Now in W I D E S C R E E N ! ! !

I grew tired of the narrow column format that almost all blogs seem to have as their bog standard (prehaps to make short posts look as if they are a little longer and that something notable has been written). So after playing around with the template a bit I finally managed to get a wider format. Hopefully this hasn't affected how the blog is viewed on other PCs - so please let me know if you are now having problems viewing the whole blog. To celebrate the new widescreen format I have posted a panorama picture from Haga Haga, stretching from the Miller abode, "Threeboys", on the right to the beach on the left.
Unfortunately the pictures won't stretch all the way accross and still come out the same size, so to view them in their full splendour you still have to click on them (or right-click, "Open link in new window").

I See The Sea, And The Sea Sees Me

I saw the sea today. Not a great claim from somebody who lives in a seaside city, on an island no less. But, as I've said before, St John's is well hidden from the sea behind the back of high sea cliffs that surround its harbour. You do obviously see the harbour often and I get a brief glimpse of the sea on my walk to work, but beautiful vistas of great expanses of ocean are not seen with much regularity.

So this afternoon, when staring at my computer screen started to lose its appeal (well, about six hours after it lost its appeal), I decided to take a walk out in the woods behind NAFC (the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre - where I work). It was -9C with a windchill of -20C but the sun was shining proudly and the wind didn't seem to be chilling to its full potential. It was incredibly beautiful out there. The snow had melted from the trees but still covered the road, and it glowed an upbeat white in the sun. There were no sounds except a few birds who had forgotten to fly south for the winter and the crunching, crackling noise of the snow getting compacted underfoot (and "Queens Of The Stone Age" playing through my iPod).


Just off the road behind the building there was a fairly large pond completely frozen over the top but still flowing beneath the ice, feeding a small stream that runs past NAFC. So the first thing I did was what any self-respecting curious person would do (curiousity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back), I threw various sized rocks at it to see if I could break it. That ice wasn't giving at all though (and probably won't till May), but I did only have limited firepower at my disposal (I know what you're thinking Phill, and you're probably right - if I'd had a brick I could have done it). Nevertheless, I decided against trying to walk accross it.


The road wound on for about a kilometer and a half untill the sea came into view between through the gap between the trees. Various birds of many descriptions were flying above it (though not being a twitcher I can't fill you in on the details of their taxonomy) and, as a marine biologist and sea-lover, it felt good to see the sea again. The sun, rapidly decending for the night, allowed me one more glance of the ocean before hiding away behind the clouds. So I turned to head back noticing that the wind had been at my back all the way down, which was probably why I hadn't felt that cold. Within five minutes my nose was numb and I had started to lose feeling in most of my face. It's tempting to lick your lips as the wind drys and cools them, but believe me with a windchill of -20C this is not advisable. Still, I made it back to the warmth of my office (and a steaming cup of coffee) feeling invigorated, refreshed and very happy to be working in a place where I can escape to surroundings like that whenever the feeling grabs me (and Mother Nature allows me).

The Think-back Blog

Well I promised fresh posts but as of yet I have failed to deliver. Various things have got in the way but I won't bore you with the details. Instead I'll pull a trick that sitcom producers have used for years: in the absense of any new ideas or for the want of an easy week with minimal work they produce clip shows from previous episodes. Last year this time I had just returned from a great trip up the west coast and into Namibia with Steve. I sent out a trilogy of four e-mails at the time but many of you would not have got those. So with that in mind I take you back to 1 January 2005 for some highlights of an unforgettable trip through driest, hottest Africa...

(I have included a few pictures here but the complete set can be found on my flickr sight: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55214460@N00/sets/72057594049172046/)

Following a sleepless New Year’s Night, Steve and I began preparing for a camping trip we were setting off on that very afternoon. We had to be in Lambert’s Bay by six and still had to pack, shop and say goodbye to everyone before heading off. We had no confirmed plans beyond the first night. Sometimes the least organised trips can be the best and this turned out to be one of those. We timed the trip up to perfection and had arrived at Lambert’s, set up camp and got to the Melkbosskerm by 6 on the nose. For those of you who haven’t been lucky enough to go to the Melkbosskerm, it is an outdoor all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. The boma is just off the beach and we had an amazing sunset as we ate course after course – pickled fish, bokkoms (fish biltong – not for me), smoked angel fish and snoek, fried fish, calamari, mussels, fresh farm bread and homemade jams, koeksusters and coffee. A very good meal (esp. the smoked fish) but even though we both ate till we could eat no more we went away with the feeling that we hadn’t done justice to all the food that was available.

The next day was a scorcher. We decided to stay on one more night at Lambert’s and took a roadtrip out to Clanwilliam. The most hospitable place was in the water of the Olifants River dam. Incredible water and a beautiful scene but by the time we had got back to the car we were hot already. That night we decided to go on a pub crawl to check out what the local establishments had to offer. The unimpressive Lambert’s Bay Grill offered good brandy but not much else. The local barfly at the Lambert’s Bay Hotel Bar tried to convince me that Australia were 16 for 8 and that Botha had taken a hattrick but not much else was happening there. Our next stop was the Bay Breeze Sports Action bar along the beachfront road. We were greeted with signs saying ‘Vuil taal word nie geaanvaar nie’ and drank beer by the quart. Before long the karaoke got into full swing – the bartender leading the way and singing almost every second song. We were clearly the only tourists in the place and were encouraged by the friendly locals to enthral them with song. The night really got going with my rendition of ‘Robbie Williams – Real Love’ and Steve was soon to follow with a rendition of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Ended up staying there longer than expected bringing our pub crawl to a holt. A fun night all-in-all and we finished it off sitting around a fire back at our campsite.

The next day we headed up to the Orange River. The drive up is really striking. Great expansive landscapes and constantly changing terrain – great, solid mountains changing to hills that look like piles of boulders, to great big piles of gravel. Very dry and desolate but intriguing and calming. Hot az hell of course. We were aiming for a campsite called Peace of Paradise were the folks and the Smits had stayed a couple years back. After driving 20km or so down a pretty rough gravel road past many potential camping areas we eventually found Peace of Paradise – burnt to the ground. All that remained was the scars of where demarcated campsites once were, ruined buildings and a severely singed car. Paradise Lost. So we turned back and stopped at the next campsite – Oewendal, a spot where a lot of the canoe trip guides hang out. Got a spot right of the banks of the river and went for a quick swim to Namibia. Again the water was great and not very deep (only above our heads at one point across the river). We watched the sunset from the top of the hills at the end of the valley – another awe-inspiring sight. Dodged a scorpion on the way down – started wishing that I wasn’t just wearing my flimsy slops. Then got the life scared out of me as something shot right past my foot that I assumed to be the mother of all scorpions but was in fact a lizard. Had another good braai that night, again focussing on meat though I did have a can of sweetcorn, so vegetables were represented.

After a morning swim in the Orange we headed of to Namibia. First stop Luderitz. Another awesome drive there, especially the last 120km between Aus and Luderitz – massive expanse of stereotypical white sand desert. Don’t think I really fully appreciated to incredible country side the first time I drove this road to Luderitz. It had been more than 15 years since we were last there but the wind hasn’t stopped blowing. Since then the railway has shut down and has become covered by dunes in part (they are in the process of getting it up and running again). The town didn’t have the same small, quaint, clean German town feel about it that I remembered. Seems more like a working, harbour town now with lots of hang-abouts on the streets. Couldn’t even find a good sausage. Had a stuffed calarmari tube at a seafood restaurant at the Luderitz waterfront though. Found a decent campsite on Shark Island, below the lighthouse. That evening we set out to find a nice place to swim and headed off in the direction of the Diaz Cross. Got to a place called Griffin Bay about 25km out of town an hour and a half before sunset. A cold wind was blowing and a thick seas mist was starting to roll in. But we swam all the same. Got back to the car, dried off and were looking forward to heading back to a warm fire and good food when I realised that the car keys were in my pocket all the time. Now immobiliser remotes don’t react well with cold seawater, so we were left stranded at Griffin Bay. Fortunately we had cellphone signal and were able to call emergency services who wouldn’t help us because we weren’t members of the Namibian AA. They gave us a few numbers to call though. Eventually we got through to a friendly German/Afrikaner named Heinz who got out to us fairly quickly. He couldn’t sort out the remote but wasted no time in taking apart the dashboard and sniping wires with gay abandon until he had bypassed the immobiliser (“Stole a lot of cars in my youth” he said). Went back to his workshop the next day and got the immobiliser and remote sorted again – all for R225, would have been worse in SA I think.

To brake up the trip to Windhoek we decided to spend a night somewhere in the vicinity of Keetmanshoop (not IN Keetmanshoop, being the dump that it is). So we chose an extinct volcano about 60km north. We had to drive about 40km off the main drag along a gravel road. We crossed the Fish River, trickling along below an over-sized bridge, and many other dips in the road over dry river beds. The volcano was very impressive, not particularly massive, but dominating the flat, expansive countryside in which it stood. Storms were brewing on the horizon and we could count about four belting down rain around us. We set up camp at a small campsite on the side of the volcano. There were more sites further up but these required a 4 by 4 to get to. Still we had a great view and were the only ones there (later another family arrived). We went for a walk up the side of the volcano and the wind started picking up. Steve hadn’t pegged in his tent because of the hard rocky ground and it promptly blew down the side of the hill with the first big gust – our fellow campers could be seen charging after it, saving us a lot of hassle. We saw another incredible sunset from the top of the hill but a few drops of rain were falling by the time we got back. We finished off another great braai (marinated pork chops, onions, potatoes, chocolate bananas) just as it was getting dark. The storms on the horizon weren’t so distant any more and as the lighting flashed we could see a huge sheet of rain moving steadily towards us. As it got closer you could hear it falling sounding a bit like wind in the trees. Then it hit. The zip for the outside waterproof section of my tent hadn’t worked all holiday but as I ran for shelter in my tent it worked for the first time! Good thing too, because it was raining in buckets. There were huge bolts of unfeasibly bright lightning (even through the tent and my closed eyelids it hurt my eyes like a camera flash), roaring thunder (lasting 30 seconds and more) and great bowels of winds. My “Summer Sun” bubble tent didn’t know what had hit it. A light mist was falling through the “waterproof” outer section and my feet and head were getting wet. This carried on almost the whole night. We must have been hit by at least five storms with a few lulls inbetween. The beers I had had with supper were speaking to me but I couldn’t risk going out of the tent in case the zip chose not to work again. At one stage I woke up with the roof of the tent hovering just above my face. The wind was beating it completely out of shape and I had to spend a good 10 minutes lying on my back holding up the tent with my legs to stop it from breaking. At this point I seriously considered jumping ship and sleeping in the car but then I thought I would never see the tent again. It was a very exciting night. Didn’t sleep much though.

The next morning peace was restored. Things were a bit damp but the sun was out and the clouds had passed. Our troubles were just starting though. Remember those dry riverbeds we crossed? Mammoth dessert rains have a way of turning those into flowing rivers. The first one we came across was about 30m wide and around knee-deep (MY knees) and flowing fairly steadily. Not a problem for your average offroad vehicle, but we were in a Citi Golf. We got out and walked across to find the best route then Steve took the car through. Almost immediately our number plate came off and was washed away in a wave from the wake of the car. Spent half an hour trying to find it to no avail. The second river was a bit wider and the car almost cut out right in the middle but spluttered its way through in the end. Fortunately the rains must have been confined to fairly close to where we had camped because as we got further the rivers got smaller and they were all dry for the last 20km. The Fish River was flowing proudly though, justifying its big bridge. We got a new number plate at Mariental and then carried on to Windhoek (this section of road is far less inspiring than the Luderitz road). That night was the farewell for one of the VSO volunteers Steve worked with so we went for sundowners and then to an Argentinean Steakhouse for dinner with a group of volunteers (nice bunch of people) who were in town. The next day after a sad farewell to Steve, I flew out to Joburg. And so 2006 began…

Two Seasons In One Month

From this...
...to this!
Well I have returned from my holiday in the sun to the harsh reality of winter in St John's. I had an incredible month-long holiday back in SA shooting all over the country for weddings, graduations, christmas dinners and general merriment. But all good things must come to an end and I have returned to St John's to resume work (Peter said he lost $20 in the office pool saying I wouldn't be able to leave SA again). The temperature has not for one moment gone above freezing since I got back 5 days ago but I will relive the warmth of my holiday past as I go through all the pics and create a few new blog entries. keep an eye on "Milldaz Of The North" over the next few weeks because I should be (hopefully) adding a number of entries and a few albums of pics on my flickr site too. And oh yes, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all.

Bonjour de Rimousky!

I spent last week in Quebec for the DFO national science workshop. It was hosted at a research centre in a little place called Mont Joli (for no apparent reason as there weren't any 'monts' in sight). There are no hotels in Mont Joli so we ended up staying about 30km away in a town called Rimousky on the bank of the St Lawrence river/estuary. The river is HUGE, easily the biggest river I have ever seen (in fact the Gulf of St Lawrence is the biggest estuary in the world). It doesn't say much for my qualification as a marine biologist, but I thought it was the sea when I first saw it. It had snowed before we arrived but the rest of the week was clear, sunny weather. This is not to say it was warm (in fact De Aar has moved down in the rankings behind Rimousky), and I have come to realise that in Canada the amount of sunshine has no bearing on the temperature - I first picked up on this after an ill-fated breakfast on the patio in St John's.

The place was very French and I am not. I managed to get by with just Bonjour! and Merci!, said enthusiastically in a way that was friendly but assured people that that was all they were going to get out of me. There were plenty of good restaurants in Rimousky and a particularly good crepérie where I had a couple of good meals with some of the other folk from St John's (no pictures of this place though - the pic on the right is from a FAR more expensive, but really good French bistro where we ate on the last night). Tasty food (basically you can stuff your crepe with anything - like choosing pizza toppings) and a nice, relaxed pseudofrench atmosphere. Last time I was immersed in a French environment I ended up drinking alcohol-free beer with dinner. I managed to avoid that cock-up this time round but it was still testing trying to navigate around the menus. I spared no expense when it came to food, safe in the knowledge that I was putting the Canadian tax payers' money to good use.

The conference itself was alright. Bilingual obviously so they had all presentations projected in English and French. There was also a pair of interpreters doing their best to try translate often jargon-loaded scientific talks given by people talking as quickly as possible to squeeze there presentations into 15 minutes. As a result I got a good overview of marine research being done in most of Canada, but only a vague idea of what is going on in the French speaking parts. My poster (also in English and French, although I have no idea if the French bits are accurate translations) was the most irrelevant one at the conference. Given that I have only just arrived in Canada I presented work from my PhD - details of modelling work done in South Africa at a conference designed to showcase Canadian research.

As the crow flies Mont Joli is about a 2 and a half hour flight from St John's. But they like to give you the roundabout route in Canada so it took as nine hours via Montreal and Halifax instead. Monti Joli Airport, being a small one, has no metal detectors. So everybody's luggage is thoroughly checked by security, one person at a time. Fortunately only 20-30 people can fit onto the small planes that service the airport so it didn't take more than an hour. It was quite cool to fly in the smaller plane. I traditionally get placed next to a wing whenever I get window seats but this was the first time I got a wheel. I have new respect for tyre and suspension design in planes after watching the wheel when landing in Montreal.

Moose!

Moose are in season at the moment and Janine's father shot one last week. Apparently Moose aren't native to Newfoundland, and have in fact driven out most of the natural Caribou population, so hunting is used as means of control of the Moose population. Hunters enter a draw to get a licence to shoot one, which they can then use as they please. So we had a Moose roast last night and it's pretty good eating. Quite similar to the venison we get back in SA - more flavoursome but a bit less tender than beef.

The Pall Of White

Snow! It snowed last night for the first time since I arrived in St John's. Just a light snow flurry but it carried on through the night to leave a thin crust of snow in the morning. It was a bit heavier at work and was also snowing this morning when I walked up to the NAFC from my bus stop. I was taking photos like a Japanese toursit untill it was too cold to keep my hands out of my gloves! The shot below is a before-and-after (from a slightly different perspective) of the view from the road I walk to work (click for full size).

Downtown St John's

This is the view from the balcony of the coffee shop in The Rooms (see post below). You can see it full size if you click on it (that goes for all of the pictures in this blog by the way). That's St John's harbour and part of downtown St John's. Its almost the perfect natural harbour and you can barely see any of St John's from the sea. You can't tell from this picture but there is a fairly steep decline down towards the water (its a real bugger to walk up after a few drinks on George Street). I live to the right of this picture about a kilometer or two down the road. The NAFC, where I work, can barely be seen on the side of the hill on the extreme left of the picture.

The Rooms

Fishing is THE central theme in Newfoundland culture. The Rooms is a Museum-Art-Gallery-Archive of Newfoundland history, so named after the rooms where fisherman would take there catch to be processed by the families - "a gathering place where the land met the sea that was central to the lives of the fisherman" (according to the brochure). I went with Celine on the weekend (free entry on the first Saturday of every month - still got certain student instincts for a good deal), and its actually a very impressive building. Its designed to look like the traditional steep-roofed Newfoundland houses (only much bigger, more modern and with lots of mirrors) and it is very modern inside with some incredible gallery rooms and great views from the restaurant at the top. There was an excellent display of photos from around the island over the last 20 years and I picked up a bit more of the history of the place. Its good to know a bit more about the place I am living. We were going to head to the mall afterwards (so that I could spend some of my money now that my first pay cheque has finally arrived) but we missed the bus and it was too cold to wait forty minutes at the bus stop. Fortunately there was an incredible sunset to look at on our walk home.

Halloween!

Last night was Halloween and we had our fair share of trick-or-treaters. Didn't make a dent in our sweet supply though, so it looks like it's chocolates and bubblegum for breakfast for the next few weeks. Janine is really into the whole Halloween vibe and, considering she is doing half her varsity courses online and therefore has a lot of time on her hands, every day I get back from work some new decorations have been added. So our place was pretty well decorated from the jack-o-lanterns outside (Celine making one below) and little ghosts on the balcony, to the eye ball lights and the fake blood on the toilet handle.

While the actual night of Halloween is for the kids, the adults celebrate it with big parties, crazy costumes and much drinking the weekend before. In Newfoundland that means "St John's Mardi Gras" downtown on George Street.

My housemates and I had a Halloween party at our place before heading downtown. I went as Fidel castro (less the cancer), Celine as a witch and Janine went as a zombie bride of some description (in a wedding dress she got from a thrift store for $5). It was a good party and a met quite a few people, most of whom I will have to meet again considering we were all in disguise (some impressive costumes actually - people go all out for Halloween here) and a fair amount of punch, jelly shooters and beer was consumed. Apparently there were some great costumes downtown as well but I was in no condition to judge by that stage. I must be starting to take root here because I was able to find my way home at 04:30 in the morning after loosing everybody in the huge crowds downtown!