The WRONG way walk

No wind, no rain, no too-hot-sun. Takers for the Foodlady’s walk were Alice, Sue, Pauline, Thea (who is threatening to bring Boris the Boerbul but she is worried that Boris might think we are snacks-before-supper so I am a bit nervous to meet him), Kristin who is visiting from the USA, Alpha Male (feeling surrounded by X-chromasomes) and Dougal. And me of course. We set off up the Great Mole Path that the humans insist on calling the Mule Path. And we saw these plants growing all along the path. At first they seemed like any other fynbos plant, but check the fruit! They are DOGFACES! Trichocephalus stipularis. Now these are what I call cool plants! We soldiered up Echo Valley and then the Foodlady led us up the WRONG path. Instead of going up the Jojolu Track (not, as far as I know, named after a French Poodle) we went up to the Rock Arch and somehow she forgot that you had to back-track and link up with the Jojolu Track in order to safely get around the side of Cave Peak. (The Foodlady says the map she has is sadly lacking but this one she found on the Internet makes it as clear as a brass bell. She is DEEPLY EMBARRASSED!) After a bit of exciting walking past scary caves and drippy cliffs, we decided to head down a safer-looking path for tea.
Sadly Richard was not here to see this Rock Kestrel.
Tea was a sumptuous affair as always except that she forgot to give us a drink although there were lots of pools of water around – but really! Here we are having tea (well, some of us were) overlooking Clovelly and Trappieskop.

Tails up on a lovely path that runs from Kalk Bay to Clovelly. Here we are heading back to Kalk Bay.

The path wound through flowering Rhus tomentosa (new name Searsia tomentosa) and giant tree ericas. Pauline remarked how they were like tree ericas she had seen on Mt Kilimanjaro. In the book, The Ericas of the Cape Peninsula by Ted and Inge Oliver, it says they are Erica tristis “the only species on the Peninsula forming such a large bushy tree; similar tree-like species occurring on tropical African mountains.”From the road we headed back up to Weary Willie’s pool, running the gauntlet of lots of dogs on their way down like these doltish labs. I cant even look at them they are so uncool and does that one have a scarf around its neck? What a spiv! But notice how Dougal is sqaring up...At the bottom the FL saw this large bark spider hanging over the path in a yellowwood tree.

Getting high on Hoerikwaggo

Feeling perky today - no tummy troubles and Alice is back again! Set out in two cars with Sue, Katta, Richard and Pauline, and dropped a car at Silvermine on the way to Noordhoek Beach. Got a bit lost looking for start of trail....

...but then found the path thanks to very nice man at Monkey Valley. (Next time we will know to go right to the end of the beach.)

Then we just kept going higher and higher and every twist and turn was another "oooh" and "aaah" from humans.

Very welcome tea with lots to eat at the top of Chapmans. You cant see me in the pic as I am comfortable at Sue's feet. Saw lots and lots of other dogs so that Dougal got a bit rattled and had to go on his lead.

We left all dogs and humans behind on Chapmans Peak and headed down the other side and then all the way up again to Noordhoek Peak. It was quite a walk.Luckily there was lots to drink.
Alice and Food Lady found interesting flowers to photograph: lots and lots of Table Mountain Hairy Heath Erica hirtiflora. And a Cape Snowdrop, Crassula capensis. There were quite a few of these little Granny Bonnet orchids, Disperis capensis that are thought to mimic the nectar-producing flowers of Polygala bracteolata to trick the rather stupid carpenter bees (the staffies of the insect world!) into thinking that they have nectar, but they don't. Carpenter bees (which are very common on Table Mountain and important pollinators) also steal pollen from long-tubed ericas by biting holes through the side of the flowers and it is thought that the sticky coating on some ericas clog up the mouthparts of the bees preventing them from stealing too much precious nectar. Here are Pauline and Alice inspecting the sticky flowers of Erica physodes, the Sticky-flowered Heath on Noordhoek ridge.

Richard didn't find too many birds and luckily the black eagles were not there today,

but as he saw some horsefish when he went diving, that made up for not seeing too many birds.

Last stretch - and look at the smoke from all the tantalizing braais! The humans (some of them at least) were looking forward to a cold beer at this stage. But we still had lots of barking to do to let the neighbours know we were back.

The Other Grootkop

Last walk it was Grootkop above Simonstown, and this weekend we saw the other Grootkop - above Oudekraal - in the distance. Here we are having just crossed Woodhead Dam wall.

Scotties on Top!

Us on TOP! Table Mountain behind us. This is the trig beacon at 928 m. (Me still on the lead!) Our humans and Alice (my best!) left early and went via Elephant's Eye cave to the top of Constantiaberg, which was quite windy and chilly.

(The Foodlady left her camera behind so all these lovely photos are Alice's.)

These plants sound like the Alpha Male's name - they are Stoebe rosea and are endemic to the Cape Peninsula. In fact they are so rare that they are known only from two localities: Constantiaberg and in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. They only grow on rocky ridges below 600 m and flower from January to February. For more on Stoebe, click here.

This is the Table Mountain beauty butterfly Aeropetes tulbaghia, the pollinator of the red disa Disa uniflora, visiting Tritoniopsis triticea (commonly called mountain pipes or the summer snake flower). The red plant above is also a disa, the cluster disa Disa ferruginea, and it has no nectar to offer the butterfly so it mimics the Tritoniopsis and the insect-brained Table Mountain beauty (or Table Mountain pride) butterfly is tricked into visiting it and pollinating it without reward. It is the only pollinator of the cluster disa.

There were quite a few of these blue disas out - Disa graminifolia. They are pollinated by carpenter bees who are also tricked by the blue disa's sweet smell into thinking that it has some nectar to offer but in actual fact the disa has none. (It's as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's horrible cupboard!).

Tea and rusks -and us huddled out of the wind with the Constantiaberg mast looming above us. It looked like it was about to topple over as the clouds ripped past it.

Then for a while the Alpha Male let me off the lead as we walked down the other side to the viewpoint over Blackburn Ravine and Hout Bay. It was fantastic to be free!

When we got back to the car it was quite chilly in the wind so we didn't swim in the dam, and just went home - luckily after passing a few dogs (mostly rather wild golden retrievers like Charlie) - a good end to a really nice walk.

Up Pecks

Today, for the first Sunday in WEEKS, our lazy humans took us on a Table Mountain walk - up Pecks Valley above Muizenberg. It was a lovely sunny, but chilly day - just up our streets. We have just had hair cuts and it was nice to get some of the doggy parlour smell out of us by rolling in the fynbos. We saw this lovley Gladiolus debilis as well as lots of other flowers.

Sue and Paul were there with our humans, and we met Lucy-the-Vet who joined us for the first time. Nice to have someone who understands us.