Down the road a bit…

CHRIS BENNETT has been taking a look at the Karoo and the Cape.

A FEW days spent down in the Cape have been a tonic. My travelling companion was keen to see the Cape again, especially in the spring. The Karoo between the glorious Graaf Reinet and the forlorn dorp Uniondale was a rhapsody of colour.

I am colour-blind; however, my companion is not and he pointed out much which I would otherwise have missed.

It is a funny thing, colour-blindness. Very few women are affected by it but nearly ten percent of the male Caucasian population has to put up with it.

I have always been surprised at how ignorant people are about how we see things. Don’t they ever talk to their optometrists? I seldom see green at all. I see red, yellow and blue. Add the yellow and the blue and I shall see whichever is the predominant colour in the mix. If the mix is a perfect balance I shall be confused; not a difficult thing. Similarly purple is either red or blue.

But what about traffic lights, say the unschooled. Well, in the first place they are stacked and in the second place they are three perfectly distinguishable bright colours: Dark red, light red and blue. Which I am sure you find very funny, although I would prefer it if you didn’t.

The dazzling spring sunlight in the awe inspiring Prince Alfred’s Pass between Uniondale and Knysna is one of the wonders of our land. The road seems to be narrower than the equally breathtaking Swartberg pass, and the 18 kilometre drive wends its way through gorges of what look like the product of some mad giant confectioner, great twisted ropes of rock, loops and whorls that play tricks on the mind.

The drive takes the best part of three hours.

My first visit to Knysna in about fifteen years was rewarded with a look around the beautiful waterfront centre they have built. It echoes the timber clad past of this pretty town, and is refreshingly free of canyons of concrete. We stayed in Robin and Dawn Whales’s lovely place, high on the hill overlooking the tranquil lagoon. One other couple were guests there, whose car also had an NPS number plate. They had recently moved from Soutbroom to Port Alfred. A small world.

Council’s seem to have a thing about fixing broken piers. A walk down the road from our flat on the beach at The Strand in False Bay took us to the long and inviting fishing pier. It was closed; permanently.

The notice attached said it had become a danger to the public. I thought of our lovely pier at Margate. What became of all the engineers and architects.

Or maybe I should be asking what became of all the money?