Quiet time with coffee

'Round about this time on most days, when I've got rectangular eyes from my laptop screen and can no longer think straight, it's time to hit the N4 and to travel the approximately 20 or so kilometres to the Seattle coffee shop at Millys, just the other side of Machadodorp, on the way to Belfast.

Here, through the three dimensional lens (yes!) of a tall cafe mocha (no cream) I make sense of today, yesterday and sometimes tomorrow. Today, just before getting into my car to travel home I took this photo facing the sunset as I gave thanks for the day.

There's an unusual not-quite-chill on the air: the leaves are turning, they are falling from the maples, the sun is setting earlier, birds are packing up home and heading north. I'm looking forward to a time of much less light, hibernation, rest and contemplation. I'm ready for the winter.

Tomorrow, while researching the book, I head down the N4 and past Nelspruit and on to Komatipoort and the Mozambique border. Especially after Nelspruit, relatively unchartered territory for me, I want to take in as much of that heavy-with-history road just south of the Kruger National Park, and to the eastern edge of the country - especially the Lebombo mountains that triangulates Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa.

On Friday I'm expecting to fly to George and then, at the ocean's very edge in Mossel Bay and with my beloved Klein Karoo at my back, write up the parts of the book already researched... and again seek guidance and inspiration beneath the St. Blaize lighthouse.

Goodbye..

Boarding my flight at George airport and on my way to Johannesburg after an amazing two weeks. Sad to go..

Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe...

Just back from the Pinnacle Point caves... keep your eyes on them, they're about to become an international focus of attention (while most likely being taken for granted and completely unappreciated here. Why's that okay for the average South African?).

Right now the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe steam train is pulling out of the Dias Museum Complex in Mossel Bay. We're heading for Mossel Bay station, then 2-hrs later, George.

The carriage is creeking and shuddering, there's a springbok head sandblasted on the window and the wood panelling is shiney with varnish. This is from another time and another place... a time and place more innocent than right now.

The nostalgic reek of the smoke from burning coal takes me back to my standard 4 camp at Happy Acres in the old Transvaal's Magaliesburg area (most probably the winter of 1978). Ever since then, no matter where I am in the world, coal smoke has the ability to push my 'happy emotion' buttons. Even roasting chestnuts on braziers in Soho streets, London have the ability to take me straight home.

The shunting sound of the steam engine - her name is Rosie - and the billows of steam means that the last scheduled-departure, short-haul steam train journey in Africa has begun. Trains remain a passion for me; anyone who still reads will understand.

The train offers museum-to-museum tours on a scennic, 100-year old line from the Dias Museum in Mossel Bay to the Outeniqua Transport Museum in George. It's route is more or less along the very edge of the Indian Ocean. Six tours a week in summer, three a week in Winter.

Time now to sit back and be lulled by the storm-lashed ocean and the rolling carriage while praying that someone will serve me some decent railway coffee. Life is bliss... especially as there's no hurry, no worries here in Mossel Bay. Right now I wouldn't want to be anywhere else... .

www.visitmosselbay.co.za