never felt as relaxed and peaceful as I did during this particular stay.

There are a few landing spots right in front of the patio for the birds that frequent the farm to perch, and shown below is just a few of the birds that visited while we were outside enjoying the serenity.

All photos taken with the Fujifilm X-T4 and 70-300mm lens.

Our hosts at the farm were Anton and Elsje (pronounced "Elsha"), and while we did not get to meet them in person, Elsje was always available for information and queries on 0828541457. She was extremely helpful and accommodating.

We look forward to staying there again.

Remembrance and Hope

Every year the Photographic Society of South Africa hosts a competition, the Marike Bruwer Award for Visual Art (details here). I took a chance this year and entered the above photo into the competition, and am absolutely honoured to have won the award for 2021! Reading the judges' comments was the cherry on top!

The idea for the photo started with all the talk and excitement regarding the introduction of the Covid-19 vaccine into South Africa. One couldn't escape from all the news about it - with not all the reporting being positive. During the same period I came across a photo of candles that had been lit for people who had died after contracting the virus and wondered whether the whole situation could be captured in a single photograph.

It took a while for me to get the concept together. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, and once I had the picture in my head, it was fairly straightforward from there. First thing was to get all the pieces together, and after unsuccessfully asking a few friends if they had an old-fashioned candlestick holder that I could borrow, eventually put a query on the Facebook Somerset West Community page for one. I had a few responses, and the one in the photo was my favourite. It turned out the lady had no use for the set of two anymore, so gave them to me.

I decided on the large black background to represent the huge amount of darkness that the virus had caused, from things like loss of freedom and jobs, to, of course, lives. I thought about which colour the vaccine should be, and while this represented the "hope" side of the equation, I chose to make it red to indicate caution, as there was still a huge amount of discussion and argument around whether the vaccine would work or not.

I had the syringe from a previous shoot when I was working with some water droplets, but getting the flame proved a little more difficult. I tried copying and pasting from flames from matches, etc., but they didn't work that well, so in the end my wife used a chef's blowtorch to heat up the end of the needle until it got red hot and looked like a flame. 

Camera and settings:
    Camera:                       Fujifilm X-T4
    Lens:                             Fuji XF 35mm F2 R WR
    Exposure program:    Manual
    Exposure:                    1,5 sec at f/5.6
    ISO:                              160

Please click on the photo to bring up a higher quality version.

Helderberg Nature Reserve

View from the dam on the reserve

On Wednesday 15 September, Jacqui and I took our first walk around the Helderberg Nature Reserve. It started off as a cloudless but cool day, with a very mild breeze, but the clouds came in while we were walking. Ideal for photographs.

Total cost for our one-time visit, 2 pensioners plus one car, was the princely sum of R45 (R15 each)! For those who might be interested, annual memberships are very reasonable at R140 per annum for ordinary members, and R80 per annum for the over-sixties.

Both Jacqui and I are very unfit, and so we decided to start off with what is the shortest trail. It is the "Sugarbird walk" and is supposed to be just under 3 kilometres long. Ya well no fine, if they say so, but I can tell you that it felt more like 10 kilometres! From the parking area it was a steady but gentle climb to to top, and then happily downhill all the way back! 

Then again, I can't swear to it that what we did was the Sugarbird walk. The paths are not nearly as well-marked as we expected them to be, and so there were times when we chose a path more by instinct than anything else. Maybe we missed a turn or something, so next time we will definitely spend some time asking questions at the Information office before we set off.

And we will be back, even though it took me about three days to get rid of the stiffness so that I could walk normally again! It was lovely being out in the fresh air and being surrounded by the natural and diverse vegetation that Cape Town with which is blessed. 

To end off, some photographs taken along our walk.