Just for fun post a non-porn pic.

[wit_afrika]

Worcester is the centre for SA's brandy industry and Klipdrift our favourite brandy.

 

[wit_afrika]

oops, posted double!

 

[buttons]

Click here for more photos and a detailed explanation:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/icestorm.asp#photo4


These pictures correspond to other photographs and news accounts of a freezing storm that hit the area of Lake Léman (also known as Lake Geneva), Switzerland, in January 2005. One news account, for example, reported that:

The cold did not save sailing ships moored in the ports of Léman. In Geneva, several boats sank under the weight of the ice. Several minor roads were closed, passage having been made impossible by the ice and the snowdrifts. In downtown Geneva, Servette Street was closed after the rupture of a water pipeline transformed the roadway into a true skating rink.

WOW!
It's like someone has hung ghosts out to dry!

 

[buttons]

Just got a new monitor and had to install it. Just had a look at the last few pages...So that's what the world looks like. For the past 4 months everything had a blueish haze, so I had to guess at the colours. Now I can enjoy this topic even more


Here a few more I took at the Keukenhof (Kitchen garden in Dutch) famous for it's displays of tulips and other spring bulbs. These were taken at the Lily exhibition they have each year. Some of these flowers were huge and grew on stems that were 6 feet tall if not taller. The smell from these flowers was intoxicating.

 

[wit_afrika]

Crossing the Knysna lagoon....

 

[frankfrank]

I think this attachment will show up. I've known about this picture for a long time, because the National Enquirer ran it like 15 years ago. Apparently now it's been issued as a wall poster that you can buy. Very, very cool!

 

[belamy]

BARTOLOMÉ BERMEJO: Retable of the Virgin of Montserrat, Cathedral of Acqui Terme

 

[belamy]

Lorenzo di Credi (Uffizi)

 

[wit_afrika]

The Cango Caves are in the foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, 28km outside Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo.
The largest chamber is the 107m Grand Hall. The cave extends for 5.3km, in a series of large chambers connected by low passages and crawls.

 

[wit_afrika]

So are you And_rew!!!...love your pics

 

[wit_afrika]

A pic taken from above the fastest growing urban area in SA. The pic is a little out of date already.

A city divided....The suburbs hugging the Table Mountain chain on both sides are mostly white English. The suburbs to the north away from the coast and into the hills are mostly white Afrikaans. On the vast flat area known as the Cape Flats on the inland side of the mountain are the coloured suburbs and black townships. There are over 3.6million in the City Metro area, the majority being the coloured (mixed race) people. We all work together in the day and then head off home to our own parts of town in the evening....

 

[wit_afrika]

Red hot.....

 

[dpnice]

A museum visit today so I took these photos to add to the collection that belamy has built up for us.

It is the museum of Asiatic Arts located in one of the municiple gardens of Nice; it was designed by Kenzo Tang a Japanese architect.

The pyramid is the tropical plant house in the same garden.

 

[wit_afrika]

The Protea....our National Flower.

 

[wit_afrika]

Life amongst the ashes of a veld fire....

 

[wit_afrika]

Strelizia

 

[wit_afrika]

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
The estate covers 1,305 acres that includes native fynbos flora and natural forest on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain. Eighty-nine acres are cultivated garden, displaying collections containing over a third of South Africa’s more than fifteen thousand species of plants.

 

[dpnice]

Parc Phoenix in Nice.

 

[buttons]

Just love all the flowers above

I was wondering about the haemanthus you posted wit_afrika. Does it only blossom after and because of a veld fire or is it quite common in Zuid Afrika?

 

[buttons]

Nice pics Buttons. By the way in 1998 Canada had is worst ice storm ever. The storm brutalized one of the largest populated and urbanized areas of North America leaving more than four million people freezing in the dark for hours, if not, days. Without question, the storm directly affected more people than any previous weather event in Canadian history. Into the third week following the onset of the storm, more than 700,000 were still without electricity. Had the storm tracked 100 km farther east or west of its main target, the disruptive effect would have been far less crippling.



How did the storm affect Canada:

• at least 25 deaths, many from hypothermia.
• about 900,000 households without power in Quebec; 100,000 in Ontario.
• about 100,000 people took refuge in shelters
• residents were urged to boil water for 24 to 48 hours.
• airlines and railway discouraged travel into the area
• 14,000 troops (including 2,300 reservists) deployed to help with clean up, evacuation and security.
• millions of residents forced into mobile living, visiting family to shower and share a meal or moving in temporarily with a friend or into a shelter.
• prolonged freezing rain brought down millions of trees, 120,000 km of power lines and telephone cables, 130 major transmission towers each worth $100,000 and about 30,000 wooden utility poles costing $3000 each.

The damage in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec was so severe that major rebuilding, not repairing, of the electrical grid had to be undertaken. What it took human beings a half century to construct took nature a matter of hours to knock down.

Thanks and_rew!
I've been wondering about what you've written above. So how cold was it when this happened?
And I was told that when winters get extremely cold in winter a lot of people stay underground. Besides traveling by metro there are tunnels and passages below street level. Is this true?

Hope it wasn't too cold this winter. I know that for at least a few weeks the temperature in Quebec was better than it was over here in Holland. But that probably has a lot to do with moisture in the air affecting the way the cold feels.