What we've been up to...

Life has been interesting here, even in the absence of walks. We have met a human cousin grown up a bit - Vincent - who is not very interested in us. But we are quite interested in him especially with possibilities that chocolate cakes just might slip off his plate. His dog brother in England is a large black Labrador called Jethro so I think he is not too sure of us short scots.

With Opie Dopes staying we have had a great many visitors. Here are Dougal and Gabriel sizing each other up. Dougal has been really really good and has not as much as lifted his lip to any of the kids. Now Opie Dopes has gone back to Greyton, and life is rather dull again. Roll on Sunday!

Hoerikwaggo trailing in the rain

Stay at home again! Sue won a prize that she shared with all the non-wounded walkers - a trail and an overnight stay at the no-dogs-allowed Slangkop Tented Camp in Kommetjie. After a hellova lot of organizing and many phonecalls and emails, this weekend was decided upon, and then the heavens opened! So we scotties didn't mind missing out too much as getting soaked through is not really my idea of fun. They decided to go ahead with the walk, and met up in the drizzle at Red Hill Road with two very charming SANParks Mandatory Guides called John and Sukile, and all the supper and sleeping gear was put in a bakkie to be taken to the camp at the other end. Sukile and Caireen are in this photo.They then all set off along the road to the Kleinplaas Dam - Sue, Richard, Lucy, Caireen, Sandy (who has a PhD in Oceanography) and Lisa (her sister who was visiting SA from London and forgot to leave the British weather behind when she came), the FL and the Mandatory Guides. The patchy sunlight became light drizzle, then a heavy drizzle... but the Foodlady was very happy to see a few of these unusual little orchids, Disa purpurascens (bloumoederkappie) around, and a stray ray of sunlight just lit up this bloodroot flower, Dilatris corymbosa.Some astonishingly large caterpillars were decimating the watsonias along the path - apparently the larvae of the Pine Emperor Moth. By then it was VERY wet and I am glad to report that at this stage we were curled up at home in warmth and comfort.

They eventually got down to the Slangkop Tented Camp where they changed, had lukewarm showers and got down to some serious tea, coffee, cider and wine drinking! Here are Sandy and Caireen in the Lapa. The Alpha Male and Wyndham joined the soggy walkers for more drinking and joyous times in front of a fire that Sukile made. Here they are inspecting the accommodation in the camp with Sue. Sue and Caireen thawed out and ready to party the night away...and Lisa and Wyndham in front of the fire...and Lucy and Stephen. Richard dealing with the most delicious looking sosaties... wish we'd been there as sosaties beat tea and dog biscuits any day....

The Foodlady says Thank you Sue for the most fantastic - if a bit soggy - experience in a very beautiful spot! Just look at the Slangkop Lighthouse in the stormy evening light. Beneath the domes are very cosy and comfy tents we hear where a good night was had by all to the steady dripping of the rain and the crashing of the waves...

Walking to the Waterfall

Today we walked up Rooikat (all these cats that we never see!) Ravine to Cecilia Waterfall which is a good walk because you are guaranteed a few dogs on the way. Not quite as doggy as the Newlands Dogwoods, but good enough. Dougal had a bit of a stand-off with two black snauzers so he was happy. Looking back towards the path we were going to walk along we were a bit alarmed because it looked like it might have slipped down the mountain, but luckily it hadn't.

Sue was there today, and Richard and Lucy (so Dougal didn't have to be the alpha male today as our Alpha is still off walks because of his tendonitis) and Caireen was back after a hellovalong break! Josie, another Maltese came along too but she thinks she is a human and treats us with disdain. See what I mean.

We had tea under the waterfall, and I tried to make friends with Josie, but she wasn't interested.

The Food Lady saw lots of interesting plants, including this splendid Liparia splendens, the mountain dahlia (which is not a dahlia at all but a pea). We came out into the newly cleared area which is starting to look less like a volcano blast site. There were lots of good, good smells... and some orchids and bulbs coming up on the cleared slopes, like this not-quite-open Moraea bituminosa. The flowers only open after midday and die by the end of the day.

And this Acraea horta butterfly on some Quaking Grass. The males are a beautiful dark orange. This butterfly is full of cyanide and it is thought that it gets the cyanide directly from its host-plant, the Wild Peach, Kiggelaria africana. You can smell the cyanide if you crush a leaf. (The anti-herbivore defence system of this tree seems to have backfired on it because by providing the acraeas with a means of defence against predators, it contributes to the success of its chief enemy.)

Lucy two

On Wednesday we were allowed on the walk in Cecilia Forest. Litchi was there, and Belle the sausage dog and Kiara the Doberman who ignores me, and I met a new friend - a Maltese called Lucy. She is good fun.
Lots of flowers but not much time to photograph them with the fast-walking gels. This is a pale blue form of Geissorhiza aspera the blue satinflower.

There were also lots of these huge spikes of yellow flowers called Wachendorfia thyrsiflora growing along the road. This is Robbie and Lucy. You can just see Litchi behind Robbie. Litchi got lost for a short time, but at least it wasn't me getting lost this time!

Not a very relaxing weekend!

Last weekend wasn't quite what we had in mind. Dougal and I had to spend a good part of Saturday in the car because Dougal wanted to take Aiden's feet off when they met over the stable door in Greyton. Then late in the day we picked up some gorgeous smelling fish and chips at Agulhas and drove to Daisy to find that some rather smelly humans had been living in the house. This rather threw the Alpha Male and the Foodlady and all thoughts of eating the fish went out of the window until much later when they had cleaned the place up. Very early the next morning we had a visitor - Winston from up the road - who joined us for a swim at Papkuil. The FL has been muttering darkly about us being banned from there but there were no sinister notices and we had a wonderful swim... and a lots of rodent hunts.
There has been quite a lot of progress with the building of the SANParks camp at Pietie se Punt. Some thatched houses, lots of workers lounging about smoking cigarettes on big trucks, and this HUGE road linking the fisherman's cottage on the point to the new campsite. The humans wondered if it was to accommodate a few hundred tour buses that SANParks hopes will come here to brave the wind and storms. You can see the thatched buildings in the distance.

The rest of the day was more cleaning and more time in the car going to the police with all the stuff that had been dumped in the cottage by the lowlife squatters. A neighbour said they were perlemoen poachers who had been burgling all the houses around here. He said they had been arrested. We just hope so!

Dogs walking all over the Lion's Head

We were lucky again this Wednesday.The Food Lady, feeling very guilty because she should have been working, decided to join the Wednesday walkers for a trip up Devils Peak saddle and dogs were allowed. When we got there, it was blowing like the devil, so they moved across to Lions Head which was remarkably free of wind. I think the Lion got up and wrote a rude message on the notice board because it must get sick of being walked all over by dogs. Hudge and us two couldn't quite make it to the top, but it was good to almost get on top of a big fat cat's head. Here we are on the way back. There were lovely flowers for the FoodLady like this Moraea bellendenii. (Apparently Moraea is the maiden name of the wife of the chap who started naming plants called Linnaeus.)

Dogwoods

We set off into the deep dark forest with Alice, Pauline and the Foodlady; Dougal doing duty as the alpha male in the real Alpha Males's absence. (He has tendonitis and has joined the ranks of the walking wounded). In the forest there were ravines and waterfalls...and white woolly bear-dogs ... and irritatingly bumptious black swimming-dogs, and then I heard the reason why. It is a dogwood. Here are Pauline and Alice examining one of the trees - an assegai bush Curtisia dentata that belongs to the dogwood family. These are the new leaves that look like little assegais (but see Alice's article for more info.)

We had tea and rusks in a rocky river gorge at the bottom of Newlands Ravine, deep inside the dark dogwood of Newlands.

Out on the slopes we saw lots of flowering gonnabos, Passerina corymbosa,

and under the trees along the path were some white rietuintjies, Moraea tricuspidata.

On the way back the humans said their next walk must be up Newlands Ravine to the Saddle - that you can just see through the pines in Newlands dogwoods. Sounds a bit rough for scotties.