Escape to a sublime clime.

I managed to secure a permit allowing me to travel to Durban where the Turners had kindly granted me access to their magnificent cottage, called the Bird Hide (and available on a self catering basis should you ever require accommodation). 

The extensive indigenous garden is a delight and the water feature contains clicking stream frogs which  along with firey-necked nightjars, owls and bushbabies provide a delightful nocturnal chorus..

The aloes currently in bloom, include the elegant Van Balen's aloe A. vanbaleniii with it's golden flowers and reddish leaves.........................

.....................and a very orange version of soap aloe A. maculata among many others.

Even after spending 30 years here, the Durban beachfront still makes me feel like a kid on my first holiday.  Though there have been many changes a few of the things I can recall from my youth are still present.

Awakening to a familiar dawn chorus and magical sunrises evokes memories of Jo and our beautiful home just over the ridge to the left there.

Access to Krantzkloof Reserve is a simple matter of taking a stroll down to the river and turning right and on one of these perambulations I came across these novel, lime green flowers of the poison olive Peddiea africana.  Birds have been seen eating the fruit but all parts are reputedly poisonous.

Another soiree had me grabbing my phone for a picture of this majestic block done in the finest art deco style.  Durban is particularly blessed with buildings that were erected in the 1930's and decorated elaborately, Surrey Mansions being one that receives regular make-over's - this being the latest iteration.

On my last visit I noticed a lot of development going on down Vetch's Pier end of the bay, so had to see the result, which is a mammoth roof top promenade that provides housing underneath for a number of large water-sport clubs.  Unfortunately defects in the roof resulted in leaks which were being repaired at the time and only allowed access to a small area.  The view back past the Ushaka Pier and out towards the Point were worthwhile however and the scrum on the beach was due to a shoal of sardines that had been netted.  One of the ludicrous lock-down regulations bans anyone from the beaches.....................except when there's sardines apparently.

The majority of the Point area has been extensively modernised but there is still a section along Point Road that seems to be in limbo.  One rather pleasant feature is a canal that has sea water continuously pumped through it and contains large numbers of fish, which you are not supposed to catch.  That didn't stop one wag from hooking a fish from his 5th floor balcony during hard lock-down and posting it on You-tube.

In one part of the canal near the aquarium is a pen holding a number of species that will eventually be moved into the main tanks and included this exotic stunner (Butterfly fish?) and a number of smallish hammerheads.

Although a lot of the parks and reserves are still closed, there are still plenty of places to walk, one being at the end of this avenue of plane trees along Jan Smuts Drive.

Giba Gorge is better know as a mountain biking mecca but also has a number of trails running along the lip of the gorge and accessible from a patch of municipal land.  Overlooking the N3 west of the Mariannhill Toll Plaza it was once part of a 3 day trail that started on Fields Hill and ended in the Kloof Gorge.

A cold front brought downpours of tropical proportions and the lack of gutters on the cottage provided a wonderful "behind the waterfall" effect.  Lack of gutters does not mean that the water is wasted however, as there is a gravel covered trench around the place that channels water into the feature out front - and topped it up in record time incidentally..

A proposed visit to Cumberland near 'Maritzburg was thwarted as the place was closed so plan B involved a visit to Darville, where the once teeming settling ponds are now mostly dry and neglected.  Water flowing from the new sewage works bypasses the old ponds and drains straight into the Msunduzi River.  Fairly certain that the old style, egg-shaped digesters in the background are no longer used but are quite quaint.

The atlas pentad included a small reserve called Mpushini and a breakfast stop there provided a view of the local Table Mountain - anything Cape Town has.....

There is a massive troupe of around 40 vervets that pass by the cottage nearly every day, and while the youngsters are highly entertaining, they do tend to leave a bit of a mess of muddy footprints and less savoury substances! The bakkie is a perennial favourite.

New since my last visit is an outside shower which is sublime but....................

................the great naked ape is a source of total fascination for the locals!

Was invited to cousin Sue and husband Giles' new abode in the Dunkirk Estate near Salt Rock where their deck overlooks a swathe of indigenous trees and nearby is a patch of pristine swamp forest, both of which provide a dazzling array of birds.

Just sitting on the deck allowed views of a plethora of species, including this juvenile white-bellied sunbird foraging among the aloes.

On the way out I came across this this lovely lady who I believe is a mocker swallowtail but without Steve Woodhall's tome, I could be wrong.

Sometimes I forget that I'm 70 and it was rather forcefully brought home when I hopped over the reserve fence with the assistance of a handy tree and started a descent to a path that I knew was there from previous hikes.  What I didn't know was that it was almost 400 m of mostly precipitous forested slope!  Well I'm still around and this was what greeted me once on the trail.

A flurry of whistles announced the presence of crowned hornbills and I found this one sitting in a tree shrieking with it's mouth full.  Though it's wing looks broken, it had just swung around to check out some perceived threat from above.

This area of the gorge is home to a large number of Cape plane trees Ochna arborea.  There are a few subspecies which are named coldbarks due to the fact that the wood is extremely dense and conducts heat away from your hand when you touch the stem.  The distinctive smooth, mottled trunks make identification easy.

My first thought on seeing this was that it was a very early jacaranda but the pink flowers soon put paid to that hypothesis.  Google obligingly came up with the answer, a pink trumpet tree and hows this for a mouthful?  Handroanthus impetiginosis and no it's not indigenous but very eye-catching.

My son Shay and his good lady Lauren, recently relocated to Ireland and some of the pictures he sent were obviously taken from the air.  When asked, he admitted to buying a drone which made me very envious.  In the next breath he said that a friend living in Howick had a smaller version and was wanting to sell, I said put me in touch.  Next thing Chris arrives with this little beauty and all the goodies to make it work and when asked how much, replied that it was already paid for.....thank you boyo.

It is quite the easiest thing I have ever flown and you can expect to see many more shots like this one of the cottage and surrounds after a controlled burn.........taken from 100 m up.  

Lockdown lunacy

The initial three weeks of lock-down is now rapidly approaching three months and it's getting a bit tiresome. A regular visitor is Dusty, who unusually for a female is very loving - I'm talking cats here!  Think the paw over the eyes is so she can't see the sorry state of the world.

Tackled this monster as another boredom reliever with about 400 of the 1000 pieces being Kgalgadi sand.

It's over 30 years since I last experienced a highveld winter and while the days are usually sunny as soon as it sets the shivering starts, so I was quite surprised to get a shot of the sickle moon that's mostly in focus.

With a virtually non-existent winter wardrobe, a visit to a clothing store as soon as was permitted was necessary.  As the fitting rooms were closed, the first time I tried these on was at home and to my great surprise I was back in the sixties with what we used to call stovepipes.  I well remember nagging my mother to make my jeans tighter and tighter but I'm afraid that fashion does not necessarily mean comfort, so these went back to the shop.  Not only did my legs look like chopsticks but my voice was a couple of octaves higher  while wearing them.

Another resident is Spats, who is of the opinion that the only reason for the existence of humans is to play ball with him.  The task is normally undertaken by my sister or brother-in-law, but he sometimes looks so pitiful.....

In the small garden in front of my cottage is a plant which suddenly burst into flower just as winter began to bite.  A succulent of the cotyledon persuasion, it had never before bloomed and despite industrious searching remains unidentified.  Any ideas?

My early morning walks now take places later in the day when the frost has melted and whist out recently I noticed activity on one of the mine dumps.  Johannesburg and surrounds used to be littered with the things but most have been recycled as the latest refining methods means that the 0.04% of gold particles left from the first process can  now be removed.  A company called ERGO mines the dumps and stacks the residue on a monster dump near Nigel.

Using a method that was researched and tested at an off campus facility called University of the Witwatersrand Technology Centre, a colleague of mine did his PhD on hydraulic conveying which is the process being used here.  A high pressure pump blasts material into a coffer dam and from there .............

..................it is piped to the refinery about 30 km away and the water is recovered, pumped back and reused.

Being in stage 3 of lock-down allows a bit more freedom so I took a drive to visit the aforementioned UWTEC, where I ran a small research facility sponsored Des Bolton who owned Cargo Carriers, a giant in the transport industry. The nearby Sandton skyline has certainly changed dramatically in the intervening years and is beginning to rival Jo'burg.  Unfortunately the same can't be said for UWTEC, rather sad.

Not far from here near Heidelburg is the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve and though currently closed, animals may be seen from the road that runs behind the reserve.  Having been starved of animal sightings for many months, it was great to see black wildebeest, zebra, red hartebeest and springbok. The area is also home to a massive Sentech facility which consists of a forest  of pylons plus an enormous tower which broadcast radio signals all over the Gauteng region.

Also took the opportunity to get back to birding and complete a couple of Atlas cards, the most abundant species being the avian locusts called red-billed quelea.  This is a small flock of about a thousand birds which were feeding in a harvested field..........

.........................then decided to take a perch. It is probably the most abundant bird species on earth and about 100 million birds are eradicated annually in an attempt to reduce their impact on crops.

Back on the road past Suikerbosrand, the Traveller's Joy Clematis aristata was bursting with fluffy seeds and the contrasting colours of grass a delighted..............

.........while a large troop of baboons was returning to the reserve after foraging on nearby farms.

A few days later I headed down to the Vaal Dam on a hazy day and took this looking back at the Suikerbosrand, the ridge to the left being the highest point in Gauteng.

It's that time of year when fires abound and amazingly, the burnt areas attract numbers of birds - presumably feeding on charred insects.  Lark species are generally rather drab and difficult to identify, except for this little fellow whose reddish head and smart epaulets make it a red-capped lark.

While trying to photograph a lapwing I got a little too close for comfort to this young black-headed heron who started wriggling his whole body nervously.  All that was missing was the hula hoop.

The Vaal Dam contains the Reefs main water supply and covers an enormous area but is not very deep.

Outflow is carefully matched to inflow in order to keep downstream users happy.......

............and the village of Denysville near the wall has plenty of facilities to cater for all types of water sports and fishing - when allowed.

Did a loop back through Vereeniging and passed this power station which was built expressly for Sasol's coal to oil plant.  Guess which way the wind is blowing!

A whole field of fluffy headed grasses caught the sun and the eye.

A few days later it was off to Magaliesberg and the irony of this sign really tickled me.

Just after the dorp of Magaliesberg, the Magalies River cuts through a rocky ridge and this provided the opportunity to really get back to nature once more  and do some serious birding, though there's not a lot around at this time of year.

Winter is of course is aloe flowering time and these soap aloes A. maculata were out in force.