What I haven't explained is that I was privileged to have the company of Veronica and our very good friend Mary on the walk. I had thought Veronica would be there mostly to keep a check on my infantile mountain speeding behaviour of the last blog, but it turned out it was the fijnbos she was after. I offered her my camera to record her journey, which may have been a mistake! There isn't a single bloom anywhere in the Kleinmond Nature Reserve that hasn't been captured! The photos which will follow this blog are an impossible refinement of 128 Veronica masterpieces all wittled down to 6 sublime snaps that are supposed to capture the essence of the walk. But even they cannot possibly do it justice!
I'll spare you a detailed description of the walk, because I get the impression you are already fading out there in cyberspace. Suffice it to say that we meandered up a mountain path above Kleinmond through a burned out Protea field, in which the new flowers erupted in simply stunning beauty. Mary kept saying that she couldn't believe that this wasn't an exquisite permanent garden, except that the colours and the textures were just too subtle and unusual to have been man-made. She kept saying that it was like being on another planet.
That said, our progress was very slow. Every few minutes, we drew to a halt as Veronica was squinting through the viewfinder to take a shot of yet another exquisite example of fijnbos flora. It must be simply exhausting for nature to keep this up on a year-round continuous basis, especially when it has to cope with fires and droughts at the same time!
We were also hoping to view some of the local fauna, having previously seen baboons and Klipspringer buck in this vicinity, but nothing appeared. I was, though, forced to recall that once upon a time when my daughters were much younger, we had been on this path and suddenly they spotted a baboon on a path below us. Certainly there was a mammal on the path, but as it progressed it looked more and more comfortable on four legs. Eventually, I had to share that I thought it was a dog. My daughter turned to me optimistically and said; "No Daddy, it's a Boondog!". And so it has remained, ever since. A comment never to be forgotten!
Which of course got me to thinking. There is a time in one's life when one sees things through different eyes. I remember Betty's Bay in so many different ways. Once upon a time, I remember writing Algebraic equations in the sand on Silversands Beach as one daughter proposed solutions to intricate problems. I remember other occasions when the other daughter asked me searching philosophical and political questions about the history of South Africa and I felt insecure about how much she would identify me with the ancien regime and question my ethical foundation. These are complicated memories. Today, things seem simpler. Now it is less about the complex relationships with much-loved progeny and much more about simple aesthetics. Like the flowers in the Kleinmond Nature Reserve. Is age simply smoothing away the issues, or am I simply ignoring them? Something to ponder!
We eventually made it through the beautiful Fairy Glen, past the waterfall and into the the Fairy Forest at Feetjiesbos. Mary and I got a little carried away in a thought experiment that had us transported into a future world where computers ruled the world and suddenly these people had been transputed in time by fairies to a world run by computers in which there was no food. They were destined to starve to death! We came upon a pumping station with lots of cars and no people. We decided they were the people who had been transputed. Then a car suddenly appeared behind us. We decided they were the feds and we had to get away. Then Veronica told us to get real, and sheepishly, we did....
But I still think Mary has a point.....
A lone Protea near our point of departure, (the only snap in this set taken by me!)
A dry river ravine, with rocks washed completely smooth by repeated torrents over very many years
The stalks of burned out proteas standing as sentinals over the Palmiet River estuary in the distance
Exotic textures and subtle colouring in the fijnbos
Endless varieties of Restios (grasses)
Another magnificent orange-breasted sunbird
The Perdeberg in the distance
Our destination; Fairy Glen
2 comments:
i am told that muscled calves may be obtained by wearing high-heeled shoes.. whether this is a desirable training strategy is uncertain.. there are several social implications which should be considered before adopting such a regimen.
Richard, I can see you are becoming fixated by muscled calves. While I am grateful for the advice and while noting your concern over the social implications, I feel I must point out that there are also limitations to high heels for the purpose of hiking....
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