Dune 45

We drove back into Sossusvlei late one afternoon, to see the dunes in a different, un-dawn light; through the gates near camp, handing our permit to the perennially suspicious guard. The same man who checked us in pre-dawn the previous day was the man on duty late this afternoon - a very long shift if he'd been on duty all day. The gates only close at 8.30pm.

This was an odd thing: whenever any permit was inspected, great suspicion rose in almost visible layers from the person reading the document. In the end I decided that the problem was one of literacy. Or its lack. It was very strange.

A small gang of bokkies welcomed us.

And off we went, having reached the (too?) accessible dune. There were a couple of people ahead of us. But I have read that "in season" in winter, there may 100 ahead of you. God. It makes you not want to climb in those footsteps, which is an amazing arrogance, in its way. It's OK for me to be here, but not for you. Even if you're Spanish and drove all the way from Spain. 'Strue.

The leg of my husband. It's a nice leg.

I sat down once we reached the summit. My shoes were full of sand again and I was wobbly: afraid of heights, you see. So I sent him on while I sat at sandblasting level and tried to take pictures without ruining my lens.

The sand is very soft, and very pleasant to touch, when it isn't stinging. I felt very bad to be messing it up. Thinking of all sorts of ecological setbacks we might be causing.

But, wow. The beauty.

I can't wait to see Vincent's pictures. He was so happy. Having dreamed about this place since he was a boy.

Photographing the oldest desert in the world.

I sat for quite a long time.

And decided to take a sideways route down. I could have skiied.

On the dune's flanks, grasses like fur.

Lizard tracks - tail in the middle.

The dune's foot.

Vince charging down, while I mixed our G&T's at the car.

We sipped, tasting quinine and juniper and lemon and ice, and watched the sand colouring anew as the sun set. We managed to break both our glasses by balancing them on the car's running board and opening the doors.

And headed home to a braai, the barking geckos, and a jackal in the firelight.

Misty Cliffs

One day in Cape Town we drove from home to Misty Cliffs, about 35 minutes away, on a beautiful stretch of the peninsula where the water is always intensely turquoise. Pounding breakers and some mountain effect create a salt haze in the air, seen from a distance. Hence the Misty part of the Cliffs.

We timed our arrival for low tide, because we wanted to collect mussels from the rocks. I'd even bought a proper permit at the post office. In previous years I'm afraid I just helped myself.

Apart from the mussels we became fascinated by the other life on the rocks. There were massive colonies of sea anemones, all tight shut and looking like sanded donuts on the rock sides. The tide, when it started to come in, came in fast, and so we saw our mussel area transform from sand to swirling pools, and the inert anemones slowly come to life, one neon tentacle at a time.

Our collection spots, so accessible before, became completely covered by strong sea, so we retreated with a full bucket with sea water to keep the poor mussels cool, and climbed back up to the road to the hot VW bus, our ride when not in the Landcruiser in the desert.

Down the road a bit is Scarborough, another small settlement billing itself as a Conservation Village with summer and year round houses and another lovely beach, and we stopped just ahead of it to explore more rock pools that looked promising.

On a hot summer day there was no one else in sight.

The mussels, once scrubbed and added to a white wine and a mire poix stock, were very good. This is a picture of them just after I added them to the pot.

Album Cover

m.heart's post inspired, and it's a lot of fun, and quite spooky, if you want it to be.

To create your own band name and album cover, do the following, per her instructions:

1. Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

What is Solum? Per Wikipedia entry:

"The solum (plural, sola) in soil science consists of the surface and subsoil layers that have undergone the same soil forming conditions. The base of the solum is the relatively unweathered parent material, termed substratum."

Flickr pic here.

Now I just have to write the music.

Olifantsbos Cape Point

Cape Point is not the southern tip of Africa.

It is a tip and it is south, but Cape Agulhas, further east and further south is the true tip, albeit snub-nosed, of Africa. Cape Point, the tapering hook of the peninsula that curls around False Bay, in a series of mountains, bays and moors, is spectacularly beautiful and I think that many if not most of the tourists trucked in there to rush to the Point to say they've done it, think they've been to the end of Africa.

The first two photos are taken from Cape Point over False Bay, north. Smoke from a bad fire above the Helderberg, across the bay, is just beginning to gather.

The nature reserve is more than that Euro-tourist-congested endzone. I had heard about the house at Olifantsbos, and had wanted to stay there for some time. So when my dad suggested we all spend a night there, two days before we left Cape Town, I jumped.

Ignoring the buses that charge straight to the end, missing so much beauty and detail along the way, you branch off early on a small, quiet tar road that leads to empty beaches and another, private road, to whose gate you are given a key if you have booked the house for the night.

We had been here a few weeks before, in December, but had not seen the house - picnicking instead on the white boulders of an earlier bay, not too far from a peaceful baboon troop eating sour fig flowers on the beach.

This time we passed bontebok on the way, as we had last time, and saw the same foal; and saw, too, our first eland, the largest antelope in Africa. Vince got some very good pictures of him and he galloped across the road right in front of our car, bucking as he reached the other side. He was in the company of a hartebeest and a single bontebok, and they seemed to want to stay together.

The modest house is very well equipped and looked after, and very comfortable. Not cheap by SAfrican standards: R2,000 for a night. That's about $200 at the moment. But it and its cottage sleep a total of 12. There are three bedrooms in the main house and a dorm style arrangement in the cottage. So divvy that up and it's quite acceptable.

We packed enough food for a week and arrived on the afternoon of an extremely windy south-easter day. The wind whined and tugged and sand on the beach stung and blasted.

The beach, right on the doorstep, is deserted - very few people ever come to this part of the reserve, and when the gates of the main reserve are locked at night you are all, all alone under the stars. Except for the three ostriches we saw grazing on the low dunes...

This bed had to be the most comfortable bed I have slept in since, forever...

There were warnings posted about baboons, everywhere. Lock everything while you are out, or the baboons will break in.

Soon after arriving, and before getting going on the dinner fire, Marijke, Vince and I went for a walk. She remembered the house from university days when it was used as accommodation for botanists and known as the Skaife House.

She led us to Tylecodon grandiflorus. And it was everywhere, close to the house in the sand at the foot of the hill at our backs. Long slender, strong stems, beautiful flower trumpets, and rough, warty, succulent origins. Taking close-ups in the wind was impossible. Below are pictures I took the following morning.

On top of the hill above us - Erica cerinthoides - rooihaartjie/fire heath. Vince went to look at the old block house in the rocks and Marijke and I went on down the path. Lesson: never leave your husband behind or he'll worry that you have been frightened by baboons and fallen and broken your neck. We never saw the baboons, but he did, following us about ten minutes behind.

Tritoniopsis triticea - rooibergpypie ("little red mountain pipe"). Beautiful, about 16"tall and shaking in the crazy wind.

Lovely view from the top...

Back at the beach, spray flying back from the waves.

We saw my dad setting off alone up the beach, bent double into the wind, and wondered if we'd see him again.

We did, about an hour later, carrying an interesting stinky thing that we think might have been a baby whale's final vertebrae.

Supper - a braai of course, and then to bed with the wind pounding the solid walls of our solid house.

The next day, not a breath...

Transparent turquoise waves on the quiet white beach.

Vince went for a run, my dad biked, Marijke walked, my mother birdwatched. I slept.

We drove back slowly looking at the bokkies, and me at the flowers; when the others stopped to study a raptor I got out and walked to see better the flora best appreciated up close.

Below - Diastella divaricata - silky puff! - it is like a miniature pink protea, no more than fingernail-sized.

A small white erica, no ID.

Below: Roella squarrosa - I think! Miniature, baby's breath-like flowers in mats a few inches high, tangled with deep blue lobelia.

Below, a small restio - but which one? Growing in a small dry, white-sand stream bed.

Yellow vygie?

Below...Lachnaea densiflora, I think; pristinely perfect. Known as mountain carnations.

Definitely worth a return visit, and for longer.

Olifantsbos is owned by San Parks, as part of the Table Mountain National Park. To make a booking, telephoning is recommended.

Call the Buffelsfontein Visitor Centre on + 27 21 780 9204 (International) or 021 - 780 9204 (within South Africa) between 09:00 to 16:00, Monday to Thursday and 09:00 to 15:00 on Fridays.

Alternatively email rownenag@sanparks.org or musam@sanparks.org or jacquelines@sanparks.org