Notification of public meeting to discuss the Protected Area Management Plan for the Kogelberg Nature Reserve Complex.

The objective of this management plan is to ensure that the protection, conservation and management of this protected area is consistent with the objectives of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act, Act 57 of 2003 (NEM:PAA) and managed in accordance with the purpose for which it was declared.

The Sewage and Water Committee of Betty's Bay has alerted the Overstrand Municipality to a potentially dangerous situation concerning our water supply.

There is only one old asbestos cement pipe leading from our dam to the water purification works. This is the type of old pipe which is being replaced in areas of frequent breaks, as they are becoming thinner because the naturally acid water from the catchment area dissolves the cement, over time.

One would think that lighthouses would be obsolete in these days of GPS and Satellite navigation.

Many are now national monuments and inactive. However there is still a need in particularly dangerous areas and many live on. Most lighthouses are now unmanned and automatic.

Read the full article in PDF format here.

Launching into a flurry of poetic words when it comes to these two topics, would maybe not go down too well with everyone who gets to read them. But being grim and prim would, in my opinion, also be inappropriate.
After all - the stench and hassles aside, we are undeniably privileged to have species in our space other than man in all his foul and fabulous facets.

Yes they pose massive CHALLENGES and PROBLEMS. Each in their own way, with an intensity that leaves you anything from desperate, clueless, embattled and overwhelmed, to livid and poised for revenge.

Energy (ancient Greek: energia (ενεργεια) meaning activity or operation is an indirectly observed quantity. It is the ability to do work. We learnt at school that Newton defined work as force acting through a distance. Energy exerts pulls or pushes against something along a path of a certain length.

Einstein showed that the total energy contained in an object is identified with its mass, (E=MC2) and energy (like mass), cannot be created or destroyed, but can be transformed.

Interesting, good article. -Ed

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Ek is nou moeg daarvan om stukkende, snikkende oumense te troos nadat hulle hul swaarverdiende spaargeld in die water gegooi het.

Die storie wat ek gewoonlik hoor is dat die jong man wat hulle ingelig het so vreeslik ordentlik was, so hulpvaardig was, so netjies aangetrek was, pak klere en al, en hy het so 'n beskaafde taal gebruik dat jy nie anders kon as vertroue in hom hê nie. So 'n mooie jong man!

Most probably this polished guy also claimed that he was very religious, not in so many words, but by his whole way of talking and, in some cases, by offering to enter into prayer with the poor sucker who believed in his story. After all, he claimed to be a retired pastor or 'predikant' or at the very least an elder or deacon of his church!

Getting to know the night sky is not much different from getting to know your neighbourhood, city, province or country. Some of us skip a few steps and venture farther to neighbouring countries or feel a real need for speed and travel right around of the world. A select few have progressed past all of this and have become zero gravity junkies, living and working beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

In getting to know the night sky, you first visit Earth's immediate neighbourhood - the Moon, Mercury Venus and Mars, the gas planets, the Sun and other objects of the solar system. Some skip these steps and venture to our second nearest star system, Alpha, Beta and Proxima Centauri. Others explore the thousands of star clusters and nebulae between millions and millions of stars that form our Milky Way Galaxy.

Betty's bay is a special place!

I have written previously about Fynbos, about Catholicism (get down on you knees to appreciate the little flowers) I have not written about the people, although they deserve attention.

Some wonderful things also need attention:
The Rocks, the Rivers, the Water, the Fireflies, and the Organ!

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The Stony Point project has made considerable progress in the last few months. The National Department of Tourism is the project donor and the project will take place as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme. The project consists of the upgrading of tourist facilities in the form of a coffee shop, eco-centre, ablutions, disability friendly parking areas and ablutions, the construction of a boathouse for the Cape Nature patrol boat and the provision of clubhouse facilities for the Betty's Bay Boat Club.

A summary of one of the Kogelberg Branch's monthly talks held in Betty's Bay.

There must be very few residents in the Hangklip/Kleinmond region who have not had some type of encounter with our wild neighbours. Many of these encounters resulted in an appalling and expensive shambles in a home and a feeling of enraged helplessness.

Into this aura of negativity came Associate Professor Justin O'Riain head of UCT.'s Baboon Research Unit. He pointed out that as he did not live here he was able to approach this emotive subject from the impartial sidelines.

A recent article in the Overstrand Herald by a group of justifiably irate residents campaigning against the unsafe traffic conditions along Clarence Drive has prompted us to give a summation of endeavours by the BBRA over the years to get the authorities to implement appropriate measures to reduce the speeding and recklessness of drivers.

This is further emphasized by recent accidents along the R44 where speed no doubt has played a significant role. As recently as last month there was another fatal accident involving one of our residents.

Nature's 'magic' reaction, with a flash of light going from lifeless "dead" chemicals to truly living organisms:
a light-hearted article.

Every single one of the billions of green leaves in the fynbos (or on unwanted "aliens") or even in your cultivated garden, every seaweed from giant kelp to dainty weeds clinging to rocks and deep-sea phytoplankton ("plant plankton"). is carrying out without fuss perhaps the single most important chemical reaction on our Earth, called photosynthesis.