Hi Bill. I have linked Leigh's short video of the Gannets for you.

Now we’re talking. The Karoo looks more than a bit too severe for us, but this is fantastic. We may have to fit a tour down there into the planner.

Hi Bill.
My apologies for not taking many nature photographs on this trip - I know you enjoy them. I guess I am so accustomed to seeing the wildlife in South Africa that nothing really inspired me. However, the Gannets were something else. Leigh has done a short video of them - I'll see if I can post a link.
Regards
Jean-Marc

Loving the bird photos with ID! Thanks for the efforts!

Spectacular color!

That's quite a story. So it worked out for the best!

Reaching for your Dictionary of Impolite Adjectives and Nouns! That's great. I'll be using that phrase from now on.

Also, that's interesting about the Khoi and San folks are getting some recognition and recompense.

As I suspected. BC doesn't have a lot of cateyes on its highways because the plows scrape them off in the winter; the only ones that last are the recessed kind. Of course, when you're driving in bad light, they are missed.

We get so little snow and then only on the highest mountain passes. Occasionally a pass might be closed for a few hours. Salt and grit would be an overkill let alone snow plows.

I suspect South Africa doesn’t have the needed snowplows to remove them.

Hi Mike. I was also born in the Transkei! My parents were living in Willowvale (between Idutywa and the Wild Coast) at the time. My grandparents traded at Lusizi (between Kentani and Willowvale).

The impression I have always had of South African folks' prejudices is that they have been mostly racial and that religious freedom has always been sacrosanct. But for God's sake, don't believe in nothing ! ;-). Unfortunately, the size of South Africa's Jewish community seems to have diminished significantly over the past thirty years. The majority of my Jewish friends married out of the faith and only one, who remains single, attends schul regularly. There were so many Jews who were important in the Liberation Struggle and would be a shame to see the community die out here.

And here I thought the corbels were the stones protruding to the outside--but I couldn't figure out what they were meant to support.

Thanks for the history lesson Jean-Marc.

I grew up in Umtata in the nineteen fifties and there was a small Jewish community there then including our family GP, an Attorney, a family who ran a private hotel and the rest must have been in retail. There was no overt anti Semitism at that time AFAICR, they were just members of the community.

Hi Jacquie

A snippet from the Northern Cape Heritage Trust's site describes it as follows (when talking about early Dutch settlers to the area):

"They discovered that trees were sparse and set about building their dwellings using the only available material, stone. As there could be no wooden trusses to support the roof, they made use of an ancient method of construction known as corbelling. This technique was implemented by placing successive courses of flat stone, each one extending a little further inward than the layer beneath, until the walls almost met at the apex. The remaining hole over the roof could then be closed with a single slab. The corbelled buildings of the Northern Cape are the only examples in Southern Africa that still stand today and represent a special phase in the history of vernacular architecture in South Africa."

Regards
Jean-Marc