13 November 2011

A cool walk

Everyone chickened out of the Sunday walk because of the rain, but as soon as there was a break, we two and our humans headed for the misty hills. We parked at the new Cecilia Park parking spot, and set off up the path past these beautiful pink watsonias that towered above us Scotties. They are Watsonia borbonica and lots of them have now come up in the Granite Fynbos in place of boring sterile pines - which unfortunately are still plentiful here as you can see further up, despite the poor sad shouters for shade's misguided laments. The species name borbonica refers to Ile de Bourbon, now RĂ©union, as apparently it was thought to have come from there when they named it in the dim and distant past (in the 1700s sometime!).
I don't think our humans have these funny shaped Wild Card Permits for dog walking like what is shown on the board. Nor do they carry trowels to keep us under control. But they have a family Wild Card on a piece of paper though, so maybe it includes us.
We saw many waterfalls.
A silene of sorts - Silene undulata or bellidoides. It belongs to the carnation family.
Misty mountain top with two indigenous Mountain Cypress (Widdringtonia nodiflora) trees and a dead pine emerging from the forested slopes of Table Mountain.
Another waterfall in Cecilia Ravine - usually our best cooling-down place but today we didn't need to cool down as it was just a cool day all round.
Some grass caught in the flash - possibly Rooigras (Themeda triandra).
The Foodlady's little orchid that featured on an earlier post - now flowering and showing that it is a thread orchid - Holothrix villosa subsp. villosa.
In fact, there were lots of little thread orchids growing under a rock on the path back from the big Cecilia waterfall.
Me having a shake after a swim in the river that leads back to the car park.
The magic forest path, with yellowwoods and asparagus ferns and a stream that always flows.
Back in the cleared area next to the car park were lots of Garden Acraea butterflies - these two entwined on a Larkspur Baroe (Cyphia bulbosa) - a member of the lobelia family.
We were having such fun we just didn't want it to end ...
so Dougal had to be forcibly removed to the car - most undignified!

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