Lady Slipper is covered in fynbos and its always great to see flowering proteas in the wild, so I couldn't help but to take a picture of one with the Telkom tower on top of the mountain in the background.
Most people know the Sacramento Trail at Schoenmakerskop but isn't very familiar with the nearby Fynbos Trail. Out looking for a Geocache last weekend I ventured onto part of the trail and snapped this pic looking west towards Schoenies.
The Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve just west of Port Elizabeth is probably the best spot around the city to see a wide range of protea species grow in the wild. The reserve offers visitors two different trail options with a couple of stunning view sights over the Van Stadens gorge. South Africa's national flower, the King Protea, is amongst the flowers that can be seen in the reserve.
South Africa's national flower is the King Protea. The King Protea (Protea cynaroides) is the biggest flowering protea specie and forms part of the Cape Floral Kingdom (Fynbos). Protea cynaroides is a species of protea in the huge family Proteaceae which comprises about 80 genera with about 1600 species. The name of the plant family Proteaceae as well as the genus Protea, both to which Protea cynaroides belongs to, derive from the name of the Greek god Proteus, a deity that was able…
The Coastal Fynbos Trail in Schoenmakerskop is probably one of the slightly lesser known trails around Port Elizabeth. Thanks to the PE Geocaching series which created the letters PE as geoart on the Geocache map, a few more people have set off to explore the trail lately. The trail is a circular trail and covers about 7 km on the eastern side of the village, starting at Sappershoek. The first section of the trail is an inland route through the coastal fynbos…
Happy New Year! 2014 has arrived and while we're staring down the barrel of a whole new year I'm sure a lot of us are still wondering what happened to 2013. Personally 2013 was a tough yet rewarding one, but the prospects of 2014 is looking good. The year kicks off with me starting a new job towards the end of January, the KidZ and I will feature on an insert on Pasella on SABC 2 in February and who knows what…
Port Elizabeth has a number of excellent hiking trails to get one out the city while only a couple of kilometers away from it. I've been exploring the Fynbos Trail at Schoenmakerskop a bit more lately and got to walk most of it the other day. Not a trail I'd like to do on a hot day as there isn't any shade along the way, but there are beautiful coastal views and lots of Fynbos and coastal flora to be…
The Montagu Tractor Trip, one of the premier activities to do when visiting the Klein Karoo town of Montagu, takes place on a farm called Protea Farm about 35 km out of town. When we arrived at the farm I didn't really notice any proteas, but as we travelled up the mountain they started to appear in the surrounding vegetation. The surrounding mountains and valley made for some excellent backgrounds to photographing these proteas.
The Protea eximia or Broad-leaf sugerbush as its commonly known as, are quite widespread throughout the mountains of the Southern Cape, stretching from the mountains near Worcester through the Langeberg, Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma Mountains as far as Lady Slipper outside Port Elizabeth. The Protea eximia flowers mainly from August to October and gets grown on Protea farms as they make a very good cut flower. This one I photographed at the Van Stadens Wildflower Reserve near Port Elizabeth. For more information on this beautiful member…