It's Monday morning, the public holiday for Heritage Day, and we wake up to the sound of rain, and lots of it. It started last night following a major blow. The winds blew the curtains through the windows and rattled the doors. None of this bode well for the day to be good for touring the lower peninsula. We were to be picked up by Diana Buchanan, the woman who lives in St. James (a seaside community just down the penisula from Cape Town) and who found The Garden Room for us, so we could go to Table Mountain National Park and make our way to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. We met, and I mean met for the first time, her last Tuesday for lunch at the Tea Room in Kirstenbosch Garden. And at 10 AM today she was taking us on her tour.

At 10 we loaded both wheelchairs and Marcia and me into Diana's car with Diana and her two little dogs. And off we went. And 71/2 hours later we returned home. What a day! I am still shaking my head at what we got to see and where we got to go while being hosted by this wonderful woman whom we met less than a week ago. Amazing!!

And here is what we saw:

ostriches, both on the farm and in the wild
the Atlantic Ocean crashing on the rocky shore
blacksmith plover, two guarding their nest with two eggs
African black oystercatcher
angulate tortoises, of all sizes
parrot-beaked tortoise, at least one
Cape cobra, big but heading in the other direction
baboons, big and with young
red hartebeests, at least 6 dashing right in front of us
African penguins, hundreds of them

And not to be left out are the proteas and other wildflowers that lined the road. This was mountain fynbos with proteas ranging from the small and delicate to the large and woody. Great to be able to see how the vegetation changes from one area of the park to the next. Different species of protea present and in different abundances and with different associated non-protea species. Moisture and soil type are major determiners of these associations, fynbos types.

What was really so special is that we were able to go to a section of the park that is not open to most visitors. Seems Diana's grandfather had purchased land along the Atlantic coast down this Peninsula early in the 20th century. He farmed it for some time but then mainly used it for a place to go on holiday. Eventually there were four houses built, one for each of the sons and their families. Then in 1938 part of the peninsula was declared a nature reserve. Over the years more land was added and it became the Cape Peninsula National Park. The name changed in 2004 to Table Mountain National Park. The original family property was now engulfed by the park. What resulted was the families retained access to their land with the park all around, but no new buildings could be built and a hiking trail through their property was developed. Not a bad deal. The four houses/cottages overlook the rocky Atlantic shore. The sound of the ocean is just fabulous and the rocks and tide pools are so inviting. Diana's cottage is decorated with all sorts of things collected from shipwrecks from their shoreline. And she told us about her multi-year record of always coming home with crayfish after going out on the rocks to catch them. What a very special place to be. After I had done some rock hopping and exploring and it was time to go, Marcia voted to stay. A real treat for us to be able to experience this.

And now for a few pictures!


This is the view from Diana's cottage. Though not easy to see, one of her dogs is sitting in Marcia's lap.


This is looking north to Olifantbos Point. Olifant=elephant and bos =bush. Not sure there were actually elephants here at any time.


Lichens and a tough little composite just beyond the high tide line.


One of the pincushion proteas in glorious bloom. And there were others that were even larger and packed with more flowers.


So cute!


The woman in the red hat behind Marcia is Diana, our so very generous and special host. How very fortunate we have been.


And the diaper hat made it to South Africa! Check out what the sign to the left says.

Dankie, Diana! What an incredibly special day this was.

Edward