October summary: Cape Town and a successful IMPC

Amanda returned to Cornwall on October 5th after her week in Orléans, France, reporting on the International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium (posting of 9th October).  On the same day Jon flew from Luxembourg to Spain for two nights in a storm-ravaged Catalonia, to assess potential conference venues in Barcelona and Sitges.

Jon in a very wet Barcelona

The following week Amanda, Will, Barbara and I left Cornwall for Cape Town and the International Mineral Processing Congress (IMPC). MEI was a media partner and from our perspective this turned out to be one of the best IMPCs for many years (posting of 23rd October). It was a great opportunity for our new recruit, Will, to bond with people in our industry.

The social events were outstanding, particularly the cultural evening and it was great to see our 2020 Young Person's Award winner, Ahmad Hassanzadeh with his young family. Ahmad will be presenting a keynote lecture at next year's Flotation '27.

The Congress Banquet was also a great occasion, with fine food and entertainment.

There were many awards presented at the Banquet, to young researchers, and to elder statesmen who received the highest awards in mineral processing, the IMPC's Lifetime Achievement and Distinguished Service Awards. I was honoured to be asked to be photographed with the winners of these awards Zenghe Xu (posting of 22nd October) and Robin Batterham (posting of 22nd October), as we were the only delegates out of the 850 in attendance who held the awards, my DSA being presented at the IMPC in Chile in 2014.

On the day after the IMPC Amanda, Will and his girlfriend Liv relaxed with a cage-diving shark experience on the False Bay Coast at Gansbaai (YouTube), and a day later we all met up for dinner in Camps Bay to celebrate Will's 22nd birthday.

Beautiful Camps Bay

Birthday dinner at Hussars Grill

And another day later Amanda flew back to UK, while Will, Liv, Barbara and I remained in Cape Town for the 3 weeks prior to our November conferences.

Last Monday Will and I visited the Cape Town Aquarium, as a potential venue for an MEI conference dinner.

And then a relaxing couple of hours at  the Waterfront, with a fine late lunch at the City Grill.

MEI's conference venue, the Vineyard Hotel, is only a 20 minute walk from Newlands Cricket Ground, regarded as one of the most beautiful of the world's test match arenas. We have been lucky enough to catch five international matches on our many visits to Cape Town, and three days ago spent a day watching day 2 of the test match between South Africa and Australia, which South Africa won today on Day 5.

First-time visitors to Cape Town should seriously consider the Red Bus City Tour, perhaps the easiest way to get your bearings in a city where the major sights are spread out across mountains, coastline, and city centre. The hop-on, hop-off format lets you see highlights such as Table Mountain’s cable car station, the V&A Waterfront, Camps Bay, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, and the Bo-Kaap’s colourful streets. Open-top upper decks offer sweeping views of Table Mountain and the Atlantic seaboard, and the audio commentary adds useful history and context that otherwise would be missed. We have done it in the past but a couple of days ago we spent a few hours relaxing on the tour, enjoying the amazing scenery and hopped off at Hout Bay for "ye olde fish 'n chips" at the Wharf Grill.

Barbara and I have hiked up Table Mountain a number of times, often with conference delegates (YouTube). Yesterday we took the cable car to the summit, to meet Will and Liv, who had hiked up via the popular Platteklip Gorge. They have had a good week, with long walks and a visit to the penguin colony at Boulders Beach.

Cape Town is blessed with two world class international sporting stadiums. Apart from Newlands Cricket Ground, in the city centre is the DHL Green Point Stadium. Originally known as Cape Town Stadium it was built specifically for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It is the home stadium of the DHL Stormers and a major venue for international and Western Province rugby. Barbara, Amanda and I first visited this magnificent stadium 16 years ago to watch the USA beat South Africa 1-0 in a poor football match.

November 2016

I strolled across the road today, from our apartment in Green Point to watch the DHL Stormers playing Ulster Rugby in the United Rugby Championship, a long way for the Northern Ireland team to travel for a rugby match, especially to lose 33-7!

It's been a fine week here in Green Point and two more weeks to go before we move to the other side of the Mountain, to Newlands and the Vineyard Hotel, for Process Mineralogy '26 and Critical Minerals '26.

#MEIBlog