This week we’re back to the travelogue from our trip to South Africa, leaving Cape Town and heading east from Betty’s Bay which was the subject of my previous travelogue post.
The howling wind kept up all the way to Arniston where we had booked into a cottage for two nights. Arniston is a strange place consisting of two distinct halves which is reflected in it having two names. The name Waenhuiskrans reflects a large cave accessible from the shore at low tide which the Afrikaner settlers thought large enough to house a wagon and team of oxen. The name Arniston reflects the wrecking of the British troopship, Arniston, in 1815 with the loss of 372 lives. The little village consists of a collection of traditional fisherman’s cottages near the slipway where the fishing boats are launched. Next stands the smart Arniston Hotel with its parking lot full of tour buses and expensive cars. Beyond that is a collection of holiday homes in various styles, some reflecting the traditional architecture and some quite incongruous. During our visit this side of town seemed quite deserted apart from the cottages where we were staying which had one other group booked in. We had anticipated being able to buy some supplies but the only shop seemed to be the fish and chip shop in the fisherman’s village which one of the local fisherman directed us to. Some “cow in a box” from the friendly shopkeeper gave us the milk we needed for our tea and coffee to go with the fresh bread we had bought in Kleinmond and jam we had brought from Natal.
Photographically things didn’t go according to plan. I had envisaged taking some landscape shots with a neutral density filter to smooth out the sea and get some cloud motion but the howling wind meant that the only place to set up a tripod and gain adequate stability was in the lee of the public toilets which limited composition options somewhat! Some patience was rewarded by the setting sun peeking beneath the clouds briefly to light the cottages. Using a 9 stop ND filter gave a 30s exposure at f22, ISO 100 which smoothed the water and conveyed some of the motion in the wind blown clouds. Nikon D800 with 24-120 f4 at 24mm.
