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The Place of Great Pain
It may look like a cappuccino, but it is the beach at Kasouga or Kasuka, a small village in Sarah Baartman District Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
This lovely, relatively isolated stretch of beach has often been voted as one of South Africa's best beaches, if not the best.
Settlement some 10 km north-east of Kenton-on-Sea, near the mouth of the Kasuka River. The name is derived from Khoekhoen and means 'place of many leopards'. The river name "Kasuka" is a Xhosa adaptation of the word, and has the same meaning.
Golden hour magic on a beach in California 🌅. Just before the tide rolled in, I caught this fairytale tower glowing against the cliffs and waves, as a flock of pelicans traced the sky above it...
Built in 1926 as a home’s private staircase to the shore, it’s seen senators, Hollywood stars, and even a pirate-loving sea captain who once hosted treasure hunts for kids. A storybook landmark still standing strong against the sea. 🌊🏰✨
A mesmerizing aerial view of sandbanks sculpted by the movement of the ocean, creating an ever-changing masterpiece of land and water. The interplay of golden sand and deep blue waters highlights the delicate balance between tides and time.
“Watching sunrise from Magic Island was unforgettable. The city of Waikiki slowly woke behind me while the horizon blazed with soft morning light. With a long exposure, the restless waves melted into a silky calm over the rocks, and the clouds stretched into motion above the skyline. Diamond Head stood timeless in the distance, as if quietly keeping watch. In that blend of movement and stillness, I felt the beauty of beginnings — a reminder that each day starts fresh, full of possibility.”
Incredible. Despite serious attempts at colour correcting, etc, it seems the golden hour is exactly that.
Very, very golden.
Now, warning lights are flashing down at quality control
Somebody threw a spanner, they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle, and the walls came down
There's a meetin' in the boardroom, they're tryin' to trace the smell
There's a leakin' in the washroom, there's a sneak-in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
Goodness me, could this be industrial disease?
The Sunway Playa Golf Hotel & Spa sits proudly at the quieter end of Sitges’ promenade, overlooking the Mediterranean and bordering the Terramar Golf Club. Opened in 2003, this modern beachfront complex was designed to blend resort comfort with the charm of Sitges’ natural surroundings. Its curved, terracotta façade, punctuated by palm-lined gardens and wide balconies, offers sweeping views of the sea and the golf course. The hotel is known for its spacious apartments and studios, making it popular for longer stays as well as weekend escapes. Guests enjoy direct beach access, multiple restaurants, and an outdoor pool that catches the sun from morning until dusk. With its location away from the town centre, the Sunway provides a more tranquil base while still being connected to Sitges by the free bike hire service—a nod to the active, outdoor lifestyle that defines this Mediterranean town.
The last light of day reflects off the wet sand and breaking waves along the beach, casting a golden sheen across the shoreline. A silhouetted figure plays in the surf, adding life and contrast to this tranquil, sunlit moment captured near sunset.
Should have been the theme song for the fishermen around the bench there in the middle. But more power to them, really. And they were *very* friendly.
I'm so high, I even touch the sky
Above the falling rain
I feel so good in my neighbourhood, so
Here I come again
Got to have kaya now
Got to have kaya now
Got to have kaya now
For the rain is falling
Feelin' irie I
Feelin' irie I
Feelin' irie I
So I'd like to know where, you got the notion
Said I'd like to know where, you got the notion
(To rock the boat), don't rock the boat baby
Don't tip the boat over
(Rock the boat), don't rock the boat baby
(Rock the boat)
//What a disaster
William Saunderson-Meyer says the floods just another blow to a province that was already on its knees
KwaZulu-Natal has declared a provincial state of disaster to try to cope with the devastating floods of the past week.
This is normally a temporary mechanism of which the primary purpose is to facilitate speedy national government assistance to hard-pressed provincial and local authorities. It also triggers the release of emergency funds from the National Treasury.
But in KZN’s case, they might as well make it permanent. This is a province that has been on its knees for some time and it ain’t getting up any time soon.
After all, KZN hasn’t even staunched the bloodied nose it suffered nine months ago. That’s when one wing of the African National Congress government — the Radical Economic Transformation followers of former president Jacob Zuma — tried to bury the other — the so-called reformists led by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
KZN hasn’t even properly tallied the body blows it suffered then. The official estimates for the insurrection were 45,000 businesses affected, R50bn in economic damage, 129,000 jobs lost, and 354 killed.
These estimates are probably on the low side. For example, the number of people who were killed in the mayhem doesn’t include the many whose bodies were simply never found and counted.
And the true economic cost is incalculable. There’s been substantially increased emigration of minorities, cancelled investment, and the loss of international confidence in KZN as a safe tourist destination. In at least a dozen small, country towns, all the business infrastructure was destroyed, paradoxically by the very people who worked and shopped in those buildings.
Now the floods. The death toll is over 300 and still rising. Some 6,000 homes have been destroyed and road, water sewage and electrical infrastructure uprooted. As I write this, roaming mobs are opportunistically plundering container depots, stranded trucks, abandoned homes and vulnerable businesses, reportedly unhindered — as was the case during last year’s riots — by the police and army.
Naturally, no disaster is complete without a scapegoat. Ramaphosa, as is his style, was quick off the mark to finger the culprit — climate change.
“This disaster is part of climate change. It is telling us that climate change is serious, it is here,” Ramaphosa told reporters while inspecting a devastated Durban. “We no longer can postpone what we need to do, and the measures we need to take to deal with climate change.”
What balderdash. Whatever role climate change may or may not have played in the larger scheme of things, it’s nonsense to pin on it responsibility for the plight of KZN. That lies with the ANC government.
First, this was not an unforeseeable bolt from the heavens. The forecasters warned months back that this was likely to be an exceptionally wet summer because of the La Niña weather pattern that occurs every few years.
There are also historical precedents for extreme weather in KZN, which a prudent administration would have taken note of.
In 1984, Tropical Storm Domoina wreaked havoc in a swathe from Mozambique, through Swaziland to KZN. Although the current downpour is worse, the scale is nevertheless in the same ballpark.
This latest storm — as yet unnamed — dumped 450mm of rain on Durban in 48 hours. Domoina let loose 615mm in 24 hours on Swaziland and northern KZN.
But the true difference between those events, 38 years apart, lies in the lack of preparedness on the part of today’s authorities. In 1984 the SA Air Force deployed 25 helicopters to airlift people to safety. In the 2000 Mozambique floods, 17 SAAF helicopters rescued more than 14,000 people.
This time, according to a News24 report, the SA Police Service and the SAAF, combined, have been unable to put a single chopper in the air. The erosion of South Africa’s military means that of the SAAF’s 39 Oryx helicopters, only 17 are serviceable.
Durban-based 15 Squadron has not a single helicopter available for search and rescue — they are reportedly primarily used as VIP transport — but two SAAF choppers supposedly have been despatched from Gqeberha to help. The SAPS airwing has only one serviceable helicopter but “the pilot on duty has been booked off sick”.
Second, throughout the province, local government is also in a state of disaster and unable to do its job. The scale of the KZN impairment can be measured in the flood destruction of homes.
Some 4,000 shanties have been destroyed, many because officialdom was too lax to forbid building on the floodplain and against precariously unstable hillsides. Another 2,000 of the homes swept away were so-called RDP houses, shoddily built during the kickback-and-steal bonanza of the government’s Reconstruction and Development Programme of the late 1990s.
In Durban, the eThekwini metro is bloated and inert. It carries a rates and services debt of R17bn, of which R1bn is owed by the national government.
Durban is also infamously corrupt. Former mayor Zandile Gumede — along with 21 co-accused — is facing fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges in connection with a R320m municipal tender.
Yet at the weekend, even as the rain was bucketing down, she won the ANC’s regional leadership contest hands-down, despite the party’s supposed “step-aside when accused” rule.
The ANC-aligned Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has no illusions about the party it supports. It issued a statement calling on the government to ensure that unlike the plundering of Covid-19 emergency relief funds, the KZN disaster funds were not stolen or misused.
Fat chance. The ANC has already announced that its parliamentary constituency offices in KZN would become “hubs for humanitarian support” and appealed for the donation of relief supplies. Watch the trousering by the ANC’s public representatives of anything that the public is dumb enough to leave with them.
It’s in KZN where the ANC’s brazen indifference to the law and antipathy towards the Constitution is at its most obvious and most destructive.
On Monday, Zuma's corruption trial once again failed to take off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when he successfully blocked the process with another round of delaying legal actions. His lawyers also had some carefully threatening words for the judiciary in a separate Supreme Court of Appeal action.
They urged SCA President Mandisa Maya to reconsider the dismissal of his latest corruption prosecution challenges. They warned that last year’s deadly July unrest was “in part, traceable to a perceived erroneous and unjust judicial outcome” that put Zuma briefly in prison for contempt of court.
“When such conceived mistakes are committed, the citizens (wrongly) feel entitled to resort to self-help…”
Floods, fires and locusts are devastating but at least happen relatively rarely. The ANC, alas, is a seemingly unending plague.
And the Red Lion Pub/Hotel.
From Saxon roots to donkeys on cobbles, this cliffside village has history carved into every stone. The Red Lion’s still standing proud—harbour views, fresh seafood, and stories older than your nan’s nan
So weird, perhaps, to think many of these fresh-faced people are now likely all grown up, maybe doing the tertiary education thing, maybe already with kids of their own.
So weird, perhaps, to think many of these fresh-faced people are now likely all grown up, maybe doing the tertiary education thing, maybe already with kids of their own.
The Sea Ranch Lodge catches the early sun like a memory made of wood and wind. Its cedar siding glows warm against the cool coastal air, each board silvered by salt and time. The architecture feels both humble and monumental—a quiet rhythm of vertical lines rising and falling with the land. Around it, native grasses sway in unison, softening the geometry and grounding the structure in its windswept landscape.
Here, light is the real architect. It filters through the cypress branches, glances off the windows, and turns the entire façade into a living surface. The white gooseneck lamps cast long morning shadows, echoing the simplicity that defines The Sea Ranch’s design ethos—modernism shaped by restraint and reverence for nature.
Standing here, you can sense the philosophy behind every line: build lightly, let the land lead, and let silence do most of the talking.