In the pre-drone era

.

Things were more primitive way back in 2010 when I took these pictures.
Before drones came into popular use, people used small helium balloons! 

Enlarge the photo with a few clicks and you will see the cables attached to the suspended camera.

Apparently the archaeologists and/or the architects and engineers needed aerial photography of this exciting and welcome new National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel.  
Back then the construction was just beginning; now it is almost completed. 

Our City Daily Photo bloggers group has our monthly Theme Day today.
The subject is Photographing the Photographer.
In my post you'll just have to imagine the photographer, down on earth holding the tether. 
.
(Linking also to SkyWatch Friday.)
.

A couple of surprises in the Camdeboo National Park

No visit to Graaff-Reinet will be complete without a visit to the Valley of Desolation yet I wonder how many people actually realise that the Valley of Desolation is located within the Camdeboo National Park, which actually reaches all the way around the town, and that you can also go game viewing in the park.  On our long weekend in Graaff-Reinet we spent our Saturday exploring the town's historical heart on foot and kept the Sunday to explore the Camdeboo National Park.  The plan was to spend the Sunday morning doing some game viewing, head back to Camdeboo Cottages, where we were staying, for lunch and some R&R before aiming to the Valley late afternoon for sunset on the mountain.    

The entrance to the game viewing area is just past the turnoff to the Valley of Desolation and takes one straight into a typical Karoo landscape of low Karoo bush and grassland, mountains in the distance and the Nqweba Dam on the other side towards tow, and big skies.  Lots of big skies.  The park has about 19km of gravel roads which we found to be in a very good condition and no problem for the Polo to navigate.  

The Camdeboo National Park isn't quite Kruger or Addo, but if you are in the area and enjoy game watching then it's well worth a drive through.  The Game viewing area is home to buffalo, which we unfortunately didn't encounter on this trip, and game species like eland, black wildebeest, gemsbok, red hartebeest, blesbok, springbok and mountain zebra.  Friends of ours in the park the same time than us even spotted the elusive rooikat (linx) near one of the waterholes.  Our timing seemed to have sucked and we missed it.  The park is also home to over 240 listed bird species of which we did spot a few so I imagine the twitchers would love the park. 

After a quick picnic at the park's picnic site, which we had all to our own, we took a drive to the bird hide next to the Nqweba Dam.  The dam level is quite low at the moment which means not a lot of animals or even birds around.

After a bit of kicking our feet up at the guesthouse, we took the road out to the park again in the late afternoon and made our way up the mountain towards the Valley of Desolation.  After a stop at the toposcope lookout it was time to show the KidZ what the Valley looked like.  I've been up here many times over the years and it never gets old.  Ok, just wait.  The Valley is old, over 200 millions years old, but I mean I never get tired of it.  Hahaha....     

It is an awe-inspiring feeling standing there looking at the towering dolerite columns with the vast Karoo stretching out beyond.  The dolerite pillars rise up to a height of up to 120 meters and were formed by volcanic and erosive forces over a period of 200 million years.  It's hard to explain the beauty of the place and not everybody who visits "gets it", but the Valley of Desolation is a truly special place.

I made sure we got there early enough to go for a walk along the Crag Lizard Trail, a 1,5 km sircular trail that shouldn't take you more than about 45 minutes to walk.  I want to say the only reason I did it was to go and find the Geocache located just beyond the turning point, but for the first time I got to see more of the Valley of Desolation and some of the further columns which you don't get to see from the main view point.  We made it back just in time for the sun to start setting and found that it was disappearing behind the mountain and not over the valley as it does in summer. Darn!

We quickly hopped back in the car and made our way a bit down the mountain to an alternative lookout point I was told about on my last visit, making it just in time as the sun disappeared over the distant mountains.

And with that sunset our long weekend in the Gem of the Karoo also came to an end.  So what do we take home from the weekend?  That Graaff-Reinet is the perfect weekend destination for people living in the Eastern Cape with a variety of historic and natural attractions to keep you busy with during your stay.  I also came to the conclusion that people from the interior passing through and heading to the coast and don't realise what they are missing.  But that really goes for anybody who hasn't had the opportunity to explore Graaff-Reinet and the Camdeboo National Park.

Fringe Family Day

Back to the beginning. I'm working my way through the performances at the St. Lou Fringe that still need photos edited. This is from Saturday, August 19, when things were getting rolling. The festival sponsored a Family Day in Strauss Park, the central square of the Grand Center district. Kids hanging out, kids and teens performing, plus top spinner extraordinaire Hiroshi Tada and the Fringe's own Tracy Busalacchi Bono.      

Inconceivable

The St. Lou Fringe Festival ended last night after another great season. I think I'll have enough material to last me until Mrs. C and I get to Moab, Utah in eight days. The show depicted here is Inconceivable, Danielle Marl's one-woman show about the struggles of a woman and her husband with infertility. Even a Wonder Woman shirt didn't help. It included sock puppets of pink, sort of tubular squishy things. Use your imagination.       

The Great Synagogue of small Mazkeret Batya

.

On a Beit Harav Kook study tour we visited the old "colonies" of Mazkeret Batya (originally called Ekron), Rishon LeZion, and Rehovot in central Israel.
Mazkeret Batya was founded in 1883.
In 1927 its first synagogue had to be razed, due to structural problems; and in 1928 the new Great Synagogue was built instead.

The sign notes a surprising fact: toward the end of the British Mandate, in the period leading up the war and to Israel's independence in 1948,  the Haganah force had a "slick," a secret weapons cache hidden under the bimah (the table on which the Torah scroll is unrolled and read).

Pictures of the interior of the synagogue after its 1989 renovation can be seen here.

Written in stone:

A GIFT OF THE BENEFACTOR BENJAMIN EDMOND

AND THE BENEFACTOR ADELHEID 

ROTHSCHILD

In the year Tarpaz

Baron Rothschild  and his wife, Adelheid, were great supporters of early Zionism.

He purchased huge tracts of land from the Arabs and got the Jewish pioneering families started in working the land. 

Rothschild changed the name of the Ekron community to Mazkeret Batya in remembrance of his mother, Batya, who had just died. 

You can learn more about Mazkeret Batya in this nice article by a tour guide
and/or at Wikipedia.
.
(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
.

Friday Nicht Fringe Samples

Out late and home exhausted after Friday night's Fringe shows. And I have to get right back out for today's performances. Briefly:

First three - The Buzzer. A mysterious spirit gives a woman the chance to change three events in her life by pressing a buzzer. The only exception is that death cannot be affected. As always, it wins in the end.

Next three - Time For A Change. It is a drama covering decades of the civil rights struggle, full of violence, justified anger and hope.

Last two: Power and Self with young stand-up comic Stryker Spurlock. Raw, hillarious and full of the unexpected.

Lots more to come.   

For Dog Day, our growing dog training promenade

.

In honor of National Dog Day (in America, at least) and for Camera Critters meme, here are some fresh photos of our town's dog training promenade.

It is a work in progress, made by volunteers, friends of our local veterinarian Dr. Doron Avishai,  who died before his time.

The builders left their names and messages in the concrete next to the water bowl.
To see how much has been added lately and to check out the various wooden training things, see my post from 2015.
And here you can enjoy pictures of the happy Dog Day that was held there in cooperation with the vet's widow.

The main rule listed here is to keep your dog on a leash.
This is in contrast to the official bare-bones Dog Park built by the Meitar Local Council right across the path; see the difference here.

Another welcome new addition is a patch of bare land where the sign invites you to scatter seeds of wildflowers from our own Negev desert region.
There's also a caveat: Please do not spray here.

Happy Dog Day!
.

A Song For Vanya 2

There was a song written in 1930 by George and Ira Gershwin called But Not For Me. You might have heard it. Ella Fitzgerald won a Grammy in 1960 for her performance of it. It's a sad tune. The opening line goes, They're writing songs of love, but not for me. The verse continues:

With love to lead the way
I've found more clouds of gray
Than any Russian play could guarantee.

And hence Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. If you don't know it, read the plot summary. These people are severely bummed out (except, perhaps, during the song in this production in praise of vodka. But we know where that gets you.) The Fringe's A Song For Vanya exquisitely portrays the rural bleakness but you don't leave the theater whistling any of its tunes. 

The Best Teacher Ever

I went through 19 years of formal education plus innumerable classes, programs and seminars in later years. Over all that time, one teacher stands out as the best I've ever had, Bobbi Lane. She is a professional photographer and educator based in Connecticut. Ten years ago, I took her intensive week-long course in portrait photography at the Maine Media Workshops, where  I've received most of my training. She blew me away. I learned more than I can describe. To use a common expression, the program took my photography to a new level and, in some ways, changed my life.

She was in St. Louis last night doing a program on portrait lighting sponsored by Fujifilm cameras. It was such a delight to see her again. If you are serious about photography and ever have a chance to take one of her workshops, you owe it to yourself to go.      

A Song For Vanya 1

Lights are on again. Back to The Fringe.

One of the festival's major works is a new play with music, A Song For Vanya,  based on Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. It was directed by none other than Matthew Kerns, the Fringe's head guy (like he needs something else to do). 

You can read a plot summary by clicking the link. It is bleak, with flashes of humor. The songs, accompanied by a keyboard, cello and woodwinds, add to the ennui. Like Snow White, the show war performed in the newly remodeled Grandel Theater, a 650-seat gem. The lighting is fabulous, perfect for photography. It made my job a lot easier.