The Scottish town of Inverness and environs have done very well out of a monster that may or may not exist. Well, have you seen the Loch Ness Monster? No, I didn’t think so. It may just all be a rather shrewd marketing ploy by those canny Scots.
In Stanford, where we have our own cunning plan to bring a lot more feet into our stunning village (but a lot more about that in good time), we have our own animal phenomenon. We have a resident seal which lives in the stretch of the Klein River which winds around the village.
What’s so phenomenal about that, you ask. To which my riposte would be: “Were you paying attention during Geography class?” Seals live in the sea. That’s why they’re called seals. And not riverls. Are you following me?
Good. So our seal, which is meant to be fishing about in the sea, hangs out in a bit of river about 20km from the ocean. No salt water here. Being a seal of exceedingly good taste, it liked Stanford so much that it metamorphosed into a freshwater-dwelling riverl.
And, unlike those Scots who have been pulling the wool over our eyes for centuries, we can provide photographic evidence of our phenomenon.
Here it is…
Our riverl (freshwater seal) puts out a lazy backstroke vibe in the Klein Rivier Pic: Tim Hague
There you go. Absolutely no reason for you to spend good money in the forlorn hope you might spot a monster in Loch Ness. Instead, come to Stanford and check out our riverl, quite possibly the only one of its kind in the world. Impressed? You should be!
* A languorous back-strokey kind of red hat tip to Tim Hague for the use of his quite stunning pic.
* Wait. Before you rush off to phone your geography teacher, please look at this… if you scroll up to your right on this page, you’ll see a big fat badge saying something about the 2010 South African Blog Awards. I’ve entered your “diagnosed SA-positive” blog into three categories: Best New Blog, Best Personal Blog and The Kulula Best Travel Blog. I wouldn’t be at all offended if you clicked on that there badge and nominated http://www.fredhatman.co.za in the category you think best fits this blog. In fact, were I to amaze all of us by winning something, the Birkenhead is on me down the Stanford Arms! Cheers!
Fred Hatman (AKA Howard Donaldson) knew he wanted to be newspaper journalist at age 13. He has worked as a reporter and sub-editor for the Daily News and Cape Times, both based in South Africa and Wimbledon News, Today, London Daily News, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror, all based in London .
