The Disappearing Path

The Foodlady has been wanting to find out what lies behind the smart new signpost saying Brakkloofrant on the fast road to Simonstown, and today she got her chance and dragged us - Alice, Katta, Pauline, Thea, the Alpha Male, Dougal and me - along too. I don't think we'll be going back there in a hurry as the path kept disappearing.

But we did find some interesting smells, so much so that I had to go on the lead as I kept disappearing too. The photo above shows Katta on one of the disappearing paths through the dunes.

They also saw lots of interesting flowers like this lepelblom, Gladiolus cunonius.

After bundu bashing through the dunes, we stopped for tea. The Foodlady was getting irritated by the paths, but luckily the Alpha Male, fortified by Thea's sandwiches, stepped out and found the main path along the ridge. Almost immediately, Alice found a very rare flower - Aloe commixta, one of only two aloes found on Table Mountain. It was just growing on the path.

We went up to Elsie's Peak (where else?) which is really Else Peak but everyone calls is Elsie's Peak. At last they saw a whale. Here Katta and Pauline are watching the poor whale being pestered by a small boat. Here is Thea on top looking over Glencairn. And another photo of Thea and Katta on Elsie's Peak. And me on Elsie's Peak!

There were lots of other interesting flowers including this rare and vulnerable Wynberg serrurua, Serruria cyanoides, that we also saw on the Karbonkelberg.

And these rather tasty looking Brunia Beetles, Trichostetha capensis on a Green Tree Pincushion Leucospermum conocarpodendron viridum.They are related to the brown and yellow fruit chafer beetles that eat up the Food Lady's roses and that taste really BAD.

When we got home we had to have a shampoo to get rid of all our ticks!