More mountain magic

 One thing Hlalanathi has by the bucket load are bloodsuckers of a type that I've never experienced before. They're minute, silent and deliver bites that itch for days.  In an effort to get away from them I often drove away from the camp and parked off to do a crossword or some such.  On one of these jaunts, the clouds caught fire as the sun set behind the amphitheatre. 

On yet another rainy day, I came across this pied starling whose look matched my mood.

Very pleasing to see reasonable numbers of Amur falcons around, but difficult to imagine the numbers that are slaughtered in India every year as they pass through on their migration.

A morning walk around the golf course turned up a common Hottentot skipper visiting a very pink ipomea.

The resort has numbers of cottages whose roofs are visited by noisy mocking cliff chats........

...............and Cape rock thrush, but only the female allowed her picture to be taken.......

........while the eaves are perfect nest sites for swallows and swifts. By some miracle I managed to snap a white-rumped swift on the wing as it slowed to enter it's home.

The extensive lawns are patrolled by Cape wagtails.........

.......the flower beds provide nectar for gaudy double-collared sunbirds among others.......

........and even the normally secretive Cape robin showed itself.

There were two well fed little cats that were very friendly and loved nothing better than a stroke or tickle and this one went into orgasmic raptures when touched ......but don't go near the tum!

I was sitting in a haze of citronella one afternoon and heard a harsh churring followed by loud knocking which turned out to be a black-backed puffback attacking its reflection in a window.  Even without the red eye he'd look manic!

The Royal Natal NR is just up the road and on a visit for a walk, I happened on this quite tame, female bushbuck...........

.....................and a skittish common duiker near the dam.

I then drove up to Mahai parking and as I stopped was set upon by this Cape batis who took great exception to his reflection in the windscreen - the face says it all.

It was a pleasant amble up the valley to the Cascades, which were living up to their name.......

......and on the way back I found this beauty, which I'm told is a mountain malachite damselfly.

A little further up another fall was positively gushing..........................

.................and on the way back this magnificent black-winged kite allowed me to take it's portrait.  That is not a normal posture by the way, they bob their tail when they get edgy and are preparing for flight.

Down the road a ways a rufous-naped lark was busy replying to everyone same-to-you, same-to-you!

Another visit to Spionkop Dam to continue atlassing allowed me to get some fairly good pictures of a black-crowned tchagra, who was belting out his beautiful call from the top an acacia.

Across the dam is the hill where the British took an awful thumping from the Boers in 1900 and the Kop at Liverpool's Anfield football ground is apparently named in memory the fallen.

Nearby lurked a murder of crows, a collective noun that's only ever been used by poets and fanciful loons.  Always imagine some learned idiot, with nothing better to do, making up these things.

On the road between Winterton and Ladysmith, a sight I've never personally witnessed - Spionkop Dam spilling.

Back at Hlalanathi the clouds draped over the mountains looked like snow.

A familiar chat had a nest under the eaves of one of the cottages and posed perfectly before disappearing in to it.  The name came about because they are usually fairly confiding and their predilection for the lard that the Boers greased their axles with, lead to the Afrikaans moniker spekvreter (fat eater).

The original farmhouse on the property is walled but low enough for  a nosy fellow to peer over.  An amazing collection of bonsai belonging to the owner.  

Just had to take this, an African hoopoe looking for breakfast.  Might have mentioned it before but it is probably the only bird in South Africa whose English, Afrikaans and scientific names are all derived from it's call.  Hence hoopoe, hoephoep and Upupa africana.

 

Give a child a box of crayons and ask him or her to draw the most colourful bird imaginable and I doubt they'd come up with anything close to those on a white-fronted bee-eater.

Reminiscent of our drill sergeant in the air-force was this ram-rod groundscraper thrush, which is not a misnomer as when they run, they crouch and almost scrape the ground.

Rode up Oliviershoek Pass every other day and was always fascinated by the scenery at the top.

In the late afternoon the Sterkfontein Dam positively glows.........

..............and the grasslands are home to red-collared widows.  This one kept avoiding me until I had the effrontery to play his call!

Magical mountains

Soon after arriving back at Hlalanathi it started raining and it was Biblical.  Well it certainly feels like 40 days and 40 nights.........

.......the trickle that was the Tugela became a raging torrent.......

.....................and it became a real treat to wake up and see the mountains.

It didn't do the roads any good either and the new pot holes will take years to repair.....if it ever gets done.  There's a sign on the road past Sterkfontein Dam that reads Kaalvoet vrou (Barefoot woman) and Retief se klip (Retief's stone) which I eventually decided to investigate. The dirt "road" was worthy of the Dakar and it took a lot longer than expect to get to this monument which marks the top of Retief's Pass.........

.....from where he led his group of 66 wagons down into what was to become Natal, on the way to his fateful meeting with Dingaan at uMgingindlovu.

On the same site is this statue commemorating Susanna Catharina Smit, Gerrit Maritz's sister, who insisted that she would walk barefoot over the Drakensberg rather than live under British rule.

On a fine day sometime later I decided to visit Golden Gate National Park, but  had to stop on the way to get a picture of this massive buttress that looms over Harrismith, 30 km away.

The park is renowned for it's towering, golden and ochre hued cliffs, and the pass in and out is a lot of fun on a bike!

On my way out, these puffs of cloud over the Maluti Mountains looked like giant smoke signals.

Going the other way takes one into a different section of the Drakensberg, dominated by Cathedral Peak on the right......................

 

...................and here I spotted the wet season or summer form of Gaudy Commodore, which has the most spectacular seasonal dimorphism of any butterfly on the planet.  The dry season or winter form is mainly blue and they were originally thought to be two distinct species.

On the way to Royal Natal NR the side of the road was littered with these Berg lilies Galtonia candicans.... 

..........while the Sentinel was found to have is very own powder puff......

.......and this beautiful little Cape grassbird had an awful lot to say for himself!

African monarchs were abundant, their larvae feed on members of the milkweed family and though the toxic latex of the plant does not harm them, when they emerge as adults they are slightly poisonous.  This makes them highly unpalatable hence a number of other species, notably the Common diadem, have evolved to mimic the general colour scheme, to avoid predation.

On the way to Bergville, the Woodstock Dam - part of the Tugela pumped storage scheme -  is currently at maximum capacity and a remarkably calm day created a mirror.

Here's what it looks like from Oliviershoek Pass.......I think someone is going to start on an Ark soon.

On the same road is this outcrop which was immediately christened the "floppy koppie"

On a quick trip to Boksburg to collect the rest of my booze stash, I thought I might try another route through Verkykerskop and Memel.  Unfortunately the road soon deteriorated into an absolute nightmare so I turned around and found the other side of buttress that is near Harrismith.  They actually have an annual run to the top of that lot, if anyone is interested.

There are some interesting birds in and around the campsite and include a noisy family of green wood hoopoes.  They almost continuously natter to one another and bear the Zulu moniker of iNhlekabafazi, which translates as cackling women.

The grasslands are home to long-tailed widowbirds whose bouncing flight and epaulets have a magnetic effect on the ladies - apologies for the lack of focus.

On just another overcast and spattering day I found this croaking cisticola looking about as hacked off with the weather as I was.  This family are fully fledged LBJ's and not easy to identify, except by their calls and this one sounds really toad-like.

After taking it's picture I happened to glance down and lurking in the a ditch was this massive yellow crassula C. vaginata, with a head the size of a cauliflower.

The rain did make the Tugela falls much more visible than usual - when the clouds played ball......

......and dozens of smaller falls have also become more apparent..

There's a really nice 9-hole golf course at Hlalanathi and though I no longer play, it provides enjoyable walks.  At one of the many water features, this little jewel of a malachite kingfisher stayed long enough for a portrait.

A little further on the trill of a crested barbet caught my interest.  Have always thought that these birds must have been designed by a committee, they seem to have a bit of everything.

Rooting around on a fairway a sacred ibis or as a young member of a group I was guiding many years ago insisted - a scared ibis.

Another visit to Royal Natal with Titus the drone yielded this rather special view of the Amphitheatre.