Wednesday, March 25, 2009

West Coast road

From Lambert's Bay we drove south along the coast, occasionally along a rather forbidden-sounding road called "Private" that followed the traintracks. The gates were open, so we drove through.

Past Eland's Bay and its grey, cold sea, where the road rises and digs into the side of the mountain, the duneveld turned lovely...

...with bright pink clumps of paper flowers - Limonium perigrinum (lovely name!); strandroos, beach rose, in Afrikaans.

And dripping Cotyledon orbiculata...(earlier descirbed by me as Tylecodon, stupid! Because I saw that one here.)

On a rusted fence post I found a colony of pale snails. Waiting for the rains of winter?

...and some more.

As we drove further, back on the quiet little tar road towards Velddrif, our plans for the night and morrow uncertain, considering Paternoster down the coast and Kersefontein, a farm on the Berg River [see comment], we came across a lot of suicidal tortoises, and eventually had to stop talking to concentrate on spotting the next one.

Here Vince made a daring rescue.
The rescuee.

Next installment: The Longest Night

7 comments:

  1. Breede / Berg - what does it matter, they are both Rivers!

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  2. Thanks Guy. There are lots of mistakes in this one. See flower name change.

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  3. Saving the turtle was no mistake. Yay Beence!

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  4. Turtle / Tortoise - what does it matter, they both have carapaces!

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  5. Beence also calls tortoises turtles.

    While you're about it, could you please think of a description for Pam and Sally - I want to have a little update Pigeon Hole for their activities: they won't help me with a description of themselves. Ideas?

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  6. when i first glanced your photos of the snails in my reader i thought it was some kind of fabulous craft project — decorate your garden post with snail shells!

    the turtle/tortoise is beautiful, far less threatening looking than the snapping turtles one is likely to encounter here.

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  7. m.heart - I liked the snails for the same resaon. Yeah, these carapce-wearers don't snap, they just go Squish!

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