AUGUST 2019 CAPE TOWN ROUND-UP

I’m taking a break from the usual catalogue of Cape Town events this month, partly because I left Cape Town for ten days on a family visit to another province, followed directly thereafter by a houseguest for nearly a week. But a few paragraphs about the better August events follow.

LOCAL
My local highlight was a visit to the Postberg Flower Reserve, in the West Coast National Park, to see early Spring flowers. Because we went in early August, the flowers were not up to 100% Flower Power, but there were sufficient to make our visit worthwhile. We managed to hit a clear day, when the sky was blue, the sun shone, and there was no wind. It was idyllic. The traffic was minimal, so we could drive slowly admiring vistas of flowers, sea and sky.

The variety of wild flowers is dazzling. At one point we stood still, looked down at our feet, and counted the number of different flowers we could see directly around our feet, perhaps to a radius of 1.5/ 2 metres. We spotted ten, ranging from bright yellow star shaped flowers, tiny lemon yellow flowers, succulent bushes with teeny white knobby flower heads, white orchid like flowers on faux asparagus stems , plus others which I now don’t recall. Some of the wildflowers grow at ground level and require hands and knees grovelling or very keen eyesight; neither of which applied to us.
An added bonus were the animals we spotted en route: two pretty little Steenbok, a number of solemn bontebok, groups of Cape Mountain zebra, striped-back mice, and a massive tortoise, roughly the size of a rugby ball. And sighting of the endangered  black tail harriers hovering over the scrub on the exit road to the gate. On the lookout no doubt for a hapless mouse. In the bush, its eat or be eaten.

 
Wishing us all a peaceful and productive September.

(JAPAP)* SPRING FLOWERS EN ROUTE TO THE MELKBOS LIBRARY

*(JAPAP: This acronym stands for Just a Para & Pics as opposed to text only Just a Para. The Writing Drought continues).

One of the many things I love about living in Cape Town is the fact that during Spring it’s like living in a gigantic garden, which you can simply enjoy without any of the hassle of weeding, watering, fertilising, snail control and so on. I snapped these pics with my trusty Nokia, en route to the Library. The flowers were growing on the roadside, and on the beach. Spring in Cape Town is wonderful!

En route to Melkbos. Table Mountain in the background. Pic by Jay Heale

Daisies on Melkbos beach

DAY ONE ON MY SPRING FLOWER TOUR

In August   2012I signed up with Traveltime for a 5 day tour up the West Coast to view Spring flowers. Our tour leader was affable Carol Coombs, super efficient, and completely unflappable.  I’ve used some of her photos in this post and added a few of my own. I freely admit I’m not the world’s best photographer, and almost as soon as we’d entered Postberg, my point-&-click camera jammed, after I’d only taken two or three pics of the flowers. I’ve included a few below. My camera remained jammed throughout the trip, so that was the end of holiday snaps for me.

Our first stop was at the Postberg Nature Reserve to look at flowers and we weren’t disappointed. The flowers were magnificent– great fields of white daisies which looked like fallen snow; drifts of heavenly blue/purple; tiny patches of salmon pink close to the ground; screaming cerise mesembryanthemums  climbing over bushes; infrequent patches of pale apricot and  bright orange and yellow daisies  by the million.

A field of flowers in the West Coast National Park in South Africa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Reserve has wildlife too, as well as fields and fields of flowers. Placid bontebok were lying down amid the flowers, resting in the warm midday sun. On a previous visit to the Reserve I was lucky enough to see a caracal (red lynx) slipping through the bushes.

Spring is tortoise breeding time and we saw a few, on the sandy roadside verges.  Why – when they have the whole of Africa to roam in – why they persist in crossing the roads, is a mystery to me. At intervals I saw ostrich stalking through the fynbos; raptors on fence posts – the West Coast area  is full of them, they feast on rodents on the inland wheat-fields.  We drove above the Langebaan Lagoon, and the turquoise sea in the  lagoon was decorated with lines of flamingos, with their  plumage of  delicate, palest pink.

Lunch was at the Geelbek Centre in the Flower Reserve, where I ate the  best hake & chips ever. Just as well the food was wonderful, it lessened my irritation at having to buy an over-priced  cap – having stupidly left mine at home. You’d think, with all the travelling I’ve done over the years, I would have remembered to pack a hat, but I didn’t.  Well, we pay for our mistakes, and I did.

http://www.traveltime.co.za/Slider/Flowers%202012/Spring_Flowers121.htm