With all the holidays in April - school, Easter, Human Rights and Workers Day - I decide to pay for a month's stay at Blyde Canyon Resort, as I then got all those high rate days chucked in for no extra - cunning what. I know that every English speaker in the world pronounces the name as in the captain of the Bounty with a de tacked on the end but it should be the same as the sharp part of a sword with and extra e. It's Afrikaans for joyous and was called that to celebrate the fact that Hendrik Potgeiter and some of his mates were re-united with their womenfolk on its banks. They had taken a jolly to the flesh-pots of Lourenco Marques, missed the curfew and were presumed dead.
There's an upper and lower view site here, though there's really no view from the latter apart from a large cliff and a massive free standing rock called the Pinnacle, right at the centre of this shot.
There is a large board that details SA's rarest raptor, the Taita Falcon. There are obvious signs that indicate a presence in the past but a number of hours over several days revealed nothing. Think they've gone the way of the other famous pair that used to frequent the cliffs near the Strijdom Tunnel on the Abel Erasmus Pass.
The lower view site is the starting point of three trails and I determined to do the Kadishi Trail at the start of which I discovered a species of grass new to me. I bought a book many years ago and tried to learn a bit more about them but the old grey matter was already beginning to curdle so now just look them up as and when. The pink tassled one is Enneapogon cenchroides or Nine-awned (don't ask) grass...........I think.
The Kadishi trail eventually leads one to the magical Tufa Falls and that's not because of the setting it's because they're growing, not upwards but outwards.
Over millions of years, water running over dolomitic rock absorbs calcium and mosses drawing out carbon dioxide result in layers of calcium being deposited, which gradually build up.
What the lower view site lacks, the upper one makes up for in spades.....and buckets come to think of it. When, I wonder, does a gorge become a canyon? Google was not forthcoming.
On a visit to the Three Rondavels view site, I found this big chap trying to look inconspicuous whilst having his breakfast.
When taking this, I was strafed by a drone being flown by a young lady who was obviously getting the BIG picture from a GoPro camera. Not sure if that's allowed but it certainly must be awesome.
The view back up the canyon - strange to think that that measly little river carved something so massive but then I guess run-off was a lot more of a problem before grasses developed - which was only a hundred million years ago. Blink of an eye really.
The lichens around here are a striking orange and lime green and at the next stop there's a trail which provides a lot of information on the symbiosis between an algae and a fungus.
A series of bridges allows one to walk over the gorge and needless to say one of the bridges is "out of order" but the only thing to make you aware of this is some red and white tape.
Perched on one of the previous bridge anchor points was an old humbug-headed Cinnamon-breasted Bunting.
Decided to dodge the school holidays as the kiddies play-ground is right in front of the Beast. So headed back to Boksburg for 10 days and while there decided to visit Marivale and see what's what, but it was so flooded that what's what wasn't. Sitting in one of the hides a little White-throated swallow flew in and was greeted by the chatter of chicks. The parents had taken over a Greater-striped swallows' mud igloo and converted it to suit themselves and they were getting in a final brood before winter.
As kids tend to do, they were running mom and pop ragged so one of them snagged a nearby perch to get in forty winks.
As mentioned before there's not much noteworthy about Gauteng except the clouds. Watched a match between the Reds and Blues the other day and one of the members of the former was called Micheal Hunt. What on earth were his parents thinking, surely they knew everyone is going to end up calling him Mike.
It's Cosmos time and there were a lot of them about. Back in the day there were three flavours, white, pink and crimson and there were always just one or two plants in every klomp that sported deep red flowers. No more it seems, as though the 400 km to Jo'burg was liberally peppered I saw nary a one. The best I could come up with was a deep pink - ag shame what happened.
Back at the Canyon the camp site is in a heavily wooded valley - mostly Black Monkey Thorn and this particular specimen caught the eye. Wouldn't you love to know it's history - stomped on by a pachyderm in it's prime perhaps.
Just above the pools is what must have been a natural waterfall at one time but the powers that be decided it should be a year round attraction so they built a dam at the bottom and fitted a pump, voila an over-sized water feature.
Even though they are alien, Kapok trees. Ceiba pentandra, certainly put on a show at this time of year.
On the way back noticed these novel formations which are also part of the canyon.
