London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

The Hottentots Holland Capped with Snow

Some World Cup watchers found it slightly incongruous that as they balked in the heat of the northern summer, spectators in the stadiums were bundled up for the cold. It does snow in South Africa, though not every year and usually much less the closer you are to the sea (or rather sea-level). This recent photo distributed by Die Burger shows the Hottentots Holland range, near my former neck of the woods, capped with snow.

Even on days when you can see the mountain peaks topped in white, the temperature closer to the ground still allows you to spend a care-free afternoon relaxing at a vineyard with friends.

Published at 7:55 pm on Sunday 18 July 2010. Categories: Errant Thoughts South Africa Tags: , .
Comments

It snows (although never anything like Europe or North America) even further north too … remember the Witwatersrand (Gauteng: Johannesburg area) is 1,753 metres above sea-level. I can only ever remember a soft dusting though, and when compared to my first experience with a real winter in Québec, I quickly dismissed those Transvaal winters. Much of the parts of southern Africa that were conducive to European settlement were high above sea-level and thus offered a temperate climate by African standards—in Southern Rhodesia (old Rhodesia and today’s Zimbabwe) and even parts of Northern Rhodesia (today’s Zambia).

But indeed, the snowfalls in the Cape, and in particular in the mountains down there were for us “northerners”, tantamount to lumping the whole region into a sort of Greater Antarctica !

— Dave Cooper 19 Jul 2010 2:36 pm
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