Swartland revisited

Visiting the Cape Province is like arriving in a different country.  Most of the municipalities are actually efficiently run, the roads have no potholes and the street lights work. The Swartland around Riebeeck is not all under vines and has fields of winter wheat and canola, which at this time of year are ablaze with flowers.

 

Not content with choking the planet with plastic, the local farmers seem intent on covering large swathes with netting, which is made of.....!  It provides protection for the fruit apparently but really doesn't look great - why can't they make it green?

A couple of days after my arrival, the Kings set off on their travels but soon realised that they had left a number of things behind.  As they were overnighting at Rocherpan about 120 km away I offered to drive up and meet them with the now much extended list of forgotten items.  Don offered to show me around the currently dry pan which nevertheless turned up some interesting goodies such as this oddity.  Meet Hyobanche sanguinea a root parasite with scale-like leaves and showy tubular flowers that are about 75 mm long. (Thanks to Richard Boon for the identification.)

Always good to see tortoises that haven't been squished!

Kilometers of - I would like to say pristine but plastic is everywhere these days - beach.....

,,,,,,,,and a member of the lark family, which always cause uncertainty, but I'm fairly sure this is a Karoo lark.

When I arrived back at the house, the sun was setting behind the Swartberg but it didn't come to much.  There are a lot of table grapes grown in the area so it too is becoming smothered in plastic.

These two provided a lot of comical entertainment with Beau hurtling after Storm then both of them having mock battles.

Next morning the mountain  decided to compete with Cape Town's famous landmark.

In what seemed to be no time at all the Kings returned and I decided to spend a few nights near Simonstown to enable fairly easy access to the Cape Point Nature Reserve where I hoped to find an elusive little bird called a Hottentot buttonquail.  I'd found a very comfortable and reasonable self-catering flatlet in Glencairn Heights and chose the scenic Boyles Drive to get there. There are several places where you may park, one of which overlooks Muizenberg and False Bay.

Way out in the middle of the bay is the little pile of rock called Seal Island which I remember visiting by fishing boat while on holiday at a hotel called Rhodesia by the Sea when I was all of nine years old.  Apart from the seals the only other memorable thing was the retch-inducing smell when we got downwind.  

Further round the bay towards Strandfontein, the municipality is busy building a second Table Mountain out of trash!

On a second visit the small waves, that make Muizenberg beach and ideal spot for beginners, were being extensively utilized.

Across the bay Simonstown is rapidly scaling the mountain,

Driving out to Cape Point, the cloud cover was penetrated by a single shaft of sunlight........

,,,,,,,but in the reserve the skies were clear and illuminated this naturally formed a rock croc..

I heard the distinctive call and reply of southern bou bous and then found them sitting together serenading.  Very unusual and can only think that they were defending their territory.  The female on the left has a slight pinkish wash on the breast

'

The coastline at Buffels Baai is particularly rugged and the water is filled with kelp forests.

A Cape sugarbird was feeding on proteas but unfortunately the light didn't quite do it justice.

Tucked away lower down was this striking Cape tulip, which is probably Morea flaccida, but this is fynbos which means there could another half dozen similar species!

While common sense insists otherwise, I still think that the water on the Atlantic side is a different colour.....it looks as cold as it is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,which doesn't faze the Cape fur seals at all.

A visit to the peninsular is not complete without a drive along Chapman's Peak road with it's amazing vistas such as here looking over Long Beach towards Kommetjie. 

Next to the road this odd brown salvia S. africana-lutea.....

........and the section of road cut out of the cliff - a semi-tunnel!

Next thing I was back in Boksburg for a few nights and decided to split my journey to Bonamanzi where the Beast was stored.  It's been at least 20 years since Jo and I were last at the jewel in KZN Wildlife's crown, Itala Nature Reserve. While the chalet I was in was neat and well maintained on the inside...... 

.....the same could not be said for the thatch, as was the case with most of the roofs.  Some of them are in such poor condition they must be uninhabitable.

Didn't have time to see much else of the reserve but camp's spectacular setting at the base of Ntshondwe Mountain and the breakfast included in the rate made up for the shortcomings.