We are busy organising Chaos Boy's 13th birthday party and decided to have a day out with his friends at Sleepy Hollow in the Maitland River Valley. I went to dig out a couple of photos I took at Sleepy Hollow in December when we last popped in there for a visit. I went for a walk up the river with Drama Princess and she is always willing to play the model if I need one for a photo. This…
Today's post is the second of two picture collages I made after my walk on the Bushbuck Trail in the Island Nature Reserve a while ago. I posted the first collage yesterday but have to apologise right off the bat. For some reason I referred to the trail as the Grysbok Trail yesterday and didn't pick it up till a friend phoned me this morning to point it out. How could I mix the names up like that? Who knows. …
A little while ago I got to go for a hike on the Bushbuck Trail in The Island Nature Reserve near Seaview. The Island is located about 25 km from Port Elizabeth and is accessed via the Seaview Road. The reserve forms a sub section of the Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve and comprises 480 ha of indigenous Alexandria coastal forest boasting tree species such as Outeniqua yellow-wood, white and hard pear as well as white milkwood. Fauna include small blue duiker, bushbuck, vervet monkey and…
Geocache containers come in all shapes and sizes. Usually the majority of urban caches range from nano to micro and small so its always fun to find a regular sized container. This one was found in one of the nature reserves just outside town and the KidZ loved finding it. Drama Princess actually has a container just like it that she still wants to put out there as soon as she finds a suitable place.
While out there in search of Geocaches one can find all kinds of containers. Bison tubes, pill bottles, clip lock lunchboxes, plastic peanut butter bottles, ammo cans, etc, etc, etc. Some Geocachers put in a lot of effort to create really unique and memorable caches. One of these I found in the Baakens Valley close to the Lower Guinea Fowl Trail under the fynbos a year or so ago. The container consisted of a pill container nicely fitted in a…
Most people just associate Fynbos with proteas yet with over 9000 different species of plants in the biome there are many more flowers to be seen. A early morning walk on the Grysbok Trail in the NMMU Nature Reserve had me spot this clump of flowers which, at closer inspection, was actually made up of three different types of flowers. Just shows that one shouldn't go through life with your eyes closed as there are beauty to be found everywhere.
Last Sunday I hit the Grysbok Trail in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Nature Reserve with Drama Princess for a bit of an early morning Geocaching outing. We signed in at 6:50am and set off down the trail at a brisk pace. The Grysbok Trail really is a gem. One that I bet very few people know of. Not just do you get to see so many different fynbos species and flowers, but a herd of springbuck or zebra can…
Over the weekend I spent some time on the Grysbok Trail in the NMMU Private Nature Reserve doing the series of Geocaches that's been placed there recently. I wonder how many people actually know of the trail. The NMMU campus was declared a Private Nature Reserve in 1983 and covers 830 ha. The reserve is made up mainly of St Francis Dune Thicket vegetation which is characterised by clumps of thicket within Dune Fynbos. This fynbos vegetation is highly threatened because of agricultural clearing and…
On my recent hike on the Bushbuck Trail in The Island Nature Reserve our turning point was a trig beacon near the western side of the reserve. There wasn't much around the trig beacon except for the coastal bush to make a good photo out of it but I took one anyway. I climbed to the top to have a look at the surrounding view and decided to take a shadow selfie with me and the trig beacon. Somewhat weird? Probably. But don't judge…
I'm sure most people have seen the lichen generally referred to as Old Man's Beard. One sees quite a lot of it in the Tsitsikamma forest, but in this case I found it on the Bushbuck Trail in The Island Nature Reserve. Usnea is the generic and scientific name for several species of fruticose lichen in the family Parmeliaceae, that generally grow hanging from tree branches and resembling grey or greenish hair. It is often referred to as Old Man's Beard, but also…