Mortal Coil

On our self-drive safari adventure in Kruger National Park (see previous entry on the “Big Five” here) we were amazed at the sheer variety and exoticism of the birds we saw. Apparently over 400 species (resident and migratory) call Kruger home, at least for part of the year. The park is really well set-up for birdwatching, with many hides set up next to waterholes and so on, and while I would not in any way call myself a twitcher, I did at least take an interest in what birds crossed paths with me, which is more than I can say at other times in my life.

In any event, we were lucky enough to encounter these fellows during our time in Kruger:

Scops Owl

Common/Steppe Buzzard

Goliath Heron

Cape Glossy Starling

Southern Masked Weaver

Southern Ground-Hornbill with Scorpion

Common Bulbul in a Bird Bath

Lilac Breasted Roller

Martial Eagle in Flight

Crested Barbet

Guinea Fowl

A few more bird shots can be found on my Flickr set here.

Next up: some more of the fantastic creatures lurking around the Kruger…

Following on from our brilliant time exploring Cape Town and its beautiful surroundings, we hopped a plane to Johannesburg, picked up our soon-to-be-abused rental car (a miniscule VW Polo we nicknamed “Egbert”) and headed west-northwest towards the Kruger National Park. What attracted us to Kruger was not only its reputation as a game-spotters paradise or its size (think Wales), but primarily we liked the sound of a self-drive safari. Yes, that’s right, instead of having to squeeze into a ruggedized Land Rover with ten random fat tourists, we were free to explore the park and get up close to the animals as we saw fit. As a photographer this is a blessing. Of course, next time I would have chosen a slightly bigger / higher car, but I still preferred it to being subject to the whims of over-excitable children (“LOOK! AN IMPALA!” for the 80th time) or, worse…. birders.

“THE BIG FIVE”
Ever since Victorian times, there have been five animals in Southern Africa which have been known by this collective moniker. This is not because these are the five biggest species around – no, it’s because, back in Victorian times, these were the five animals most likely to turn around and make a run at you if you missed them with your first shot. We managed to see four of the Big Five, only missing out on seeing leopards, who are very elusive at the best of times, but in the 35-42C heat we experienced (early November) the leopards were well-nigh invisible. But we had many, many consolation prizes…

Lion
As mentioned above, the daytime heat, even in early morning / late afternoon, was pretty staggering – so the lions we saw were generally interested in one thing only: sitting around and panting. This had plus points and minus points. The minus point was the obvious lack of “action” shots. The plus point was that, once you worked your way through the scrum of cars angling for a look, it was generally safe to stick your lens out the window from a distance of down to 10 feet / 3m and shoot away without fear of losing a limb. So, out of a wide variety of sitting-around-and-panting shots I have chosen these three:

Adult Male Lion (who was just sitting outside the gate at Skukuza Camp….)

Buffalo
I have to be frank here and say that, despite their fearsome Victorian reputation, I did not find the African Buffalo to be particularly captivating. I suppose they must suffer a lot for this, as many people can name four out of the Big Five and then stall when trying to remember the poor old buffalo…

Rhino
One of the first encounters we had with a rhinoceros was at close range, as it was ambling along the side of the road, grazing on the fresh green grass to be found there. We were one of only a couple of vehicles and for a time we were able to almost idle alongside it and snap away. It might have been the heat, but almost every time we saw the rhinos I did not feel the slightest hint of threat. It was great as well to get up close to a creature that has essentially not changed for millions of years. Our only regret was that we only saw white rhinos, not the much rarer black rhino.

Elephants
Elephants were byt far the most numerous of the Big Five we encountered, which was lucky as we were so enamoured of them. They are the real deal, by turns majestic, powerful, slightly menacing, and – would you believe it – playful. Once we got over our initial nervousness of how to manoever around the big bulls (in short: do what they want and be ready to run like hell) we really got to enjoy just sitting and watching these giants do their thing, which is primarily running ravage over the countryside, leaving a trail of shredded, snapped and denuded trees in their wake. And you haven’t lived till you’ve been in the middle of a herd of 30-40 elephants as they cross the road in front of and behind your car…

We were very happy to see quite a few instances of play-fighting by the younger elephants, usually in and around the water. On our last day, when three separate herds totalling over 70 animals had shown up at a watering hole below our picnic spot, we watched amused as the elephants played tug-of-war with their trunks, splashed about in the mud, and in one instance, even cheekily mock-charged a pod of hippos hanging out nearby.

More Shots from my Big Five collection may be seen here.

Next installation of photos from Kruger will be…. birds. After that I will move onto some other critters we encountered on our safari. Stay tuned!

I’ve been clocking up the miles lately. For most of October I was away with work, first in Dubai, then Turkey, and finishing up in South Africa. Fortunately, when my work was done in South Africa, I was able to kick back and relax a bit, and Nicola flew down to join me for a 10-day trip combining a bit of a a sun-and-fun city break in Cape Town with a magical 5 day safari drive through the Kruger National Park up on the borders of Mozambique / Zimbabwe. But I am getting ahead of myself…

CAPE TOWN
We started out in Cape Town, a fascinating city with much to recommend it: from the amazing geography of the place – all views dominated by Table Mountain looming above – to the diverse and vibrant population (somehow not bitter after all their potted history), it was a great start to our trip. And the Capetonians sure know how to eat, drink and be merry. We based ourselves just on the other side of the mountain from downtown, in a swish beach resort suburb called Camps Bay. From our 1 bedroom flat overlooking the ocean we set out each day to get to know the town and the surrounding area, including the Winelands, the Cape Point, the Kirstenbosch gardens and of course Table Mountain itself. We had very full days punctuated by some of the finest meals we’ve had in ages. A great start to the trip.

Around Cape Town

Houses of Bo Kaap

The Victoria & Albert Waterfront

The Victoria & Albert Waterfront

Camps Bay

Camps Bay and Table Mountain (Panoramic) – click here to view this in a large format

Boy on the Rocks, Camps Bay

Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles

Sunset on Camps Bay Shoreline

Kirstenbosch and the Winelands

Kirstenbosch Gardens

Kirstenbosch Gardens

Kirstenbosch Gardens

Franschoek Countryside

Franschoek Countryside

School Bus, Franschoek Countryside

The Cape Peninsula and False Bay

The Cape of Good Hope

Cape Point Lighthouse

Cape Point

Ostrich at Cape Point

Penguin at Boulder Beach, Simon’s Town

Beach Huts at Fish Hoek

40 Winks, Fish Hoek

Surf off of Hermanus

Table Mountain

Table Mountain Cable Car

Abseiling Table Mountain

Top of the World

Atop Table Mountain

Fynbos Flowers on slope of Table Mountain

Cape Town from Table Mountain (Panoramic) – click here to view this in a large format

Of course, these and other Cape Town shots can be found over in my Flickr set here.

Stay tuned – in the not too distant future, I will post select shots from the second half of our trip – our safari through the Kruger National Park…

I realised that I haven’t posted anything new on here (or Flickr) in about a month. Unforgiveable, I know. So here is a little bit of a photo-taster before some upcoming trips which are sure to result in a deluge of photographic main courses….

In any event, last Thursday I followed tens of thousands of tourists into the deserts outside Dubai.

A small set of other photos from this expedition can be found over on Flickr.

More to come as I have trips upcoming to Turkey (on business), South Africa (business and pleasure) and New York (pleasure)….

This year’s Bestival (my third visit) had potential to be a washout as the weather forecasts leading up to it were less-than-encouraging (one site saying that Sunday was going to see extended periods of “torrential rain” and 50+ mph wind gusts). In the event it was not quite as bad as all that, and the worst of the weather was saved for the early hours of the last morning, with high winds and rain providing a suitable finale to the festival. We did experience the amusing sight of empty tents blowing and scraping along through the fields, and not a few gazebos flew away into the night.

We were lucky with the weather, then, and so managed to catch the Cure, Bjork, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash (epic set), Brian Wilson, the Urban Voodoo Machine, Toots and the Maytals, SBTRKT, Health, and a host of smaller acts dotted around tiny stages that we enjoyed despite not having a clue who they were.

This year’s fancy dress theme was Rock Stars and Divas, and there were plenty on show beyond the expected Slashes and Beastie Boys crews.

As usual there were a few quite random acts to see as well, from the “Wall of Death” motorcycle spectacular to the “Lords of Lightning” show featuring two men in chain mail, standing on two huge Tesla coils and fighting – with lightning.

As usual, there are a few more photos to see over on my Bestival 2011 Flickr set…

After our abridged visit to Carnival on Day 1, we walked down from Queens Park to Notting Hill on Monday psyched up for a full session at Day 2. The mood was slightly subdued by grey skies and unseasonably low temperatures (think 17C) and, I suspect, quite a few hangovers from Day 1. But you can’t stay subdued for long once you get sucked into a mas parade full of exhuberant, brightly attired dancers with ear-to-ear grins. This time we mostly hung around Kensal Road, Golborn Road, Portobello, Westbourne Park and, to finish the day off, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues where we were treated to a somewhat ramshackle ska set by his band, The Trojans. As usual Day 2 was a bit more crowded and edgy than Day 1, but aside from a handbags-at-dawn flareup at one of the soundsystems we didn’t see any trouble to speak of. Biggest drama of the day was, as usual, where the shortest toilet queues could be found.

The photo below might be my favourite from Day 2 – two pirates from one of the mas crews did a double-daggering on a giggling bystander right in front of one of London’s finest – and the cop couldn’t help a fit of the giggles as well. (Generally daggering at Carnival is good-natured but I could see how it would get mightily annoying from a female perspective…)

That’s enough of Carnival for now, but if you’d like to check out the rest of my photos then head on over to my Notting Hill Carnival 2011 Flickr set.

Earlier in August I had the opportunity to join some friends on a walk around the Cotswolds, a lovely area of rolling green hills and chocolate box villages over towards Gloucestershire. While it was a lovely walk, the rolling green hills were a bit of a photographic challenge, it being the middle of the day when we had our walk. But I managed to snag one or two shots I was happy with.

As a once-resident of Barcelona I return from time to time to reacquaint myself with the city and with my good friends who still live there. We were able to have a small visit last month and enjoyed sauntering around the Barrio Gotico and Barceloneta, including a visit to my favourite cava bar, Can Pejano.

After a few days we moved on to the countryside, to a tiny village called Montiro in the Catalan area of Alt Emporda, where a friend’s family had a welcoming holiday home. Montiro is surrounded by lovely apple orchards and fields of straw grass, rolled up into bales.

I just wanted to share this post from AFP’s Leon Neal, a snapper I have been lucky enough to talk with on many occasions via Twitter (where he goes by @TabascoKid). Very scary stories (and brilliant shots) of what it was like to try and cover the London riots of August 2011 from a press photographer’s perspective:

http://www.leonneal.com/blog/2011/08/12/london-riots-august-2011/

It’s definitely worth a few minutes of your time to check this out.

Tonight, many neighbourhoods in London are on fire, and it seems more trouble is popping up all around, Harlesden being the closest to where I live in Queens Park. Most of the trouble seems to be in Hackney though, well east of us.

But when we looked over that way all we saw was a pretty wicked, horizon-to-horizon rainbow.

Guess there’s still stuff to be happy about in London, after all.