I had given John a spare set of car keys just in case. Inside we are back in our past. On the wall, a plaque with the names of John B Vorster and Margaret Thatcher. This place is a museum of dour people and the forbidding patriarchal years - a mix of Calvinism and British Admiralty, now with its sting removed, strangely anachronistic. Reams of books and academic journals line the walls.
Astronomy turns out paper at an alarming rate.
For a start, the numbers are huge. Nevertheless, when you are counting photons and the telescope is dumping figures into a computer every 15 minutes, a lot of data is being accumulated. Up on the hill is where science happens - where the stars sing. The only problem is there are clouds. I spend the evening talking to Dr Robert Stobie, the director of the SAAO, about the new telescope.