Deep dark woods, disas and a little bit of heaven

The Food Lady and the Apha Male decided to leave us at home last Sunday, even though it was a cool, scottie-ish kind of a day. A bit mean I thought, as I munched my Beano biscuit with a mind-blowingly delicious blob of extra-lean beef mince stuck on top. Apparently they wanted to walk up a path where dogs are not allowed, starting at Kirstenbosch main gate, where dogs are not allowed. They ventured deeper and deeper into the forest - along the Donkergat path (w d a n a*) where a huge old Spanish chestnut tree and some ghostly ruins of foundations are all that is left of a woodcutter's home.
Up and up they climbed ...
past scary creatures that lurk in the woods - a Griffon (and I am not referring to the dog version!) about to take off?
At last they reached the top of Skeleton Gorge, without mishap, and into Paul's curly grass with Hermas villosa plants looming up in the mist.
A lonely cuppa tea in the mist. I think they were missing us and the rest of the group.
The object of the walk - some Red Disas (Disa uniflora) in the Window Gorge Stream.
There were many other interesting plants too - this Jacaranda Inkflower (Harveya pauciflora), a root parasite, that the Alph spotted growing along the Aqueduct.
And the Table Mountain endemic, Watsonia tabularis. growing in front of some Table Mountain sandstone.
Another group had made themselves at home in the river, having a picnic in the midst of the disas in the valley between Junction and St Michael's Peaks.
Another disa - the Golden Orchid (Disa cornuta).
The Hely-Hutchinson and Woodhead Dams with some wisps of misty clouds making them look rather mysterious.
An Autumn Painted Lady (Gladiolus monticola) alone and palely loitering. Short cut across the half empty Hely-Hutchinson Dam - with lots of other people - all come to marvel at the disas? Back down Skeleton Gorge, and into Kirstenbosch.
The Food Lady took pity on us and took us for a walk in the Greenbelt so that she didn't have to feel so guilty about not taking us up Skelton Gorge. This is Dougal in full squirrel hunting mode.
The Green Belt has its share of natural curiosities to keep the Food Lady clicking away. This is a fungus called "Chicken of the woods" (Laetiporus sulphureus) identified by Malcolm Greaves on iSpot. Hunting squirrels in the dappled shade. (Dawnie was there too but she is a bit slow these days and lags behind.)
Australian Cherry Tree flowers.
and some Heavenly Blue morning glories growing in our own little doggie heaven in Constantia.

*where dogs are not allowed.

A Skeleton Walk

We were left at home this Sunday. Dougal had a sore foot (which is better now), and I elected to stay and keep him company. The gale force Southeaster had nothing to do with my decision whatsoever! (Dawn was in her bush hiding from the Alph.) So as it was only the Alph and the FL, it was rather a skelton walk.
They took advantage of our absence to walk up one of their favourite paths, Donkergat, which they used to do often with Sam and Tombi (our predecessors) before the meanies at Kirstenbosch banned dogs.
A scary Pterodactyl tree in Skeleton Gorge.
Not really our favourite kind of path.
An unfurling fern frond.
On these eastern slopes of Table Mountain you often see the weed, Field Woundwort (Stachys arvensis), which originally comes from Europe, Asia and North Africa. It has a lovely minty smell when you brush past.
A closer look at the Field Woundwort flower.
Skeleton Gorge was sheltered from the roaring wind, but the path to Maclears Beacon had disappeared into the Southeaster cloud and it was mighty chilly (which we Scots actually like!).
Tea break at the top,
where the photographing phoodlady phound some Senecio grandiflorus plants with their phunny phat buds. These woolly plants are endemic to the Cape Peninsula.
They chose to come down Nursery Ravine - which was also surprisingly sheltered from the Southeaster and full of people and flowers; like these pretty Stonecrop flowers (Crassula pellucida).
A sticky end for this moth - caught in a Drosera hilaris. Not so hilarious for the moth!
Near the bottom of Nursery Ravine, they walked through the wild area of Kirstenbosch - again something we canines are prohibited from enjoying - where they saw lots of flowers like this rather odd Lady's Hand (Cyanella hyacinthoides),
lots of Blue Sceptre flowers (Aristea capitata),
and lots of Watsonia borbonica.
Having a rest in front of the enchanted pond in Kirstenbosch before hurrying home to us.

A short history lesson from the Food Lady

The Foodlady left her camera card behind so there are no photos to show of their Sunday walk this week. Pity, as by all accounts the disas were so plentiful that in the end they were all disa-ed out. They toiled up Skeleton Gorge - only Sue, the Alpha and the FL in the end - the others all ailing or entertaining. (These photos are from last year).

The Food Lady thought that this was a good opportunity to provide some facts that she found in Colin Paterson Jones's book Table Mountain Walks and Jose Burman's The Table Mountain Book. They had a tea stop at the top of Window Gorge in among lots of flowering red disas. Window Gorge is where one of the streams that flows into the Liesbeek River starts. (The other is at the top of Skeleton Gorge.)
They then walked on to the Aqueduct (made famous by Paul's red hiking boots last year) which was built in the late 1800s to channel water into the Woodhead and Hely-Hutchinson dams.

Then it was down the gorge that skirts Junction Peak and ends up at the dams which they crossed. There were lots and lots of people (and dogs!) in the Cool Pools. En route to the top of Nursery Ravine, this little clump of firs, silver birches and oaks and some ruined mossy stone walls are all that's left of the Superintendent of Plantations in the Cape, Joseph Storr Lister's Oudekraal Tree Nursery established in 1884. (He also set up the Tokai Arboretum.) Lister appointed a forester, Paul Schickerdanz, as Forest Guard for Table Mountain and gave him the task of establishing a nursery for exotic plantation trees u[ there. At one stage there were blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon), silver birches (Betula pendula), firs (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, Cryptomeria japonica and Cupressus species), pines (Pinus radiata), ash (Fraxinus species), elm (Ulmas procera) and Turkey oaks (Quercus cerris). Some of the plantations were inundated when the Hely Hutchinson Dam was built, and the rest have been felled, save for a few of the non-invasive ones - some ancient old firs (Cryptomeria japonica), some silver birches and some Turkey oaks. Indigenous species have also been planted there now - yellowwoods (Podocarpus latifolius), Rooiels (Cunonia capensis) and Cape Beech (Rapanea melanophloeos).

Why in Heaven's name did they want to grow trees up here in this remote spot one asks. Well, the prevailing thought in those long ago days was that trees increased water run-off in catchment areas. It has now been conclusively demonstrated that the indigenous vegetation is more efficient for this purpose - in fact it is much more efficient because the exotic trees suck up any available moisture at a great rate, which is then lost through their leaves.

(For more on this nursery and Schickerdanz, click here for a previous post that included us scotties in the walk, when this photo was taken.)