Kalk Bay Tunnels

South Africa on New Years Day.

Instead of spending all of New Year’s Day walking the False Bay beaches, this year I headed straight for the Kalk Bay tunnels and stayed put. It’s where, previously, I'd join the morbidly curious standing above on the road, looking down into the chaos of the six railway bridge tunnels and thinking next year I’d crack this; I would need serious energy to face this crowd.

New Year's Day rolled in, and around 1 pm I took a deep breath and stepped down into the first tunnel. Being the only gringo; tall with a fairly large-than-normal camera setup, I immediately drew attention. I normally look for a friendly face and blast off a few frames to ease into the situation; after that it’s a cakewalk. However, I didn’t have to do anything as they came to me and asked how much for a picture. The second round of suspicion kicked in when they heard there was no charge, and amid the barrage of questions, I was asked if I was shooting a porn movie. After a while I was forgotten, and the interesting stuff unfolded.

I got offered a drink and was assured it would be in a clean cup. Maybe I flinched when she offered it, and if I did, I was pissed off that I didn’t control it. Maybe I should have explained it wasn’t the state of the cup but that I don’t drink neon coloured cool drinks.

A wonderful 80-year-old man who worked as a dockyard crane driver in Cape Town was proud that he’s still called when an enormous container ship needs his expert touch to unload. Sitting next to him was his son, who took out his teeth and poured me a beer in a small glass; this time there was no uncontrolled flinch, at least I hope not.

There were so many kids; it seemed the kids had kids had kids. I haven’t seen so many boobs with babies attached since crossing the Amazon. Everybody was in a state of play, eat, drink, sleep/pass out, rouse and start again; it was fantastic, and I wondered why I had put off coming down here for so many years.

A man said he was a minister who works for the department of morality and good social behaviour (or something to that effect), and I thought, what the hell is he doing down here - he gave me his business card, not sure why.

After a few more hours of exchanging life stories and proud great-grandmothers, shoving screaming grandkids into the lens, I retreated to what felt like a deathly silent, boring home; it took another hour or two to come down from the buzz.