Springbok bus | Anotherdayinparadise2's Blog

“The wheel is come full circle.” ~ William Shakespeare

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week, is ‘Wheels’. I’ve had many sets of wheels in my life, and I would really love to show you my first car, a sunshine yellow Triumph Spitfire, and also my two dream cars, a silver and then a red Jaguar E-Type. Can you believe that I never thought to take any pics of these beauties? I could kick myself! I guess I was too busy enjoying driving them, to think about taking photos.

Anyway, that’s water under the bridge, and as I can’t show you those, here are a few wheel pics that I do have. This pic of a waterwheel driven stamp mill was taken at the 18th century, Poldark Tin Mine in Helston, Cornwall. This is believed to be one of the oldest complete mining works in Great Britain. The mine was worked using horses and water wheels to power all the machinery and to pump water from it.

Here is one of the massive gear wheels.

I saw these wheels yesterday outside our local pharmacy. These huge pick-ups with raised suspension, always make me smile, as the wheels look much too small for the size of the truck.

Here are the wheels that over sixty percent of South Africans rely on for their everyday commute. You really take you life into your hands when travelling in one of these mini-bus taxis. The drivers are well-known for their disregard for the road rules and their proclivity for dangerously overloading their vehicles with passengers.

Here outside a 5 star hotel in my home town, are the wheels which transport our national rugby team, ‘The Springboks’.

A few metres away on our beach promenade is a wheel with a very flat tire. Not much good in an emergency.

I can’t do a wheel challenge without showing you one of our icicle-covered wheels, when we toured Yellowstone. We’d expected that by May, spring would have sprung, but were sorely disappointed. The occasional blizzard and icy road conditions did make for some interesting driving though.

To see more wheels, go to Cee’s blog by clicking on the badge.

My South African blog friend sidey, has a regular weekend challenge, and this week it’s ‘Happiness’.

This morning, we woke up to the most amazing mid winter weather; blue sky, a slight breeze and a promise of 29C. This, combined with the fact that we had nothing else to do but wander down to the beach, was certainly a recipe for a very happy Saturday. I made a scrambled egg and bacon breakfast, and then we were off on our walk, down the steps and onto the beach.

Which way to go was the question. This way towards the lighthouse?

or this way towards Durban?

My shadow said, “This way,” so we obeyed.

Our next door neighbour’s son and his mates were really having fun out there in the waves,

and a bit farther along, there was a morning meeting of the local seagull society. Way in the distance, you can see the Durban sports stadium which was built for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

A brightly coloured AMS (Red Cross Air Mercy Service) helicopter flew overhead, and I wondered what its mission was, or whether it was just out for a joy ride.

Our beach patrol guy was zooming along on his quad bike.

We actually saw a few more people, but you could hardly call this a crowded beach, now could you?

On our return, we popped in home for a cup of coffee and a chocolate brownie, and then collected the beach umbrella, a chair, a couple of towels and my kindle, and headed back down to sit in blissful solitude until lunchtime.

Happiness is a beach, for sure.

Of course, South African rugby fans would argue that happiness is our brilliant Springbok 42-10 win over Italy today in Durban. I saw their green and gold bus outside the Beverly Hills Hotel yesterday. Our boys only stay in the best hotel here, probably because they’re simply the best. 🙂