This time of year is whispered among us Capetonians as the "secret season". It's a secret because the world is under the impression that this far southern corner of the African continent is now gripped by an entire season the stormy, wintery gales that lash our city unmercifully thus lending itself to the rather dire nickname of the "Cape of Storms". This is indeed a truth - but the storms are only occasional visitors - occurring no more often than of digits I have on one hand. The rest of the time during "winter" are sunny days beset with gentle breezes drifting over the Atlantic Ocean and bringing the odd soft shower to cleanse the slopes of Table Mountain so that our great rock shimmers like a gigantic Emerald above the city. The minimum air temperature is never less than 10 degrees C and the average always hovers around a warm and pleasant 20 degrees C. The most dazzling part is that the surrounding mountains, the coastal plains, the lawns and verges all become a kaleidoscope of competing shades of green rivaling that of even the most famous of the planet's green places, the emerald isle of Eire.

Cape Town's greeness is highlighted even further because the rest of the sub-continent withers to a brown, dry, dusty and bleak landscape where not a single rain cloud will appear in the crisp white sky for months. The reason for this disparity between bounty and barreness is that Cape Town has always found itself isolated from the rest of the continent by the vast arid region of the Karoo desert and the huge snow-capped mountain ranges that block the soft frontal showers of the Atlantic from moving much beyond the perimeter of Cape Town's vineyards. This means Cape Town alone basks in the bounty of nature and displays its brilliant array of flora, while elsewhere is laid to waste.

The secret however is out! Cape Town's unique location on the south western tip of Africa and the pleasant winter climate is now declared a World Heritage Site. This region cradles an entire botanical biome - called Fynbos - in one small area (the whole planet only has six biomes). This means that Cape Town boasts the widest variety, rarity and diversity of plant species in the WHOLE world!!! Just on this natural beauty alone, it would be crazy to travel anywhere OTHER than Cape Town at this time of year (unless you have free tickets to see the World Cup in Germany).
Here are some facts about Cape Town's floral kingdom:
- Fynbos is an Afrikaans word from the Dutch derivative fjin bosch meaning fine bush due to the dominance of small leaves and hardy stems.
- There are over 2500 flowering plants on the Cape peninsula (that's more than the whole of Britain).
- Fynbos has a total of 8500 plant species - more than the whole of the Northern Hemisphere and three times the amount of species in the Amazon Basin.
In other words, the Cape Floral Kingdom, although by far the smallest of the world's six plant kingdoms, is equally by far the richest. It is no wonder then that Cape Town is without doubt the fairest of cities.

Our botanical heritage is not the only thing flying the green flag. Cape Town and indeed southern Africa as a whole has a long and distinguished history of preserving the environment. Most of the southern African countries boast huge Game Parks where the indigenous game can go about their lives as they did before the onset of human civilization. Zambia, for example, has wilderness areas that have remained as abundant as they were since the dawn of time. The world's largest hippo, elephant, buffalo, crocodile and Zebra populations per square kilometre exist here. This is largely due to the Zambian mindset of living with and among nature rather than the usual heritage of reducing and destroying nature in the relentless pursuit of technological progress. Other countries like South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique have placed political boundaries behind the greater need of natural ones - they have opened their borders with one another in order to re-establish the natural migratory passages of animals. The 4x4 Expeditions in both the Kgalagadi and the Limpopo Transfrontier Parks are safari expeditions that are completely unrivaled in terms of true safari trekking. No wonder our region has the world's greatest collection of wildlife!

The green mindset is deep-seated among the locals in Cape Town too. Capetonians visiting their local seafood restaurant are concerned about the preservation of their marine resources. In lieu of this, Cruise South Africa is encouraging the seafood-loving visitors to Cape Town to choose fish that have healthy populations and relieve pressure on overexploited species. Not all, but most restaurants themselves follow the strict guidelines set out by WWF's South African Sustainable Seafood Initiative, by only supplying those fish that either have healthy stocks or are fished in a manner that is ecologically friendly. Long-line fishing, shark finning and gill-net caught fish are not allowed by either restaurants or consumers. Seafood is classed in three colour categories: Green, Orange and Red. The Green category includes Yellowfin Tuna and Hake, are healthy fish populations caught in environmentally benign manner with no by-catch issues. Orange, like Kingklip and Cape Salmon, are not so good because of over-exploitation and by-catch issues like the inadvertent capture of turtles, dolphins and seals. Red, like Galjoen and Musselcracker, have been completely over-exploited and the stocks have collapsed to critical levels. It is therefore illegal to catch, supply or eat these fish in the red zone. So, before visiting Cape Town be sure to check out the following link for those fish that are or are not allowed on your plate. In other words, make sure you eat GREEN! You can download the list too: www.wwf.org.za/sassi

Sport is also green at this time of year. This month our lads in Green have kicked off the 2006 rugby season with a win against the World XIV and resounding victory over an over-confident Scottish team who, after beating both England and France in the Six nations, were feeling rather array since they landed in South Africa. Perhaps the Southern Hemisphere stars disorientated them a wee bit.

NEWSFLASH: Next month Cruise SA report's back on the `great Sardine Run Expedition and the arrival of the Southern Right Whales in Cape Town.