Paternoster

With Rob safely and warmly (well, warm indoors I guess) back in our little house in Marchmount Road in Toronto, my thoughts somehow turn to our last days here, back towards the end of 2010, when we had packed up our home in Johannesburg and were doing one last road trip to say goodbye to South Africa, before the big move to Canada, where I would descend into Pearson as a landed immigrant, and set out on the road towards becoming a Canadian.

One of the last places we stayed before our departure was the little fishing village of Paternoster, up the West Coast from Cape Town. Well, it had been a fishing village, was still, in one marginal corner, but to all intents and purposes it had become, for some years already, a playground of well-to-do – and therefore mostly white – holiday-makers.

And yet, on that distinctive coast, with its blinding contrasts of sea-green Atlantic, sand and sky, the lobster fishermen with their traditional boats – with motors now, not just oars – maintain a toehold, and the sea and the sky and the expanse of beach retain their simplicity and a little, still, of their wild innocence.

So for Rob, and her safe return to our other homeland, here are a few photos of Paternoster.

More will follow. With boats, this time.