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!

Daisies at the southern tip of Africa

Apologies - the Food Lady has been a bit slack about updating my blog. (The dreaded dreadful deadlines.) Last weekend we went to the southern tip of Africa. We headed out in the comfy car because of the Alpha's sore back. Dougal started getting excited before we were even past Muizenberg! This is Daisy cottage at Suiderstrand.
And there were certainly lots and lots of daisies there. This is a Sea Boneseed daisy (Osteospermum fruticosum). We went for a walk to Papkuil, leaving the Alpha to relax at the cottage. There were lots of molerat hills to investigate.The sea was a bit kali - I had to beat a hasty retreat - usually there are no horrid little waves at Papkuil.
Dougal was a wee bit sceptical about WHAT lives in that huge hole.

Delicious fishous!

Whooa, what is that!

A giant land snail doing trapeze work.

And what is that long thin snake-like thing in our favourite swimming place?

Yikes, its after Dougal! Oh, its only a piece of kelp.

Omigosh - some alien spaceships have landed on our favourite molerat hunting grounds.

Dougal taking an interest in the botanical attributes of this little Cotula daisy. Just near the cottage were these Cancer Bush (Lessertia frutescens) flowers and funny balloon seed pods.

These are the nasty burrs that stick to our coats and cause the Food Lady to pull our hair when she tries to get them out.

This is me trying to get rid of a few burrs by rolling in the nice cool reeds. Out for the count on the back seat - the BM is such a smooth and comfy car.

We popped in at Greyton on the way home. This is young Thomas who we are not allowed to meet face to face but only through the gate.

Two walks

Sunday was a hot day so I didn't mind all that much when the Food Lady left us to look after the Alpha Male (who has a bad back and has been told to lie flat on it for a week) and went off with Alice and Pauline for a walk in Cape Point (No dogs allowed in there). They parked a car at the lime kiln where this family of ostriches were foraging around. Mmm - Dougal and I are not really bird-chasers, besides, that mother ostrich looks quite large!
Then they drove along the racetrack to the entrance where the walk starts - after Alice took a few photos of the rare and endangered Mimetes hirtus en route.
The start of the walk: good views across False Bay to Hangklip. (Alice's photo).They saw a klipspringer sitting up on the rocks - lucky for it we weren't there to chase it! (Also Alice's photo.) And a lot of photographing and talking about flowers went on I imagine. This is Geissorhiza bonaspei, taken by Alice and identified by the famous Graham Duncan from Kirstenbosch.

Another of Alice's photos: Pauline and the Food Lady looking towards Cape Point with Paul's mountain to the right. At Kanonkop they saw the old Dutch cannon that was once used to signal that ships were about to arrive in Table Bay.

This is Alice's photo of the walk they did from Judas Peak on the far right, along the peaks to Paul's Mountain and down to the beach in front of Paulsberg. No wonder the Food Lady was so red in the face and tired when she came home!
Later on that evening when it was cool and the Food Lady woke up, we were taken to the green belt where I was in clover.
That's me trotting along past these colourful nasturtiums. (Of course I KNOW they are not indigenous but the Food Lady likes them nevertheless.)
And just in case you think I am only interested in flowers, think again. This is one of my best fun things to do - a good roll in some smelly mud!

Thomas

Thomas has arrived in his new home in Greyton. These are from Alice who went up there to join in the fun and games.
Brrrrhrrmph. Aiden looks stumped! (Apparently Arabella wont allow him near her.)

Tackling the Lion

Today we tackled the Lion again! It was windy and clouds were scudding across the poor lion's head, but it wasn't too wet - yet. But there were lots of interesting plants in the renosterveld (should that not be leonveld?)which is what make Lions Head quite special even though it wasn't sunny. Nola and Goose and Maverick came today which was great - and so did Sue and Pauline. (Paul and the Alpha are spending carbon credits in Europe and Alice is fetching a spaniel puppy for our human grandmother in Greyton).
This is Pelargonium elongatum. And quite an unusual plant called Medusa's Head (Euphorbia caput-medusae).
Come on come on stop looking at the flowers!!
Us low-slung dogs decided not to go up to the very top today as the Alpha Male is away again and the Food Lady can't help us both up the steep bits at the same time. Besides is was very windy and we may have been blown away. So we stopped for tea just under the lions head - or maybe it was under its ear. We had special dog peanut butter biscuits today, but not as delicious as the biscuits Sue gave me. Pauline and Goose doing some botanizing. Maybe they were looking at this little Buzz Ixia (Ixia scillaris) which has an unusual way of getting itself pollinated. Little bees come to its very bright anthers, sit on them and then make a high pitched buzzing sound which releases the pollen in a little cloud of dust which the bees gather up at high speed and buzz off. It was quite windy as you can see by my ears. Signal Hill in the distance. A lovely Chincherinchee (Ornithogalum thrysoides) with the cloud-enveloped Twelve Apostles in the distance.
On the way back we met a few other dogs and this manic puppy that made me feel old and staid!

We also met a most unusual big scottie-like dog - and wondered how it all could have happened as scotties are not very good at breeding at the best of times.
What a funny face! The Scottie from Hell! Look at me looking bemused by him.
I think they expect VERY tall dogs here!

The Food Lady drove us to Signal Hill and stopped to look at this Kramat where a very old and very holy man was buried in the Seventeenth Century - Sheikh Mohammed Hassen Ghaibie Shah. She went inside with some other people and spent a while chatting about Circles of Islam around Cape Town, holy zum zums (springs) and another holy man who is buried further down the hill who looked after stray animals. Another place to visit soon...
From the road to Signal Hill you look over the waterfront and the Cape Town Stadium at Green Point and all the way up the West Coast. But is was getting windier and wetter and we had to get backto see how the poor sad Dawn dog was doing. (She was fine although her bed had blown all over the back yard and she refuses to use the comfier ones the Food Lady tried to get her to use.)