We said goodbye to
Dawnie who was happy with her bone
and met up with Sue, Richard, Lucy, Josie, Kate from Canada, Pauline, Helen, Paul and Lydia who joined us this morning. It was a misty morning but quite warm and humid.
The Shark Spotter was up there, spotting sharks and whales and he showed us where some whales were wallowing.
The FL spotted some Night-scented
Pelargonium (
Pelargonium triste), that smell of cloves,
and some Green Satyr Orchids (
Satyrium odorum) that also smell strongly of carnations.
A beautiful fiery red Lesser Cobra Lily (
Chasmanthe floribunda var.
floribunda) that attract lots of
sunbirds for Kate to look at.
Here is Kate in front of the Weary Willy's watering hole signpost.
We scrambled up the steep side of Echo Valley, up the
Jojolu Path. This is Lydia camouflaged against the rocks.
And Helen and Paul sticking out a bit. We had to be helped up this section which
Dougal hates. I just shout when I need help and the FL comes to the rescue, but
Dougal struggles up and sometimes gets rather stuck.
Luckily we all made it up and over the edge onto Cave Peak.
Here is Kate wishing she had bought a torch to go into
Boomslang Cave.
More uphill,
but the views over Fish
Hoek were quite
impressive, even if it was a bit cloudy and hazy.
Tea on top. Pauline, Lucy, Josie, Kate, me and
Doog, the Alpha Male, Helen hiding in a blue hat, Paul ignoring us, Richard, Sue and Lydia.
Another deep, dark and drippy cave - right on the path.
We came down into the Amphitheatre, us still on leads because of caves and the
dassies and mice that force us to chase them into the caves.
The Coat-hanger Heath (
Erica plukenetti).
Paul's grass - the
Pentaschistis curvifolia - was in full flower - looking spectacular. Paul, we wish you had been there to see it.
The other Paul, looking over the edge towards
Noordhoek Peak.
Even the
leucadendrons are in flower. This is
L. strobilinum, one of our Peninsula endemics. (Thanks Alice for the id).
And the FL was excited to see this
sundew in flower - it is a white form of the
Snotrosie (! sounds like something our human nephew
Arti would say. Maybe they, like him, mean SCOTrosie!) -
Drosera cistiflora.
We were having so much fun. Just look at the mist, coming in to cool us down and make us feel at home in the highlands.
This was all over the place - a really pretty gnidia - most probably the Pine-leaved Saffronbush (
Gnidia pinifolia) - which is also scented at night which means it probably attracts moth pollinators.
We decided not to go down the wet and slippery
Spes Bona boardwalk and instead carried on past
Kalk Bay Peak and another cave -
Tartarus Cave. Then through
Mimetes Valley
and a long slow downward trek back to the cars.
A
misty view of
Muizenberg beach.
Eeeek, not the baboon head again!
Watch out Lydia!
Some
Melasphaerula ramosa flowers that the Food Lady calls
snauzer flowers because they have beards like
snauzers. As far as I know she hasn't discovered any
scotty flowers apart from the snotrosie.
Where have you been?
Dougal and the Food Lady, and Lydia,Helen and Paul were a bit slow coming down and we were waiting for them in the forest. It was quite a hike.
Assembly point in Koeberg Nuclear Power Station's parking area. Helen, Paul, Sue, Pauline, the Alpha Male and the Foodlady arrived for a walk in the Koeberg Nature Reserve on the West Coast. Without scotties. Well, if they start growing horns and things from being radiated, at least we will have escaped! 
So they all set off on the right foot - in Pauline's case on a very green foot!
They chose to do the short Grysbok Trail that leaves from the Visitors Centre which was all closed up but the parking area had a covered area with some maps. You can see Table Mountain in the distance.
Setting off into the sandveld - lots of pylons and fences, but good views of Table Mountain.
Growing in the sand were these strange euphorbias - the FL thinks they are Medusa's Head Euphorbias (Euphorbia caput-medusae).
And Sue told us that these were were some kind of Zaluzianskya - possibly Z villosa that she recognized from Robben Island. 
The Alph and Paul stopping to smell the flowers. These are the fruits of the Dollar Bush or Slaaibos Zygophyllum morgsana (once also called Roepera). Thanks Alice for the id. 
Tea was high up on stilts overlooking the beach, but there was a fence so they couldn't get down onto the beach, which had quite a few people walking along it - with dogs.
A typical beautiful West Coast beach - taken through the fence.
They then walked past this substation with lots of clicking and fizzing. A bit scary - or snary as Arti would say.
Making their way away from the crackling electricity through the multitudinous spring flowers.
Bont Leeubekkies or Weeskindertjies (Nemesia affinis). The back of the petal is white or pink with red stripes, and the front white, yellow, blue or mauve.
The signposts matched the blue and yellow flowers. This was a wetland with some interesting birds on it - including some Black-winged Stilts.
Sue among the daisies.
Some kind of large Silene. They belong to the Carnation family Caryophyllaceae and are commonly called campion or wild tobacco.
Bokhorinkies (Microloma sagittatum) a climber that is adapted to pollination by sunbirds.
From the southern perimeter of the reserve, looking back to the nuclear reactor.
And then Paul spotted this very rare Sea Pink or stattice - the endemic and critically endangered Limonium purpuratum which only occurs in deep coastal sand from Yzerfontein to Milnerton and nowhere else in the entire world! It belongs to the plumbago family and its papery pink calyces act as parachutes in seed dispersal.
In amongst the zaluzianskayas were some of these really large and impressive yellow Grielum grandiflorum flowers. They are members of the Rosaceae family.
A ruin of an old farmhouse.
All in all there were lots and lots of flowers to see - including some bulbs like this Babiana tubiflora.
Then after a few kms they were back at the Visitor's Centre.
The flower of a wierd parasitic plant called an Aardroos (Cytinus sanguineus) which belongs to the Rafflesiaceae in which family occurs the largest flower in the world.
It was soon time to get back into Pauline's car and hurry home to us, admiring the pink My Citi Bus central road and the general swishness of Milnerton.
The humans were full of ticks when they got home! Sies.
