Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The house upon the rock


Above Langebaan's turquoise lagoon in the West Coast National Park is a hill, and on the hill is a massive granite rock and on the rock is this little stone house.


I say house, but I don't know what it was. It is empty, now. But when I see this building I begin to wonder how I would live there. Water would be an issue. Views would not. There would be fish, down there, in the lagoon. There were flowers that day, in little dry islands of vegetation in the granite.


Ornithogalum, but whattum? And vygies - succulent Mesembryanthemum (probably) - the iridescent carpets of spring.


It is too prominent and too isolated not to have a story. Did its inhabitant* watch for the tall ships, sailing past from disintegrating Europe to the East by way of the Cape of Good Hope, in a long ago century? Part of me still lives in Dan Sleigh's Cape and Europe and Mauritius of the late 17th century - Eilande, or Islands. The book, I mean. It's not that old. Was it built by zealous birders. A farmer? A shepherd? Not much grazing, unless in green winter and spring.


Blue.

[*I have been back, since (December 2014) and the little house is now a museum. It answers all my questions]

11 comments:

  1. What a stunning photograph - it speaks more words than words can say. A lovely place.

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    1. Have you seen it before, Hen?

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    2. No - in my dreams perhaps. Maybe I have just forgotten.

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  2. A bunker? Looks like a structure in Paul Virilio's Bunker Archaeology. Beautiful setting too.

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    1. A tad exposed for a bunker, perhaps...the setting is stunning.

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  3. Perhaps at one time it was part of a lighthouse? It appears to be at the entrance to Saldanha harbor.

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  4. We came upon such a an out-of-place structure on a remote hillside along the Laotian border in 1967. And even though it was of rugged construction, as this, it appeared to be a place where someone practiced religion.

    So, I forbid entry, not wanting the place destroyed after we departed. I hope it is there, yet. Just as I hope this structure is there a thousand years, hence. Not that I am religious. I just respect those who are, and that which they build, in order to worship.

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  5. fascinating & beautiful (thanks for the google map link)

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  6. I have returned to look again at these lovely photos as I sit in the midst of boxes after a move. Thank you for the refuge.

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  7. Somewhere I have slides of that cottage, taken somewhere between 1990 and '93 - if I remember correctly it still had windows then, but otherwise looked pretty much the same.

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  8. I have similar pic to #4 from early spring 2006 but from slightly further N. You've captured the summer feel very well.

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