I got up at 7:15 and took a quick bath in our claw-foot tub. It was overcast today and not frosty, but still pretty raw. After another good breakfast we set off in our nice new car which is just a bit narrower than the Kia which makes going through the cattle gates easier.
We drove north through Nieuwoudtville and after 10 km, or so, came to a sign for a waterfall which we turned off to see. We weren't expecting much and were amazed to suddenly come upon a lovely large canyon cutting into the plateau with a free-falling 300' waterfall
The vegetation was very interesting and it was quite birdy. We used Bob's ipod to play the call of the Karoo Prinia, a small brown bird with a long scraggly tail. A male immediately appeared, swooping and flying around crazily trying to rid the area of his rival!
Red Lichens
A grand Daddy Quiver Tree
Quiver tree trunk
A lady had a table set up by the car park selling dried fruits and "sweets", so, of course, i bought a bag of dried pears and a bag of mulit-colored cubes of something. Bob refused to eat any of the sweets, so if I get ill, we'll know what it was.
We turned off our road into a private botanical reserve. We immediately began seeing swaths of colors, and on the hillsides, the wonderful Quiver Trees, large stocky aloes that must be very old. We parked and walked up a trail admiring the orange, blue, white, and yellow flowers. It is very difficult to identify most of the species as the guide book has 1100 photos and leafing through it is pretty hopeless unless you have an idea of the family, so we decided just to enjoy the show. We stopped in several places and I tried to capture the beauty of the place.
We drove back to house, stopping along the road where we saw a poor ewe who had tried to leap over a wire fence and had caught her leg in the top wire! She was struggling and we didn't know what to do. I got out and talked to her in a calm voice and she stopped writhing right away and seemed to know I wanted to help. I managed to break one wire and twist her leg and free her! She tore away back to her flock! Whew!!
We drove over to De Lande for another lovely dinner of sweet potato soup, salad, rack of lamb, chicken,ratatouille, cauliflower.
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