Spring has Sprung................a Leak!

Spring Day! Even though we are surrounded by water and snow! We have had several days of almost non-stop rain and on Thursday afternoon we had hail! Small pieces I admit, but it's unheard of in our part of the world. Even more unusual, Cape Town reported snow on the top of Table Mountain, and pictures showed the freezing conditions with happy folk building snowmen and doing head-stands in the snow. (Why I ask you?)

So, yesterday after hearing reports of the Berg River overflowing its banks all the way to Velddrif, we decided to go and see for ourselves. (And have fish and chips for lunch.....this sounds familiar doesn't it?)

Our Bok River, looking upstream.

And our tiny Bok River that is usually non-existent was an almost raging river. Goodness knows where it begins, but it gathers excess water on its way, runs under our main road, through farm lands and ends up somewhere near Saldanha, although we are not exactly sure where!

Looking towards Saldanha Bay, downstream!

For eleven months of the year, sometimes twelve months of the year, the 'river' is a dry thread, only noticeable by the outline of its banks that marks it's course. We were most impressed, and so were the water birds that suddenly arrived. Where do they spend the rest of their time and how on earth do they know that now is a good time to fly to Jacobsbaai?

Flamingos 'grazing'.

So, we drove to Velddrif where we saw literally hundreds of flamingos, and as the river had spread almost to the road, some of them appeared to be grazing among the greenery! The river had indeed been in flood, we could see the flotsam (jetsam?) line and some of the small jetties were still underwater, but the road had dried out and we stopped to watch three beautiful pelicans waiting for the take-away place to open!

Pelicans in the sun

They are apparently there every day and are quite happy to have their photo taken. A German tour group arrived and headed off to snap away happily.

Hmmm, what shall we have today? (Pic thanks to Rob)

By then we were feeling hungry, so we drove further to Laaiplek and found a little fish and chips take-away place that was doing a roaring trade. Judging by the gulls that were everywhere, the food was good! We sat in the car as the wind was icy and soon were surrounded by the flapping, squawking birds.

Fish and chips.

It made me think of that Alfred Hitchcock film 'The Birds', especially when they landed on the bonnet and the roof of the car! The brave ones took bits of chips from our fingers, but soon left us when they saw that we had finished eating. By then there were other cars to beg from!

Brave and cheeky! (Pic thanks to Rob)

And to round of our perfect day? A perfect ice cream!

Happy Spring Day! And to my far-flung family, a Happy Autumn Day! It feels like Autumn here today!