Fynbos Trail – Day two

It was definitely a bit cooler in the bedroom and bathroom of the Fountain Bush Cottage than we are used to. However, there was plenty of hot water for the shower and we soon warmed up. Michael arrived at 7.30 to prepare breakfast for us and by the time we had finished it was warm enough to sit outside with coffee and watch the male Cape Weaver birds busy building nests for inspection by their prospective partners.

Cristophe arrived by 8.30 and we started with an hour or so bird-watching around the cottages and the dam. We have already recorded 304 bird species on previous trips to SA but still managed to add a few more before we started on our trek for the day.

About 12 Km today beginning with a steep climb over Grootberg – or Ben Lomond as it was named by the Captain of the Birkenhead which was shipwrecked not far from here. Coffee stop by a waterfall, lunch along the way, lots of bird sightings and amazing flowers species – all in all a great hike. However, I would have to admit that I was quite glad when our destination for the night – Witkrans – came into view.

Greeted by our host Sean – who is the botanist/conservation expert for the Conservancy project – with a bottle each of Rosé, White and Red wine from the local Lomond Winery. In typical SA fashion, after we had chatted for a while and tasted the three wines he headed off to sort out dinner and left us with the remaining bottles to keep us company.

Still relying on a wood-burner for our only heat source so very grateful for the cosy quilt on the bed.

PS: there are more photos to accompany this but they will have to wait for a future since our current WiFi is a little limiting.

A bit of a walk

On Tuesday morning - after another breakfast session with our Lancastrian landlady and her long-suffering husband about whom I will definitely write more - we sorted the bags for the next stage and headed south towards Stanford & Gansbaai.

The three hour drive - which seemed longer - was incident-free and we arrived in Stanford with enough time for a quick, but excellent, sandwich at the Ou Meul Bakkery before heading for the Grootbos Reserve and the start of our three day Fynbos Trek.

Our guide Cristophe was great company, both personable and very knowledgeable and as a result we had an interesting afternoon hiking through the reserve. It was great to have an expert who could identify the plants and the birds that we were seeing while at the same time maintaining a normal conversation.

Although we only walked about 6km, there was a fair bit of climbing and descending and we were more than ready to finish up by the time we reached Fountain Bush Cottage where Michael was waiting to greet us and cook us pizza for dinner - and provide us with a bottle of a local Shiraz.

Slightly cool by the time the sun went down so we were glad of the Wood-burning in the stove in the living room - although a pity that there isn't one in the bedroom where it may be a little cool in the morning!

Drumsticks

Yellow-eyed Sorrel 

Pinhead Protea

Orange-breasted Sunbird

West Coast National Park

One of the main reasons for our visit to the Western Cape in their Spring is to the see the wild flower display - which we have read about and seen on TV but never seen.
So bright and early on Monday morning we left our B&B - and the Lancastrian landlady, of whom there will be more later - to drive up to the Park and in particular to Postberg - the northern tip of the park which is only open in August and September.
We managed to get there before too many others and were truly amazed by the sight. The vast meadows of flowering spring colours in every hue you could imagine. Almost impossible to capture the scale of the floral display but Linda did a great job with the camera.

It all ended well

Woken by the muezzin's call to prayer on Saturday morning at 5.38 - we are on the edge of Bo Kaap which was a predominantly muslim area, although a bit gentrified in places now. Thankfully I had rolled over and fallen asleep again before he finished.

After a leisurely start to the morning, we loaded up the car again on our way to meet Sue & Ally in Paarl and then head off for lunch. From there on things got a little bit challenging. Firstly, our satnav decided to take an hour off and would neither connect nor calculate a route; then my windows phone - with the SA sim - decided it didn't want to communicate with Google Maps; and finally I took a wrong turn and was halfway up Table Mountain before I realised we were heading the wrong way.

Having finally got on the right road, the satnav decided to work again but by now we were running late, so we arranged to meet Sue and Ally at Tokara in Stellenbosch. Then we got stuck in some major road works on the way to Stellenbosch with the result that we took 2 hours for a journey which should have taken no more than 45 minutes.

A glass or two of the Chardonnay which Sue poured as we arrived at Tokara was all that was needed to re-establish my usual calm persona, and of course a good lunch with excellent company.

Headed back to Ally's lovely home in Val de Vie - our bed for the night -  a few more glasses of wine followed by a Braai with enough meat to feed an army. It turned a little cooler after the sun went down and was around 7C when we woke on Sunday morning, but as you can see it turned into a lovely morning with the temperature getting up to 20C by lunchtime.

For Jimmy C

Dropped into a local wine/tapas bar in Cape Town this evening for an early supper and saw this sign on the wall which made us both think immediately of Jimmy C!

However that was the second time that we had been reminded of him within the last 24 hours - I'm sure some of you must have seen the BA safety notices which feature a number of celebrities - including Michael Caine - we were both struck by the way that he is growing to look more and more like Jimmy C.

Outward Journey

Our flights to Cape Town via Heathrow were relatively uneventful and as comfortable as could be expected.

I do like travelling on the 747 - there may be bigger more modern aircraft nowadays - but I always feel relaxed when I get settled in my seat on the 747. For our Cape town flight we could have chosen either A380 or the 747 but I had no doubt which one to chose. It may be something to do with the fact that almost all of my international travel - starting in 1971 - has been in the 'Jumbo' era. I know that all the US airlines have dropped the aircraft from their passenger fleets but it will always be my first choice.

Our arrival into SA was very efficient - no immigration queue and bags through promptly - until we got to the car hire. The first step with Hertz was straightforward and all looked good as we loaded up the bags and prepared to drive off, but having noticed some chips on the windscreen which were not noted, I went to get someone's attention while Linda had another look around the car. Not sure how we - or they - missed it, but she noticed that we had one very soft tyre.  That meant another 20 mins of paperwork while we changed the car and transferred the bags over and got on our way down town.

We're staying at Rouge on Rose again - think this may be our 5th visit - and it is great to be greeted like family or old friends even though we haven't been here for 18 months. Definitely feels like coming home!

Airports again

Earlier in the year someone said - 'Let's take full advantage of the festival season'. It seemed like a good idea at the time - so we have been at home in Edinburgh for all of August, and to be honest it has not been a bad month.

With a little encouragement and instruction from the boss, I managed to find a reasonable mix of theatre, music, comedy and other events for us to attend - and a couple of good restaurants in amongst the street food.

There were only two events which could be classed as bad choices, while most of the rest were in the excellent category including a great new musical called 'Buried' about 2 serial killers, and some exceptional stand-up from Marcus Brigstocke, Jay Lafferty and of course Frankie Boyle. Cora Bisset's play - 'What girls are made of' - was one of Linda's favourites, while the NYO Jazz orchestra was probably the musical highlight.

However, I now understand the attitude of some of our neighbours to the entire event - journey times across the city are a least 50% longer, it's almost impossible to move freely anywhere between George Street and the High Street, and the queues to get a drink....... It may be boom time for lots of local businesses but I can see that the proposed visitor tax will probably get nodded through on a show of hands

However September is upon us and there are signs that Autumn is fast approaching so we are off on our travels again today - an evening flight to Heathrow and onward through the night to Cape Town.

Spring in the Western Cape should give us some amazing floral displays in the fynbos and reportedly huge numbers of whales off the southern coast. There may be a bottle of wine or two along the way and who knows what interesting fellow travellers we may meet - watch this space.