Sundays walk

From Smitwinkel viewpoint - walk to the old lime kiln where we will have left a car to get us back. We will need a Wildcard to get in - otherwise will have to pay to get in.

Windy walkies in Silvermine

What excitement. Lucy is back AND we had two new canine walkers today. (And a couple of humans too.) At last I got to meet Honey who belongs to Helen and Paul (and Caroline and Katherine but they stayed at home). Here is Honey with Paul. Josie also came - she is from St Francis Vet and has adopted Richard and Lucy as her humans. She was not really very interested in us as like most Maltese Poodles, she thinks she is not really a dog. Here she is with Richard. (I think Dougal fancies her!)
Our special guest was Lydia from New Zealand who has two cats (see a photo of them in the gallery on the right). Luckily she left them behind on Alexander's duvet in New Zealand. This is Lydia.

We set off up the path and it got windier and windier. Here are Sue, Lydia and Helen looking windswept. We found a sheltered spot for tea. Helen, Richard, Lucy, Josie, Sue, Honey (who thinks Dougal has her biscuit), Pauline, Clelia, Paul, Alpha Male and Lydia. (I am next to Sue.)

And here is the Food Lady dispensing biscuits.

It was rather windy and swirling with clouds, so we didn't go to the view point, but headed back down the road to the cars.

Clelia spotted this little slug eater snake which is harmless. We were ahead with the Alpha Male and didn’t see it or I might have tried it out as I enjoy eating lizards.

There were lots of pink sweet pea bushes - Podalyria calyptrata - full of bumbling carpenter bees that I also like to eat when they are foolish enough to bumble down to scotty level. (This is Lydia's photo of the sweet peas bush with the yellow Leucadendron xanthoconus in the centre.) Here is another of Lydia's photos of Erica plukeneti and the sickle-leaf conebush Leucadendron xanthoconus.

And this is Clelia, who studies birds and speaks French - another photo taken by Lydia.
All that was missing on this fun walk was my absolute best - Alice!
Then back home it was coffee and lots of talk about New Zealand which we don't like because we will be left behind for a whole month.

The Amphitheatre Path, Silvermine

Sundays Silvermine Stroll - from the dam, along the Amphitheatre Path and around with an option to go to the viewpoint over Blackburn Ravine.

Karbonkelberg Canyon

Today they took us through a very exciting but rather difficult to negotiate canyon. It was an easy walk up to the Karbonkelberg when we did it 3 months ago with the Wednesday Walking Troop (that includes my friends Haj and Litchi) but the path has been washed down the mountain and into the sea. Here are Sue and Kristin lookin at the famous surfing spot known as The Dungeons. Our intrepid Sunday Walkers Troop - consisting of Alice, Sue, Pauline, Kristin, Antje from Bristol (but really Germany) and us four - persisted in following this track despite my falling into the canyon a few times. Luckily it was soft where I fell. This is me having fallen in the canyon.

The FoodLady got a bit confused - again! - because the path was so eroded she was convinced we were on the wrong one so we took a short detour to make sure and luckily found a few plants of the rare Wynberg Spiderhead, Serruria cyanoides, and some lovely Ewwa-trewwa, Satyrium corifolium, spikes.

After a hard slog up this most scotty-unfriendly path, we had tea at the old Second World War radar station that was built to detect submarines when they surfaced to recharge their batteries during WW2. After an explore and many oohs and aahs at the view and the shipwrecks, and photos! we decided head for home and do Suther Peak another day when the path has been renovated. This is Kristin giving the "path" a wide berth!
Lots of little Babiana ambigua plants. The name Babiana comes from baviaan, the Dutch word for baboon. They must eat them as well as proteas.

Pauline and Sue - great African explorers. Nearly home. The Sentinel standing guard. You can see where some of the missing path ended up!

Sundays proposed walk up the Karbonkelberg

See Shirley's A walking guide for the Hout Bay to Simonstown mountains, page 8, Walk 1 "Karbonkelberg and Suther Peak."Apparently there are lovely satyrium orchids flowering now - Satyrium coriifolium and S. carneum.

Baboons and bangs

Not a whale in sight, but we had a very exciting encounter with the Smitswinkel Baboon Troop. But first things first. We - Alice, Sue, Thea, Pauline and us four - managed to get to the start above Seaforth without a hitch and walked into wondrous scotty-high fynbos filled with mouse trails for us and serrurias for humans. This is the Swartkops Spiderhead, Serruria hirsuta, that occurs here and only here and nowhere else on earth! There were lots and lots of bushes in full flower (an estimated 1500 bushes occur here) and lots and lots of photos were taken, making the Alpha Male a bit mad. Here we (Dougal, me and the Alpha M) are waiting for the rest of the troop to catch up. Sue is nearly there.... You can see the rare and endangered serrurias along the path. Then we had tea near the first blockhouse which was built just before the First World War - before Just Nuisance's time even. It was quite a steep spot but I found a comfy vantage point. Here is me getting some attention from Thea with Pauline watching.Thea had some good sandwiches today, but we were only allowed rusks and boring beanos. After tea we went ahead with the Alpha Male and missed the baboons who must have recognized the Alpha Male for what he was, and kept out of sight until we had passed. For the rest of the gels however, they gave a wonderful demonstration of how baboons eat Black-bearded sugarbushes (Protea lepidocarpodendron). This is "Force" on the slope below Swartkop - the leader of the Smitswinkel troop. And here is another one of Alice's photos of the same chap eating proteas. Alice found a website with amazing photos of Cape Town's baboons. Go to http://www.wildnorthwest.org/galleries/baboons.htmlHere is Sue almost on top - a leading female of the Sunday Walkers troop!On top of Swartkop. It was freezing cold up there. Here is Thea reading a sad plaque to Cherry Cardwell who died in 1995 aged 48. We didn't spend very long in the cold and were soon heading down when we picked up the scent of the baboons who had been walking back down the path too. (In the background you can see from Simonstown all the way to the front of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak.)Here we are checking out where the baboons were going. We really wanted to chase them but our humans were monumental spoil sports and put us on leads so we couldn't. Back near the blockhouses we saw two other people with fancy baboon tracking equipment who had come to discourage the baboons from heading down into the town as Monday is garbage day and they like to come down and check the bins. We could have taken them right to the baboons if we had been allowed! (Read about the Simonstown efforts to control baboons by going to http://glenroadwatch.southerncrossroads.info/?p=423. ) They let off some fancy firecrackers and I am not sure if they scared off Force and his troop, but they sure scared Dougal! Then it was back to the land rover and a long wait for the rest of the Sunday Walkers Troop to catch up. They were taking more photos - including this unusual rhus, Rhus (or Searsia now) rosmarinifolia.
Still no whales on the way home. So we will try again next week...

Whale-spotting hike up Swartkop Peak

Start at top of Jan Smuts Drive, Simonstown, above Seaforth - off Churchill Ave.

For more on the walk, see A Walking Guide for the Hout Bay to Simon's Town Mountains by Shirley Brossy. Walk no 41: Swartkop and Blockhouse Gap, page 94-5. Should take about 4 hours with tea. It is quite a steep, but not difficult, route.