Bowling a maiden over

Last Sunday we went for a walk in Silvermine - up Maiden's Peak and onto Klein Tuinkop - one of our faves. In fact it quite bowls me over it is such a fantastic walk. Only Pauline joined the Alph, the Food Lady, Dougal and me - mostly because the Food Lady forgot to put the starting time on the blog and then there was a mix up of smses. (Just bearing out what the Alph has said time and time again - although no-one ever listens to him - that you cannot trust electronic stuff). Anyway - the Food Lady is on about grass now (thanks to Paul and Pauline) - and sadly there are very few books on the grasses of the Cape Peninsula. So here is the first unidentified grass ...
These little creeping pea-like weeds along the side of the gravel road to Maidens Peak are most probably the introduced species Yellow Clover (Trifolium campestre var. campestre), which is closely related to the common clover of "I'm looking over ..." fame.
Some more grass - this time Paul's Grass - Pentaschistis curvifolia - which is in full bloom at the moment. This section of the walk was burned about two years ago and is now FULL of the most interesting and exciting plants
like this Microdon dubius which has the rather strange common name of Cat's Tail - not at all like the cat's tail I try to bite off every now and then when the neighbour's cat ventures into the garden!
and this orchid - possibly Acrolophia lamellata ...
and lots and lots and lots of these dainty little bulbs - Geissorhiza tenella - with the boring common name of Klein Pypies.
Me and the Alph waiting for the flower-worshipers (Pauline and the FL) and the lunatic rodent hunter (Dougal) to catch up. Look at me gazing adoringly at our Alph.
Ant dance in a Roella ciliata - a member of the bellflower family Campanulaceae. Me and the Alph wished we had a bell to ring to tell them to hurry up and continue the walk! Some more grass, some Mountain Dahlias (Liparia splendens) and me.
Eventually we got up onto Klein Tuinkop. A snary (Arti-speak for scary) eagle with Kommejie in the distance.
On the top of Klein Tuinkop were lots of these tiny, red-leafed crassulas which the Food Lady had never seen in flower - they are Crassula obtusa. (Identified thanks to the Friends of Silvermine Nature Area's wonderful new cd Flora Doc: A database of the flora of the Cape Peninsula.)
Tea on Klein Tuinkop: the Alph and Pauline. We could SMELL dassies...
so we spent a while checking the place out - but the FL usually gets a bit antsy if we go too far. And of course, all the best dassies are just too far.
A strange and glowing Halloween flower - Harveya squamosa. A parasitic annual.
The only downside of this walk is the long gravel road home again - not so great for paws. This is tired scotty behind some Vlaktee flowers (Syncarpha gnaphaloides).
A white form of Lachnaea grandiflora - usually they are pink. But maybe when they grow on Maidens Peak, they are lily white. Their common name is Grand Stringbark, and they belong to the Thymelaeaceae family - phew - altogether too many vowels for a Scotty to spell! And the Thymel-whatyoumacallit - is the same family that my friends, the gnidias, belong to.
Monkey beetle orgy on a Sour Fig flower (Carpobrotus edulis).
On the way home we came across lots of dogs just setting out with their humans, but we were so tired that we hardly had the energy for social interaction.

We hope you will be back soon Sue and Paul - we missed you!

Walking Dooimanspad

Today we walked from the Wolfkop car park, up Maiden Peak and onto Klein Tuinkop. Alice came, as well as Sue and the English newly weds (not Kate and Wills but the equally beautiful Lucy and Richard) and Josie, and Thea came without Boris. This is the Alpha and me waiting for everyone to get going ...

The Food Lady was looking at this funny little sedge,

and this lone Aristea. She wonders if it is Aristea juncifolia which is fairly unusual and occurs on the Steenberg plateau - but usually flowers in November and December. Maybe the recent fire here confused it. Tea time on top of Klein Tuinkop. Paul, Pauline, the Alpha and me, Sue, Lucy, Richard, Josie, Thea and Alice. (Dougal off ratting somewhere I suppose.) Alice bought some Foxes fruity sweets to celebrate the recent weddings - they were not really to our taste - we prefer Melissa's walnut rusks.All amongst Paul's curly grass was this pink daisy whose name the Food Lady can never remember - Anaxeton laeve. Apparently anaxein means to polish in Greek and refers to the shiny leaves. Levigare also means smooth and polished, but in Latin this time, so whoever named this plant must have been hugely impressed with the clean and shiny leaves! Having a wonderful mouse hunt in the fynbos on Klein Tuinkop. Eventually we were dragged away, through the amphitheatre and out above our favourite forest of Spes Bona - Hangklip in the distance. We were a bit alarmed to see this sign as are we quite scared of Cave Peak (all those dogs that perish in these caves according to the Food Lady who needs no excuse to whip out the leads) but we also don't like the sound of a Dead man's road.

Treading warily in case we came across some dooimans.
Some prickly Asparagus rubicundis. Not very good bushes for mouse-hunting.

Not a dooiman in sight. The Silvermine Valley at our feet and Noordhoek Beach in the very far distance.

Alice pointed out these male Common Sunshine Bush (Leucadendron salignum) cones,

and the female ones with their little yellow flowers.

The Brandblom (Haplocarpha lanata) obligingly growing in a recently burnt patch. ('Brand' means fire in Afrikaans.)

A drink in the shady stream that leads to the waterfall, and home.

A windy walk around Klein Tuinkop

Sue, Pauline, the newly qualified DR Richard and Lucy-the-vet (who have announced their engagement so we were happy to congratulate them with lots of tail wags and jump up and be annoying behaviour) and Josie joined us - Jane, DawnDog, the Foodlady, Dougal and me - for a walk around Klein Tuinkop. It was so windy we decided to walk around and not over the top because we thought DawnDog might be blown off the top - she is, after all, an old lady of 12.
Richard had a smart new camera - oh Alpha Male - despair! - and he got left behind taking photos of birds but managed to find us again just when the Food Lady started thinking that he and his camera might have been mugged. (Complex tenses for a dog brain hey?)

This is a Mountain Dahlia (Liparia splendens) that is actually a pea and not a dahlia at all.

DawnDog in a newly-burnt patch of fynbos that wasn't here last time.

Jane was sad today - and DawnDog says she is still missing Mr Gus. Dougal looks puzzled - he didn't know who that was but found out that it was Jane wearing a scarf to protect her ears from the roaring southeaster wind. Us Scots are lucky - we have built-in wind cheaters.

Tea time in the rocks just near to the scary caves that Jack Russells fall into all the time (because they have unformed risk-assessment centres in their small brains). Jane is hiding behind a bush on the right.

We set off again round the other side of Klein Tuinkop which has some good views over the Silvermine Valley, and lots of lovely flowers. It is a good path and the boulders were easy for scotties to hop over.

There were lots of beautiful Painted Ladies (Gladiolus carneus).

The long, gravelly road home - not my best - and I hate the Food Lady whistling at me and yelling at me to keep up. I only have short legs and the road is hot and hard. Why can't I stop and rest under a shady bush when I want to - its not fair - in fact its a dog's life and ... hey - more dogs...
Ignore those sour grapes - er figs in the road - wait for me Dougal - here I come!