Today (Saturday) was definitely a good one.
We were happy to leave the less-than-inspiring spa and soon hit “Route 62”. We went through a mountain pass or poort, which brought us out into much more open country with plenty of farming going on. As the truck is so noisy it does tend to scare the birds away, but we still saw a huge flock of ostrich and quite a number of blue cranes. When we had our lunch break Barney even saw malachite sunbirds mating on a fence (or so he claims).
We passed through Barrydale, which has a fantastic little shop at the Caltex station, selling all sorts of local produce. We bought a jar of pepperdews, another of green figs and some bread that looked like damper (roosterbrood). Worth a stop if you are ever going that way.
Later on we got to the river ferry at Malgas/Malagas. This is a hand-operated ferry with two ferry men who draw the pontoon across on a chain. Quite interesting – we captured it on the “Mog-cam”but haven’t had a good enough connection to upload any videos yet.
On the other side we were able to observe cape weaver birds actually constructing their nests in a tree.
Mid-afternoon we arrived at De Hoop Nature Reserve. The young woman on reception could not have been more delightful, and advised us that the best thing to do would be to head straight for the beach (15km away).
This we did. The car park was about ½ mile from the sea, but before we’d gone far we saw a whale breaching. Barney went back for his long lens and I rushed down to get a bit nearer.
We spent a very happy hour or so, all on our own at the picnic site, watching various fins, tails and other bits of southern right whales as they broke the surface. A few times we
even saw one jump and fall back with an enormous splash. Our main reason for coming to De Hoop was to see the whales, but we hadn’t expected it to be so easy!
Hopefully they will be there again tomorrow.
When the sun started to go down we thought we’d better find the campsite. It’s 15km away from the beach but very wonderful. The camping area has been left fairly natural and it’s obvious that bontebok and other creatures come through all the time. At dusk an enormous owl flew in (either Cape or Spotted Eagle Owl) and I had time to grab my bins and observe it, which was a bit of a treat. We have also seen two different mongoose(s?) around. And for a final surprise, when we went to do the washing up we found two rock martins roosting in the roof beams only 18 inches above our heads. This place seems really magical and I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and see what else we see. And there’s almost no-one else here!!! Oh, and
I haven’t even mentioned all the birds of prey that we saw from the road but
couldn’t identify. S.
We were happy to leave the less-than-inspiring spa and soon hit “Route 62”. We went through a mountain pass or poort, which brought us out into much more open country with plenty of farming going on. As the truck is so noisy it does tend to scare the birds away, but we still saw a huge flock of ostrich and quite a number of blue cranes. When we had our lunch break Barney even saw malachite sunbirds mating on a fence (or so he claims).
We passed through Barrydale, which has a fantastic little shop at the Caltex station, selling all sorts of local produce. We bought a jar of pepperdews, another of green figs and some bread that looked like damper (roosterbrood). Worth a stop if you are ever going that way.
Later on we got to the river ferry at Malgas/Malagas. This is a hand-operated ferry with two ferry men who draw the pontoon across on a chain. Quite interesting – we captured it on the “Mog-cam”but haven’t had a good enough connection to upload any videos yet.
On the other side we were able to observe cape weaver birds actually constructing their nests in a tree.
Mid-afternoon we arrived at De Hoop Nature Reserve. The young woman on reception could not have been more delightful, and advised us that the best thing to do would be to head straight for the beach (15km away).
This we did. The car park was about ½ mile from the sea, but before we’d gone far we saw a whale breaching. Barney went back for his long lens and I rushed down to get a bit nearer.
We spent a very happy hour or so, all on our own at the picnic site, watching various fins, tails and other bits of southern right whales as they broke the surface. A few times we
even saw one jump and fall back with an enormous splash. Our main reason for coming to De Hoop was to see the whales, but we hadn’t expected it to be so easy!
Hopefully they will be there again tomorrow.
When the sun started to go down we thought we’d better find the campsite. It’s 15km away from the beach but very wonderful. The camping area has been left fairly natural and it’s obvious that bontebok and other creatures come through all the time. At dusk an enormous owl flew in (either Cape or Spotted Eagle Owl) and I had time to grab my bins and observe it, which was a bit of a treat. We have also seen two different mongoose(s?) around. And for a final surprise, when we went to do the washing up we found two rock martins roosting in the roof beams only 18 inches above our heads. This place seems really magical and I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and see what else we see. And there’s almost no-one else here!!! Oh, and
I haven’t even mentioned all the birds of prey that we saw from the road but
couldn’t identify. S.