dryfveer's Journal

I've hiked Kogelberg 24 km circular route a couple of times before, but never with an inaturalist mindset.

I am a keen hiker in the western cape mountains, absolutely in love with fynbos, but really, a novice as far as plants goes. My professional training and expertise is in a different field.

With that said, I enthusiastically joined ispot, the predecessor mid 201x, uploading fynbos pics in my free time. I didnt enjoy the human interactions and stopped.

Then late 2019/early 2020 became aware that the platform had changed to inaturalist and now available on phone app . I joined and in Oct 2020 started adding historic observations, and also new observations from all my rendevouz' in the cape mountains. What an uplifting and educational experience it has been!

So that brings me to this past weekend's hike in Kogelberg Nature Reserve. 2.5 y since the fire, the veld is recovering and with my new knowledge and awareness, a real wonder! Baboon, rock agama and was it a Klipspringer's spoor.. all returned.. protea cynaroides, every 5 to 10m?! pink and pale yellow ones in full bloom and plenty plenty 'youngsters' getting ready to flower, probably summer 2022.

then finer detail... swamp daisies, tiny tiny erica cyranthoides? 'baby' leucadendrons, tritoniopsis, skyscraper heath, oxalis, sundew, etc etc etc abounding! Protea lepidocarpodendrum, tree pincushions, serruria, was it fasciflora?, mimetes, rooiels, yellowwood.. a true miracle of nature to witness all of this in one single day

how special. such bliss..

may I just add... a year ago I could distinguish more or less between king protea and disa uniflora, erica, blushing bride and pincushion..the range is expanding and I am enjoying every minute!

Someone cancelled last minute and I landed an unexpected invite to join some fellow hikers to a weekend to Zoo Ridge, southern Cederberg.

Super excited as I have never been there before, I made sure I took 2 powerbanks to ensure I have adequate power for making the most of the trip in terms of observations in this unexplored area.

Being keen on photographing fynbos, I felt a bit disappointed as we drove into the farm in the dark on Friday evening. The veld looked more Karoo-like, scattered with small shrubs, but several restio bushes along the gravel road gave me hope.. We arrived and set up camp and the magnificence of the milky way overhead settled any further reservations I may have had, the starlight was so dense and bright, one struggled to distinguish even the southern cross and scorpio.

Early the next morning in bright sunshine, we headed out towards the 'ridge' and soon soon along the way I met my first ever protea glabra (didnt know her name at that moment), but bowed to her beauty and brilliance, she looked like the cederberg-version of protea nitida, similar flower shape, but with soft warm brownish outer 'bracts', is that what they are called? and a more stringy growth pattern, to be expected in this harsh environment.

The morning unfolded amongst strange rock formations and clambering rock faces, I was surprised at the large 'dung' middens of supposedly klipspringer, dassie and rock hare of whom you saw no over signs, scat of caracal, holes of aardvark, two owls flying off, plentitude of miniscule oxalis scattered close to the ground, fountainreeds!, and even some kind of buchu,, lichens on the rocks everywhere ..it felt like sacriledge to even step on them lightly .. and then, as some of the group were exploring some rock crevaces below, in a tiny rock cleavage right next to my feet... the find of the weekend! it looked like an ancient bonsai plant, the 'trunk' crooked and about 5cm long, stalks with spiky short green leaves, harsh, but with large plump soft creamy-white tubular flowers that melted me in the instant I set eyes upon them. I later discovered it is aptly called bedrock heath, erica maximilliani, but in that moment, names did not matter. I excitedly snapped and snapped away to record this miracle and beauty from every angle, and low and behold found at least another 3 or 4 more of them all in similar locations, rooting seemingly directly into rock!

The weekend flowed from one observation to the next, I fell behind the group and had to run along several times to catch up (there are no paths) so as to not get lost, but caught many snapshots of this seemingly forgotten treasure of a place, the veld abounding with signs of life everywhere, the ancient rocks and formations and arches mindblowing and providing the perfect backdrop to an ecosystem that seems to have existed even before time itself.