A week ago myself and Carlinn spent the weekend at the Baywatch Villa Guesthouse in Paternoster courtesy of Safari Now and it also just so happens that we had a MINI Countryman to drive around all thanks to Francis and Nathan over at MINI Auto Atlantic, so it landed up being another #MINIadventure.
Day 3 of our adventure was the last as we had to drive back to Cape Town, but before heading home, we decided to go check out the fisherman coming back with their crayfish catch of the day. It’s really interesting how these guys actually get their boats in and out of the water, but if you watch the vlog below you will see exactly what I am talking about. They have bakkies and 4×4’s towing them in with some rope, but they have no trailers for the boats so they just drag them in and out of the water.
The fishermen in Paternoster catch predominantly crayfish, but they do go out and catch fish too when it is off season! The catch of the day that I saw just in one boat was a massive crate filled with the freshest crayfish I’ve ever seen and for the size of the biggest they had, all they wanted was a mere R85 / crayfish which is NOTHING compared to the R400 or more you’d pay in restaurants for the same size.
When we were done messing around on the beach for a little while, we made our way into town to check out the local art gallery, Stone Fish Art Studio and Gallery, which is owned and run by Dianne Heesom-Green, who I actually asked to be one of my “strangers” for my #365PortraitsOfStrangers project that I’ve been doing all year. Not only does she run the studio, but she also started the Kayak Paternoster business, where she has doing guided tours to see penguins, dolphins and whales for years now. Scroll down for her photo and her story that I posted on my Instagram feed.
After a delicious coffee and long chat with Di, it was time for us to hit the road. We drove out of town and stopped at an old windmill that has seen better days called “Moertoe gepomp” which is hard to translate, but it means the pump no longer works. While there, I got onto the property to get a better photo only to be attacked by thousands of ants, so I ran like the wind and we made our way home via 2 quick stops in Langebaan and our favourite farm stall to get some pies for lunch.
When we got home, I gave the MINI Countryman a wash and then Eskom struck again and Camps Bay was without power for a few hours, so we decided to head up to Signal Hill to do a GoPro time-lapse of the clouds rolling over Table Mountain, which turned out to be really awesome! The MINI Adventure came to an end after that and we landed up having an early night after another day filled with plenty of activities.
A photo posted by Mike Eloff (@thelawry) on