I’ve been back a while, but finally the weather gods and employment gods joined up to give me the opportunity to photograph a misty morning on a quiet work-at-home day. So happy! Much better than seeing the fog from the train!
If you follow my posts, you know that I love misty mornings. So you can imagine I was happy this morning in Pilanesberg! The antelope in the foreground is a tsessebe.
Sometimes you take a photo and you come back home and it just doesn’t do anything for you. If that’s the case, it may be worthwhile to take a second look at it a couple weeks later. This one matured pretty well!
Recharging my batteries today by taking a long walk to my favorite spot. It’s still winter, the trees are bare, but still so beautiful!
My workplace is in Amsterdam, and I enjoy discovering this beautiful, historic, super diverse city.
Work has begun, and my commute brings me past many beautiful sights – taken by phone through dirty train windows. Here is a selection.
Our final levada hike! In the northern part of Madeira there is more rain, but we were lucky with the weather again. Not with the levada, though, because a boulder had fallen onto the ledge and we couldn’t pass. It took us a bit to find a way around. In the end, it was more than worth it. Watch the video for the amazing views!
We had planned to hike along an old trading route, the Caminho Real, but unfortunately there were roadworks with heavy machinery happening there and the road was closed. But nowadays it’s easy to find another hike on the many hiking apps, so we soon set out for a 9 km circular walk near Encumeada.
This walk started along another levada, and this time we would have to face the tunnels as well. The tunnels are passable, but you need a torch and some surefootedness! We were rewarded with some stunning waterfalls, so it was well worth it.
As we turned our backs to the levada and headed down into the valley, we found out what happens to the water in those waterfalls: it becomes a wild stream. We managed to cross one, but eventually we came to a river that was impassable. At this point we were about 7 km into our hike, and we saw no other option than to turn back.
The clouds are never far away in the Madeira highlands, so as we climbed back up, it started getting misty. In the video you see the same waterfall as in the pictures, but now it looked very different! We fortunately made it back in time to our car. Lesson learned: do not try to cross rivers in the rainy season!
From the sunny seaside of Camara de Lobos we traveled up into the misty Madeira mountains to the forest of Fanal. I think Fanal was my favorite place on Madeira. Even though the clouds had cleared, the ancient laurel forest had a beautiful mysterious atmosphere. It is one of the few places on Madeira in which the volcanic nature of the island is clearly visible in the jutting rocks and even a crater lake.
Awesome wonder 