Beautiful places to see

About every other Saturday we gather as a group of couples and visit some of the sites of Cape Town.  There are many and on these days we finally got to the Rhodes Memorial.  We had been waiting for some nice days and last month we had some and were able to go on some outings. This is a huge memorial with lots of stairs and statues, but no inner building where people would gather like a museum or anything. 

Elder Plehn doesn't look too happy that he is having his picture taken, but I think we just caught him at a bad moment. 

Rhodes was a very rich man from England who came here and did many good things to build up the country.  The Rhodes Scholar ---an award in England is named for his family as was Rhodesia----a small country in Africa.  We enjoyed wandering through the memorial. The words say that through his life's work he loved and served South Africa.

I'm sure you're getting sick of seeing these people, but they're all we've got!  When we go out, we usually all go.  You can't just take a few people!   At least you can see a little of the view of the city of Cape Town behind us.   No I'm not walking with a cane now---it belongs to Elder Herbert but he had to keep both hands on the camera, so I had to hold the cane.  I have had a hard time convincing him that he needs to use it, but there have been a few times that it has really saved him so he is using it a little more.

 Below is the view without us in front of it!  I love those trees in the front---they seem very symbolic of the African landscape.  We live in that dark area almost straight ahead---it is called Pinelands because many pine trees have been planted there.

  

There was a little restaurant in the back of the memorial with little hut-like buildings for rest rooms.  It was not open the day we were there, so we just wandered around the grounds and snapped a few photos.  It was a beautiful day and very peaceful. 

The buildings have the thatched roofs that we see often in Cape Town----even many expensive old homes have them and I guess it adds to the value to have a thatched roof on the older ones, so they replace them periodically.  I have not been in a home with a thatched roof, but Elder and Sister Harms have and they say it smelled a little grassy!  The little restroom is about the size and shape of the huts the natives built out in the bush in their little tribal communities.  I love rock houses!

There were a few little garden areas like this around the restaurant over-looking the valley.  This monument is built on the back side of Table Mountain.

Sister Mahler took this picture of me in a part of the garden where Elder Herbert didn't go because it was too uneven terrain. 

 

We thought this was probably once a home for the help at the memorial or the restaurant or maybe just a storage shed with a little living area on the side.  It looks like a garage, but there was definitely no way for a car to have gotten down there.  Unfortunately Cape Town must have spent all the city memorial budget money this year on soccer, because this memorial was pretty run down in the garden area.  They have been talking about upgrading it but haven't done it yet.   It was interesting to see all the work they had done to create a beautiful garden spot and then it had not been kept up.

As we came back to the parking lot, a wedding party had just gone up to the memorial steps to take some photos.  We were taking photos of the stretch limo and the stretch hummer that they were riding in.  Yes, some people in Cape Town do have a lot of money.  Who knows---maybe it was someone famous---judging from all the bodyguards that were around we might think that.   We don't know who the famous people are around here----wouldn't recognize them if we walked right up to them!!