This is not the Africa you're looking for

So, the other week I went to the dentist, and read 5 minutes of a national geographic article about gigantic trees - in particular redwoods.  Which got me thinking about gigantic redwood trees, and so I went to wikipedia and read about them (as is my habit), and daydream about trees so gigantic you could build an automotive tunnel out of them.

Now here's where this gets relevant to something other than redwood trees: What should I happen to see, but this intriguing bit: "Other areas of successful cultivation outside of the native range include Great Britain, Italy, Portugal,^[15] the Queen Charlotte Islands, middle elevations of Hawaii, Hogsback in South Africa..." [the page]
Hogsback?!  What?!  I just went there!  



And so this seems made me think to myself: 'self, you should probably do something with those bajillion pictures you took on that trip.'
By bajillion, I am exaggerating mildly.  To be more precise, I took 375 pictures, in a one-day trip.  Which left me with no desire to share them.  Or even look at them.  Ever again.
But now, I decided to go back through and hunt for redwood trees.  Turns out it's probably not that hard.  Look at the tall one on the right in this random trash landscape I snapped, presumably out of a car window:

So here's the story with Hogsback: it's this weird little town that's (a) up in the mountains, and (b) seems to be permanently stuck in let's say 1968.  Meaning it's full of hippies.  And there's a lot of things about faeries.  I don't really understand why.

I mean, what's the appeal of a thing like this:

See?  Anyway, Hogsback is pretty.  Not just pretty, but pretty.  Here's an example, from the stone circle of "energy" that this guy at the crystal mineral gallery/store/art parade/nude love-in made:

It's also on the edge of a cliff.

Anyway, these pictures are old and I don't want to say much more about them because there's too damn many.  I'll have to tone it down next time.  They've also been sitting on my camera for like more than a month.  So here, let me just dump the whole bunch unto you and you can sift through when you feel like wasting time.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96953185@N07/sets/72157633922539595/

In other news, it's like winter here now.  I say 'like winter', because it's not really winter.  I'd say fall, but they don't say that here, they say autumn instead.  And I don't think there really is an autumn.  But I do know that the tree outside my office now looks like this:

...which, like Hogsback, is not what one in America imagines any place in Africa to look like.