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| << January10, 2005 - Turtle Essays message dated 10.1.2005 |
January24, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 118 dated 24.1.2005 >> |
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Turtle Essays Edition no 117 dated 17.1.2005 ** Love to Travel? Find out how to make your money go further! Get your copy of ???The Travel Secrets Guide??? and start saving today! http://hop.clickbank.net/?Brerrabbit/infodawg ** Looking for cheap airtickets to all destinations. Try us! http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=26917872&siteid=41315606&bfpage=homepage" ** In this edition: Editor's Blurb Cape Town's burning The fossils of the West Coast ** Editor's Blurb Welcome back all my regular and faithful readers. It's great to start off a new year with faithful friends. Cape Town schools are due to go back to work this week after six weeks of sand sea , sun and partying. Oh what bliss it will be when I have the house and my computer to myself for at least half of the day again. There has a been a lot of action in Cape Town over the holiday season with concerts at Kirstenbosch at 7.00 AM in the morning and at many of the other venues around Cape Town. We've enjoyed a few of the musical concerts where artiists such as Elton John and Billy Joel's music have been featured. I was really embarrassed at one of them when one of the young ladies on stage singled me, the only male in the front row out for some attention. Oh well, sit in the front row and that's what happens. I've prepared two articles for you so please enjoy them. Thanks for reading! Geoff Fairman ** Get Instant Access to Hundreds of Work-at-Home Jobs Want exclusive access to the hottest freelance jobs online today? Signing up for trial membership of Freelance Work Exchange gives you access to cool projects like these. Write Articles for a Web Site Translate a Book Manage a Newsletter Mail Out Fire your boss and set your work-at-home career off to a cracking start today http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-1599689-10301357 ** Cape Town's Burning. Over the past few months Cape Town has been experiencing severe drought conditions. Our winter was mild with very little rain and even less snow than previous years. The consequence of all this is that the dams at the beginning of the summer season were just over 60% of capacity. Very stringent water restrictions have been applied and if you drive around the streets of Cape Town you will notice gardens that were once green and lush starting to turn into dry sand beds. It's very sad to see this happen. Over the past few weeks Cape Town has been experiencing a heat wave with temperatures soaring into the 30's C in some areas. The only relief one gets from the heat is the south east wind that buffets the Cape Peninsula during the summer months. Capetonians are used to the wind but visitors complain about it. What they don't know is that the minute it drops the temperatures soar and Cape Town becomes enveloped in smog. These conditions lend themselves to fires and unfortunately there have been a number of them over the past few weeks. Firstly , a fire on the Tygerberg took a number of days to put out as the south east wind kept on fanning the flames. Luckily only fynbos was burnt and there was no loss of property. With the drought conditions there is not much water about and firefighters have a hard time fighting the fires without water. The helicopters have to fly long distances to the sea to fetch water and so firefighting is not as effective as it could be. In the last two days there have been a number of large fires on Table Mountain. Signal Hill just above the city had a fire which firefighters managed to contain and put out. They had hardly finished with that one when a fire which broke out on Monday above Boyes Drive near Muizenberg and had been controlled flared up again. It is still burning and has destroyed a number of houses and devastated the mountains around Silvermine and the mountain slopes on both sides of the Ou Kaapse Weg. This fire is burning in the same area as the terrible fire that struck the Ou Kaapse Weg area in 2000. Firefighting has been really difficult as the fires are being fanned by gale force winds and with the bush being dry it burns easily. Helicopters were scrambled on Monday and it took them three minutes to get airborne after the call came through. They have been water bombing the fire but smoke is making their lives difficult as they are unable to see the hotspots. People living in the Tokai area were forced to evacuate their homes because of the fires which burnt through the vegetation around the houses. Ou Kaapse weg was closed as the fire raged on both sides of it on the Tokai side of the mountain. When I visited the area yesterday the whole mountainside was charred and all that was left was hot ash and rocks. With the south easter still howling in off the sea the ash was being blown about and in some areas looked like smoke. With the mountainside completely denuded of vegetation I can foresee problems occurring with mudslides and falling rocks in the winter months when it starts to rain again. As it is, a number of large rocks had already been dislodged by the fires and were lying in Boyes drive. It's Saturday now and thankfully the fires have been put out. Another day of the fire burning along the top of the Tokai mountain would have seen farms and houses in Constantia being threatened. For those who would like to view some of the photographs of the fire visit http://www.turtlesa.com/ezine117.html See you all here soon! Geoff Fairman ** The fossils of the West Coast Imagine a vast plain covered in lush vegetation and abounding with wildlife. Not just any wildlife but animals such as sabre-toothed cats , three-toed horses, wolverines, and even bears. Five million years ago these were the animals that roamed the plains in the Langebaan area. Today the picture is completely different, the land is dry, flat and barren. Here and there you will find the odd tree but for the rest its short grass which at present is very dry and dusty. It was in this dry and barren land that miners from a local phosphate mine discovered old bones when they moved the earth to get to the phosphates. When the bones were shown to palaentologists they knew that they had discovered something out of the ordinary. Carbon dating showed that the fossiled bones were in fact about 5 million years old. The discovery led to further research in the area and on following the lines of the ancient river a site surrounded by some large rocks was pinpointed. The site was divided up into metre squares as is done on any archaelogical dig and the digging began. Soon some major discoveries were made and the wider the dig extended the more they found. It is presumed that five million years ago there was a drought and that many animals congregated around a waterhole that was left in the river bed. Suddenly it started to rain causing a flash flood in which many animals in their weakened states were caught. The rushing water dragged them into the water hole where they died and were trapped for ever. Over the years dust and mud covered the remains of the carcasses and fossilised them. In 1993 when phosphate mining in the area ceased the SA Museum took over the area and started preserving it for posterity. The dig has been opened up for people to visit and see for themselves what an archaelogical dig looks like. The bones scattered in the dig vary from African bears to three toed horses to sabre toothed cats and ancient antelope. A fossilsed piece of a seal's jaw bone has also been found in the dig. It's quite amazing as the dig is about thirty kilometres inland from the sea. Visiting this dry arid part of the country is a must for those who enjoy ancient things. A piece of rock found on the shore of the Langebaan lagoon could quite easily turn out to be an ancient stone aged tool or the bones of some ancient creature that lived there millions of years ago. Footprints of a young woman dated at about a 170000 years of age were recently found on the edge of the lagoon. Interested in discovering some of our timeless history for yourself. Visit Cape Town and the West Coast. To find out more about the fossil park online visit http://www.sawestcoast.com/fossil1.html See you there soon. * Turtle Travels new blog is online now. Topic : Turtle Essays Ramblings http://turtleessays.blogspot.com * Like to have your own rose garden. Find out how to do it from an expert. Here is his link: http://hop.clickbank.net/?brerrabbit/mcplants ** Please read the disclaimer at http://www.turtlesa.com/Disclaimer.html See you all soon Geoff Fairman ** |
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| << January10, 2005 - Turtle Essays message dated 10.1.2005 |
January24, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 118 dated 24.1.2005 >> |
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