penguins and mountainsides

as promised, here's some photos from this past thursday's adventures with gilad and paymon. gilad deserves credit for some of these photos, but i'm not sure which ones... so presume that if they're of high photographic prowess, gilad took them, and if they're mediocre, i did. above is a photo of an adult and a baby penguin at boulders beach. awwwww.

when we got to boulders, helpful signs informed us that while wheelchairs were indeed allowed, we couldn't backhand, karate chop, or shake flippers with the penguins.

a penguin shakin' that laffy taffy. convincing, but reynold strossen he's not...

after awhile, the penguins marched off. and so did we.

we ended up driving to Chapman's Peak, where we stopped at a look out point and scrambled down the mountain. some of us (that is to say, me) did more sliding than scrambling, due to unsatisfactory traction. boat shoes are not meant for hiking, as they lack any tread whatsoever. nor, for that matter, are they waterproof. between the two, i'm not quite sure how they would be of any use on a boat... but i suppose preppiness and sailing are allowed to defy logic and/or physics.

view from where we ended up, quite a ways down from the road, but also quite a ways up from the actual ocean

i put this in to give you a bit of context in terms of the mountainside. i can also say with confidence that gil, not myself, took this photo. he was hiding between the rocks in the forefront of the photo and playing paparazzi when i thought he was just shooting landscape photos.

shortly after the last photo was taken, the rain caught up with us, and we climbed back up in the midst of a drizzle, making it back to the car right before an outright downpour. while our clothes were soaked through, our spirit of adventure was not yet dampened, so we went off in search of ice cream in hout bay. alas, the ice cream place was closed, so we went back to the office. despite supposedly having a day off, there was work to be done, flowers to be ordered for shafted deputy ministers on behalf of people far more important than ourselves, and messages of condolences to be invented on behalf of said people. thus ended thursday...