Simonstown South Africa

Simonstown Railway update

Sep 14 |14:24 PM

I noticed while driving to Simonstown from Glencairn, that there is a lot of activity at Fisherman's Beach - so I decided to take a run along the railway line from the Southern Right hotel ( great accommodation in Simonstown ) to see what is happening...

	Approaching Fishermans Beach from Glencairn Beach. The blue trucks and site huts being offloaded by crane can be seen in the distance at the railway siding in front of the old oil refinery. Previously, large piles of sand had blown over the railway lines, making it impossible for a train to pass. This seems to have blown away, or been cleared away by railways staff.
	Just past North battery is where the first collapsing section of seawall has been undermined. The main undermined section can be seen where the concrete sleepers are suspended over a hole where the gravel has disappeared. The picture does not show it clearly, but the wall bulges outward at this point.
	First portion of damaged wall subsiding...
	Second part of subsidence. This hole has made a big cave under the concrete, with a small hole at the bottom of the wall where daylight and waves splash into the cave.
	Approaching long beach, before Simonstown station. Here the wall had been undermined during a storm and the wall had begun to collapse outward. This collapse caused the initial stoppage of the Simonstown to Fish Hoek train. However, a train load of rocks was brought in with a diesel locomotive and deposited on the seaward side of the wall to support it, so the other collapse had not happened by this stage. (or those rocks along with the train would probably still be at North Battery).
	I turned around here. Looking back towards Glencairn, the collapsing seawall can be seen more clearly.
	Coming back towards North Battery near the end of the old sea wall. The orange thing is a large digger that has been offloaded. I expect now that the winter storms have passed, it will be safe to dig out behind the old sea wall to fix it. Maybe Spoornet will bring another train load of rocks and just dump it against the wall to support it.
	The railway has become very rusted where it passes close to the sea going around North Battery. Quite amazing, as the train does not seem to have been stopped for that long...... Note the old sleepers here. The new concrete sleepers that have been lying next to the railway for tha past few years only got installed as far as North Battery...
	The construction camp taking shape at Fishermans Beach. The old oil factory siding can be seen going off to the left.. Below is a document sent out by our local Neighbourhood watch....

Railway update Nov2010

Sep 14 |14:24 PM

It has been two months since work began on the repair of the Simonstown railway line. At first it looked like they were just going to put some rocks against the sea wall, but the train and truck loads of rocks just keep coming. I spoke to a guard/ worker, who told me that they were bringing in 1000 train loads, each containing 300 tons of rocks.

Apparently a farmer in Somerset West has / had a hill on his farm, which is being removed so that he can extend his vineyards...

Some pictures from 2 months ago compared to now. It was a nice beach...


Fishermans Beach looking towards Simonstown	Beach with rocks
	Lots more rocks piled on the beach. These are being brought in by trucks. Two diggers are making a big hole and seem to be pulling out more rocks. Maybe rocks were piled there years ago and sank into the beach. This time they seem to lay down some grey Geofabric before piling up rocks...
	The same view after the dust has settled.
	A different view of Fishermans beach. The red digger is digging itself into a hole. The pictures below are a similar viewpoint, showing the rocks piled on the beach. These are brought in the train in the picture.

The view below was looking back towards Glencairn	And what it looks like now...

Whale tail buoy

Penguin Festival 2011

painted-penguins

Help us to help SANCCOB to save our Penguins. You can get involved with the 2011 Simons Town Penguin Festival. Phone 021 786 1758.

Mount Nelson Hotel's earthworms and The Glen

The famous earthworms at the Mount Nelson Hotel have made a lot of news since they got their nice new worm hotel in 2007, (after a trial period set up in 2006). What is not generally known, is that the earthworms of the Mount Nelson Hotel were originally from the Southern Right Hotel, where they had been merrily munching the Southern Right Hotel and Restaurant's waste since 2004.

In fact, the decendants of those earthworms are still processing all the 'clean' organic waste from the Southern Right Hotel in Glencairn. (The plate scrapings are fed to some pigs on a farm near Cape Point Nature Reserve).

Southern Right Hotel received green accreditation some years ago through the “Western Cape Hospitality Industry Cleaner Production Pilot Project” organised by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning. The project involves an initial audit by specialist consultants in the categories of Water, Waste and Energy Usage, with subsequent recommendations and implementation of chosen aspects. There is ongoing monitoring to assess the effectiveness of the implementation process and the intended consequence of the project is to develop a green-rating system in the South African Hospitality and Tourism industry.

	How it works... Organic waste from Southern Right Hotel's kitchen is collected, mixed with shredded cardboard, ripped up newspaper and other scraps and then fed in layers to the earthworms at their state-of-the-art worm farm. Given enough space, the earthworms will eventually breed to around a similar mass to the food being fed to them, so are always up to the task of processing all the waste.
	The earthworms get straight to work eating up the scraps, resulting in no smell or unpleasant effects from the vermicompost. The material on top will attract fruit flies and should ideally be covered to avoid them (with sawdust etc. or a lid). The composting process itself is an aerobic process, which generates no methane or smells associated with anaerobic rotting as what happens at landfills and dumps, or even conventional composting in heaps. It is important to make sure the worm farm is well drained to ensure aerobic conditions.
	<---- Some nice fat worms getting stuck into food from a couple of weeks ago. The organic waste material is converted into worm castings, which is high quality organic fertiliser. It is far superior to conventional compost, and is in fact pretty much the humus that is found on the floor of a tropical rain forest. A by - product is the liquid leachate, which can be collected from the bottom of the worm beds. This has been shown to be effective in controlling pests when used as a leaf spray and also reduces root nematodes and other soil pests.
	After all the food has been digested, all that is left is the vermicompost. The remaining worms are removed and the compost is ready for sowing into the garden or used as a potting mix where it can be used in place of loam. 'Worm tea' or vermitea liquid fetriliser can be made by steeping the vermicompost in water. <---- At this stage the finished compost has no smell and is perfectly safe to handle.

To find out more about earthworm farming and how to get your own worm farm going in the South Peninsula, get hold of Grete at 021 782 1305 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We have worms for sale, we have lots of compost and we know a lot about worms.....

The Glen bench

Southern Right Hotel (now 'The Glen'), sponsored a new bench for Glencairn Vlei. At the opening 'ceremony' are Janine (GM of Southern), Phil Jaques, who made the bench, Grete, Guest manager at SRH and Sir Rupert and Lady Cilla Bromley - who look after the vlei for us (and their dog, Truffles).

Find out more about the vlei and what the G.E.E.S.E. (Glencairn Education and Environment Support Enthusiasts) have done to turn your vlei from a wasteland into a park.... http://www.geeseglencairn.org

Dolphins visit Glencairn Beach


This pod of Dolphins was spotted playing just offshore at Glencairn beach. We like to think they were interested in our whale tail buoy, but they were probable chasing a school of fish...

Simonstown South Africa - News