Just in case you were wondering, the bird species in the video slideshow of Robberg Nature Reserve and Wilderness National Park were the African black oystercatcher, knysna turaco, and cape grassbird.
After leaving Wilderness National Park, I continued along the coast to a somewhat remote and wild section of the Cape coast to De Hoop Nature Reserve:
To get there, I took the “road less traveled” route, which required a pontoon ferry crossing – always fun – and miles and miles of rolling colorful farmland interspersed with ostrich farms (yes, ostrich are farmed for their meat):
De Hoop Nature Reserve is a nature reserve covering 130 square miles in the Western Cape Province, located about three hours east of Cape Town near Cape Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa. In the mid twentieth-century, the South African government bought the farms De Hoop and Windhoek with the intention to establish a wildlife farm for endangered species. In the mid 1970s, the area became dedicated to the conservation of the Cape Floral ecosystem, and became the southernmost nature reserve in Africa. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004.
The vegetation in De Hoop Nature Reserve is part of the world’s smallest and most threatened plant kingdom, known as the Cape Floral Kingdom. The reserve also contains one of the largest areas of the rare lowland fynbos (shrublands and heathlands). Indeed, the entire upland portion of the Reserve is covered by lowland fynbos, with scarcely a tree to be found anywhere except in the Rest Camp. Here’s what the landscape looks like:
Interestingly, the Reserve supports rather large numbers of eland, Cape mountain zebra, bontebok and ostrich, and many can be found in and next to the Rest Camp. You may recall from last year’s trip that we saw mountain zebra – not to be confused with the common Burchell’s or plains zebra – in Mountain Zebra National Park, where we also saw blesbok antelope. Blesbok and bontebok are subspecies and look very similar; both are striking in the contrasting rich brown and white colorings. The bontebok subspecies has an extremely restricted range in the Western Cape centered in this Reserve. Here’s a few photos:
De Hoop also includes a Marine Protected Area (MPA) covering 40 or 50 km of coastline and near-shore waters which represent the most important nursery and mating grounds in all of Africa for the southern right whale. There are supposedly 500 or more whales that come to this section of coast to give birth, nurse young and mate. During my brief visit to the beach dunes on my day hike, I saw several dozen individuals lollygaging around in the waters just off shore. I managed to capture one tail shot that was just in focus enough to prove it was a whale – sorry, but photographing a whale breaching is really hard from a distance when you don’t know where and when they will breach:
I camped at the De Hoop Nature Reserve campsite. My site was perched above the river with a nice overlooking view of the water where the river empties into a vlei – now completely flooded and essentially a lake – and the hills beyond. Unfortunately, I had a close neighboring camper separated from my site by a wooden fence. Here’s what it looked like:
Here’s a video slideshow of my day hike from my campsite along the vlei (i.e., currently a lake), through fynbos vegetation to the beach, and back to my campsite in a big loop at De Hoop. Note, it is springtime here in South Africa and the fynbos vegetation was in full flower. It was really beautful, in a desert bloom sort of way, which I tried to capture a little in my slideshow, but didn’t do it justice:
De Hoop Nature Reserve video slide show (6 minutes)
Ok, I’m off to the southern tip of Africa. See you there.
New Species:
- Cape spurfowl
- Great crested grebe