Fernwood - Days 5-7

Those who may have noticed - yes, blogging does require a discipline I haven't mastered yet. I should record thoughts as they occur but find myself scratching my head 4 days later to regroup my thoughts. Oh well, here goes.

Having walked most of the trails in the area many times we decided to be a bit more adventurous on Wednesday so we chose the sunken forest walk which we had last done in the 90's. It turns out that the walk isn't even on the map anymore but that didn't bother us since we knew where to go - up towards Sphinx and turn left at the Robin Hood Forest sign, then through the RHF onto a path we recalled as being rather badly defined, into the sunken forest. The sunken forest is known for the huge halleria lucida trees that grow there and they are in flower at this time of the year. Unfortunately the bad path has become a non-path and we got as far as the RHF but could not see a way into the sunken forest. After much bundu bashing we had to give up although we did get the chance to walk paths we hadn't experienced before. We joined up with the path heading to the hotel and followed it taking many detours to explore new vistas and terrains.

On the way to the hotel we walked through what were most probably commercially viable pine forests many years ago - now they are just mono culture deserts that smell quite nice. Invaders become more of a problem the closer you get to civilisation - bug weed, blue gum, wattle and of course, pines can't be excluded. 

Our last full day, Thursday was spent walking all the Fernwood paths. Not much new to report, except a lovely Aloe at Dingaan's Cave and some lovely Zebra encounters.

Travelling back on Friday was great because most of the traffic was heading towards KZN for Comrades. Hardly any traffic to contend with - even back in Jozi we had a fairly free road. The next trip to Fernwood will be next year - the withdrawal begins!

Fernwood - Day 4

If anyone ever gets the chance to visit this area you must visit Falcon Ridge. We have been there half a dozen times and never tire of it. Falcon Ridge is a rehab centre for injured raptors and to fund their work they show the birds to the public for R 70 pp. When I say show it is an understatement - they tell you about each bird, how it came to be in rehab and then show you how they hunt. The fish eagle, the owl, the peregrine falcon and occasionally vultures too, although they are more difficult to control since they see red toenails as food and have scared the hell out of some guests. Apparently when the falcon stoops they can reach a speed of 300 km/h before ripping the head off their prey; the owl is totally blind up to half a metre and the fish eagle only occasionally hunts fish, although it is the only raptor that takes fish on the wing.

We always have one retail day and this was it, although I think we may need to change this habit in the future because our visits are too frequent for the shops to have anything new on offer. We did however find a really cool bottle opener in the guise of a crocodile - and Rose added to her rock collection.

Fernwood - Day 2 & 3

Day 2, Sunday. We never buy the newspaper in paper format except when at the berg. We spend the day lazing around, scanning the Sunday Times, eating, napping and generally enjoying the feeling of not having to do anything we don't want to. All in all a lovely day until I decided to watch the soccer and got treated to Liverpool's humiliating 6-1 defeat by Stoke. You can't have it all, I suppose.

Day 3, Monday. We decided to get a fairly long walk in today so chose the Hlatikulu walk (7,5 km). After crossing the Mpofane river there is quite a steep climb into the forest where we were treated to almost sighting a Porcupine - it was so close we could smell it (OK, there was a funny smell that neither of us owned up to) and also found a few quills. 

I didn't realize how destructive they are until I saw the debris left along the path. I suppose they deserve to be allowed to graze as they have for ages before we came upon the scene. Talking about destroying the environment, why do hikers insist on littering? Rose had the idea that every guest be asked to give a mouth swab when they sign in and then if snotty/crappy tissues are found they can be linked to the guilty party so they can be fined - worth considering. Personally I think we should try to keep this pristine.

Fernwood - Day 1

Heading off on holiday shouldn't be frustrating but any trip that goes through Jozi on the N3 is going to be all that and more. More because 2 eejits collided near the Allandale off-ramp and caused a 30 minute stoppage. Anyway, having chilled our way through that the rest of the trip was great - one pee break, a lunch stop - yoghurt and a banana - and a last stop in Winterton at the chemist. We got to Fernwood at about 4 giving us plenty of time to unpack and then sit on the verandah sipping a drink and snacking on peanuts and raisins.

Supper was a highlight though. We brought frozen meals that weren't labeled but I had assured Rose that this meal was a chickpea curry, and we had therefore prepared the normal side dishes - raita and rice. Once we defrosted the meal it turned out to be beef soup so we ended up having soup with rice and raita. Rose couldn't stop giggling.

Eskom greeted us this morning by switching off the power a few seconds into boiling the kettle. But, good little campers that we are, we had brought a Cadac cooker so managed to boil water for our morning coffee, albeit a bit delayed. The lack of electricity also prevented us from having bacon and eggs for brekkie, so undeterred we had them for lunch. The rest of the day was spent reading, napping and to end the day a short walk down to the reservoir. Guess who we met on the way home?

Right now Rose is plotting another huge win over me at Scrabble. 

How could I possibly win with tiles like this? (My thoughts). How could you possibly lose with tiles like those? (Rose's thoughts).

A Fair Wage

I read an article recently that highlighted that some Scottish football clubs were paying their ground staff below the living wage of £7.85 per hour. They quote a minimum wage (£6.50 per hour) as well which is 21% lower than the living wage. I suppose all countries have a figure they use as the benchmark to keep employers in line, but what varies is where that line is drawn and it got me thinking about our own minimum wage level. I am certain that making this comparison is flawed and I will get flack from some quarters, but I reckon - what the hell! Let's give it a go.

Adopting the most simplistic approach, I took the Scottish minimum wage benchmark of £ 6.50 per hour and converted it to Rands (roughly R18 to the £), multiplied by 172 (hours per month) and called that the equivalent in Rands. For those who aren't highly numerate or who don't have a calculator at hand that comes out at R 20,124 for the minimum wage and R 24,303 for the living wage. Now, how does South Africa compare?

After a bit of Googling I learned that the minimum wage - we don't seem to have a living wage - isn't a single figure but differs dependant on the industry, region and job, which I found strange. Does this mean that someone working as a labourer needs less money in order to live compared to say, an artisan? Clearly an artisan is more qualified and should earn more, but I think a minimum wage should be sufficient to support a family. We all want children who need food, clothes, an education and a safe home. OK, so how does a hospitality worker in a large company get by on a minimum wage of R 2,900 per month? Even when one looks up the ranks a bit I wonder how an artisan survives on R 5,376 per month, or how an assistant manager in the retail sector gets by on R 5,934.07 (I'm sure the 7 cents makes all the difference)?

The term minimum wage gives me no reason to believe that a person, let alone a family is able to live on that wage. Even if we adopted the 21% increase on the minimum wage, similar to the Scottish example to arrive at a living wage, I still cannot see how a family can ever hope to thrive let alone survive. Growth and progress needs a surplus; companies grow when they make a profit and have surplus cash to fund growth, similarly families thrive when they have surplus cash to invest in their growth. Just having enough will ward of starvation but there must be a surplus in order to grow. Why shouldn't South Africans be given the chance to grow?

So, lets get back to the Scottish football clubs who are under fire for paying less than the living wage of R 24,303 to their staff. I'm sure that in their context that is an issue which needs to be debated and dealt with, but wouldn't our workforce just love to earn a Scottish living wage? I am not an economist or statistician but when our minimum wages differ by a multiple of 4 with the Scottish living wage, I feel comfortable saying South African workers are not getting a fair deal.

I can see that the solution to this stand-off will not be found easily, but I cannot imagine that the Scottish economy is so different to ours that a wage differential of 4 times can exist. I suggest that the solution lies in a transparent and honest  restructuring of the wage hierarchy to bring the lowest levels up to the point where they too can live. I am aware that the highest earners may feel threatened by this and perhaps even be forced to inconvenience themselves and their families by downsizing or even worse moving to a country where the weather sucks and they have no friends - my heart bleeds. Surely we have enough intellectual capital in South Africa to deploy an Economic CODESA as suggested by Clem Sunter on numerous occasions and crack this nut? There must be a way to slice the cake differently without wasting everything. I am afraid that if we don't we might have no more nuts left to crack. (or cakes to slice).

Come on - have a heart South Africa!

Sidel come to visit

Just to preempt your comments "Sidel" can be regarded as a plural because it refers to Sid and Elizabeth (Liz), hence the, I believe correct use of "come" instead of "comes."

With that out of the way, this post is an account of Sidel's visit, all the way from George.

Sid has a sweet tooth with a particular bias towards chocolate cake so we took them to the Bisibean coffee shop. Without sounding like a Tripadvisor review, the coffee and chocolate cake as well as the service, ambience and overall experience were totally up to standard and I would recommend them with a clear conscience. 

Our next stop was the cableway. The advantage of going midweek is that we found plenty of parking and were second in the queue. Two uncharacteristically well-behaved school groups were among the other visitors, and gave me a new respect for our youth.

The winter smog limited the views a bit, so we couldn’t see the Jo’burg skyline and Botswana. Even after living in Harties for 35 years I am still impressed by the beauty of our area. It does help that you cannot see litter and potholes from up there but I suppose that is what is meant when you are advised to look at the “big” picture. Small pictures are mucky so I must remember to always try to get a squiz at the big picture. Except in art galleries I understand because the Mona Lisa is actually a very small picture. The trip down in the cable car was rather unpleasant because an alarm was repeatedly sounding from the speaker in the car. We were convinced we were either making the car unbalanced by our seating arrangement, and the car would come crashing to the ground at any moment, or the car itself was malfunctioning and we would come crashing to the ground at any moment. Either way we were convinced something was about to happen that matched the sound of the alarm which was, to be very clear, alarming. As it turned out the alarm was alerting us that the battery in the speaker was low, so we were told with a smile when Rose and Liz asked the official at the station. We do jump to conclusions - possibly seeking adventure?

One quick look at Heros, the restaurant at the cableway convinced us that other options had to be considered. Since Sidel had been to Silver Orange the day before we decided that Siesta Bistro would be a nice choice. Their style of food is Spanish and true to their old name - Tapas - they have a long list of tapas on offer. We ordered 6 plates to share and sadly had to send some of the food back uneaten because we were literally stuffed. Having been there before I knew the mixed mushrooms were superb and together with the chicken skewers, patatas bravas, roast veggies, chorizo and battered hake we had a feast to remember.

Our next activity was dictated by the size of the lunch and we returned home where we sat on the verandah and soaked up the unseasonably warm afternoon sun. Sheer bliss.

Having spent the evening solving South Africa's and then the whole world's political, social, financial and …. well, generally all the problems one can think of, well beyond Sid's normal bedtime we retired feeling we had done our duty to humanity (no payment expected and don’t expect any of us to remember the solutions).  This morning, after a light breakfast we said farewell to Sidel having really enjoyed our time together. 

We look forward to enjoying their company in George when next we take a break in that neck of the woods.

My Meerhof morning

This morning was no different to most weekday mornings; woken by the brash alarm, drank barley green, made Rose coffee, laid out the breakfast and then headed out for a walk.

Being an almost full moon this morning the lack of sunlight was not a problem and the sight of the icy white ball in the west was awesome. I look forward to my morning walk because I am naturally a "morning person" but this added lunar bonus raised my spirits a notch.

I walk a variety of routes through Meerhof which I have measured to be roughly 4 kilometres and that take me about 40 minutes to complete. Because I leave at about the same time every day I bump into the same people heading out to work or taking a walk. Occasionally there are joggers and cyclists too. I sometimes think how each person I bump into and greet with a good morning or, more often the Afrikaans equivalent gooie môre are able to appear on cue, as if choreographed to appear at the same spot each morning. We are all creatures of habit I suppose. Sometimes I imagine I am walking in some romantic Italian city that I would like to visit again but mostly I enjoy the exercise in the fresh morning air and the occasional surprise offered by nature and my fellow early birds.

One morning I nearly bumped, literally into a porcupine returning from his or her nightly prowl. It wasn't aggressive but did rattle its quills at me to make sure I noticed it, even though it was at least a metre tall. Other mornings I see huge flocks of bee eaters leaving some tree where they have roosted overnight drawing attention to themselves with their characteristic calls. Hadedas are predictable in that they always make a racket as I walk past them, stabbing their long beaks into the lush lawns or perching quite skilfully, I think on the telephone lines. I wonder if the late risers notice the noise and are annoyed by it, but I think they would have made a racket anyway even if I hadn't walked past because that's what they do. If I follow the waterfront I might see and will certainly hear the fish eagles making their iconic call that has become the signature in any radio advert where the African outdoors is the mental image the advertiser is trying to project. 

Hadeda

Bush baby

Very occasionally I have been lucky enough to see a nag apie or bush baby as they hop along the telephone wires in long leaps, many times the length of their body, never missing the line when they land and eventually finding their daytime refuge in a large palm tree. 

On the way home I am normally treated to a sunrise of varying degrees of beauty; this morning wasn't necessarily a disappointment but was just a gradual transition from dark to light because there were no clouds to refract the light. The most beautiful sunrises happen when there is a scattering of clouds close to the horizon and then I am treated, for the last stretch walking due east to the very best that nature can provide.

Although my walk is a part of my hum drum daily routine I hope the small group of family and friends who read this will find it interesting and worth their time.