For the first week, we were guided by Colin Christie. Collin is a very personable chap, very experienced in the bush, where he grew up. So of course we used him in the mainly urban part of our trip. Nevertheless, he held up quite well. Colin is a registered cultural and wildlife guide, licnesed by the South African government. All guides must have a government license to guide tourists here. They have to pass periodic written examinations to keep their license. know a bit of first aid, and have a special type of commercial driver's license.

We pick up a new guide today, since Colin has a prior commitment starting tomorrow. Our new guide, Garth Johnson, will arrive here shortly to load us up and head out.

Yesterday, we visited the Northern Cliva Club's annual Clivia Show at a local high school. I saw a gymnasium filled with gorgeuos, near-perfect cliviamplants in full flower. It was really a bit deperssing; my Clivia plants never look that perfect! The most surprising part of the show was seeing how many people were there to see the pretty flowers. Whole families, complete with slightly moody-looking teenagers, were wandering through the display.

We are staying at Umlani Bush Camp in Timbavati. The cabins are rondevals made of bamboo cane mats with a thatch roof. The walls in part are only waist high, so there is a lot of air circulation. The shower is open to the sky. There is hot water twice a day, once after the morning game drive and again in the evening after dinner. The only electricity is in the camp office, where you can take your battery-powered items (like the laptop on which I'm writing this) for an occasional battery recharge. The room lights are kerosene lanterns. I wonder how anyone ever did anything in the evenings by lantern light!

The game drives to date have netted us sightings or pictures of the "Big Five" as well as various other wild animals. The "Big Five" are elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard. There are other large animals, like giraff and hippopotamus, but the "Big Five" are supposedly the most dangerous animals to hunt if wounded.

The first evening drive gave us some fine sightings. We found a small breeding herd of elephants; that is, females and their calves. One female youngster about 5 years of age noticed us in our truck and worked her way over toward us. She was clearly very curious! Fortunately she had not quited reach our truck when the herd started moving away, and she turned and followed them. So we were spared any meetings with a potentially indignant elephant mother.

During the evening game drive, a leopard was reported seen on a neighboring tract, and we drove pell-mell to get there at dusk. It was a big male, lying stretched out on his side, still snoozing from his daytime siesta. These animals are so habituated to the sightseeing trucks, which they know won't hurt them, that they just keep on snoozing when a truck drives up. At twilight, the animals wake up. This big boy also started to rouse himself while we were there.

In three trips to South Africa, this is the first leopard we've ever seen. They've been very rare, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they may be becoming a little less rare. Let's hope so.

We are staying at Umlani Bush Camp in Timbavati. The cabins are rondevals made of bamboo cane mats with a thatch roof. The walls in part are only waist high, so there is a lot of air circulation. The shower is open to the sky. There is hot water twice a day, once after the morning game drive and again in the evening after dinner. The only electricity is in the camp office, where you can take your battery-powered items (like the laptop on which I'm writing this) for an occasional battery recharge. The room lights are kerosene lanterns. I wonder how anyone ever did anything in the evenings by lantern light!

The game drives to date have netted us sightings or pictures of the "Big Five" as well as various other wild animals. The "Big Five" are elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard. There are other large animals, like giraff and hippopotamus, but the "Big Five" are supposedly the most dangerous animals to hunt if wounded.

The first evening drive gave us some fine sightings. We found a small breeding herd of elephants; that is, females and their calves. One female youngster about 5 years of age noticed us in our truck and worked her way over toward us. She was clearly very curious! Fortunately she had not quited reach our truck when the herd started moving away, and she turned and followed them. So we were spared any meetings with a potentially indignant elephant mother.

During the evening game drive, a leopard was reported seen on a neighboring tract, and we drove pell-mell to get there at dusk. It was a big male, lying stretched out on his side, still snoozing from his daytime siesta. These animals are so habituated to the sightseeing trucks, which they know won't hurt them, that they just keep on snoozing when a truck drives up. At twilight, the animals wake up. This big boy also started to rouse himself while we were there.

In three trips to South Africa, this is the first leopard we've ever seen. They've been very rare, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they may be becoming a little less rare. Let's hope so.

We are staying at a game preserve called Mkhaya, where extensive work is going on in preservation of endangered animals like the Roan Antelope and the Black Rhinocerus. The work has bene supported by the WWF, and the late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was a prominent sponsor and advocate of Mkhaya. Needless to say, there are no lions in Mkhaya.

The camp features cabins build of stone and mortar, with tall peaked thatch roofs. They are really quite attractive. The walls however are only knee-high, and there are no windows, no blinds, no privacy except as provided by the forest between cabins. There is also no electricity, but there is hot water and a shower!

Our open-air cottage in Mkhaya

Everyone seems to love the camp, except perhaps for me; I'm not quite decided yet. The sit-down dinner was served out in the open around a good campfire last evening. It was followed by a drum and dance and song performance by the staff. This was quite colorful and pleasant entertainment, if a tad repetitious.

Tonight we arrived at Hluhluwe-Imfoloza Park, a KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Nature Preserve. This is one of my favoorite parks in South Africa. We stay at Hilltop Camp, which is one of my favorite places in South Africa. We stayed one night, in a brick cottage with hot water, shower, and electric lights. Only a decent internet access was lacking. At Hilltop, they lock the gates at the entrance at 6:00 PM, but leave the rest of the camp apparently un-fenced. There were two old bull buffalo grazing down the hillside from the terrace, and no barrier between the terrace of the Camp Center and the animals. There are small antelope called Bushbuck, wandering around between the cabins.

We saw Mother Nature in action this afternoon in Hluhluwe: A young zebra foal, maybe a year old, with a nasty wound on the left rear hip, right near the base of the tail. A lion had almost caught this animal, but not quite. The animal was behaving quite normally, and when she turned her back to us, I got a clear picture of the wound. Yet this animal will probably show no permanent damage; the other animals in the little herd of zebra showed old scars from healed wounds on the rear legs. Nature has left these animals equipped to resist the attacks of lions, at least most of the time. I omit my pictures of this for the sake of delicacy; this is intended to be a "family" blog.

Back to Civilization
16 September 2006 07:00 AM South African Time

Before lunch today, we took a boat ride in the Lake St. Lucia Wetlands Park. This area has crocodiles and hippopotamus among other things. Lake St. Lucia is an estuary with salty water. This does not seem to bother the crocs or the hippos, but the latter at least must go to fresh water to drink when they are foraging on land at night.

Cruise Boat at Lake St. Lucia

The day was sunny and mild, there was a good breeze over the lake, and it was very restful riding on the boat under the awning. I don't think I missed any of the animal sightings, but in between my eyes must have drifted closed a couple times. Besides the crocs and hippos, we saw bushbuck on the shore and African Fish Eagles flying or roosting in the trees. This bird is similar to the American Bald Eagle, but with much more white on the head and neck. Very beautiful!

Roly has countless clivias growing under large old trees and under shade houses. Almost all are some shade of medium to light orange or apricot. A few are very pale pastels. The plants are allowed open-pollination, and the resulting seeds are left on the plants as long as possible. They are just now harvesting the seed crop, as or just after the plants are again blooming. Roly sells the seeds in bulk, by the kilogram (1 kilo = 2.2 pounds). I used to know how many Clivia seeds were in a kilo, but I've forgotten. Roly declined to enlighten me. When I asked him how many clivia plants he had growing, he said, "I tell people I have 2 million plants, and if they don't believe me they can count them themselves." I would estimate there are between 100,000 and 200,000 Clivia plants growing there in the various areas.

Growing on this farm, Shafton Grange, are some wild Boophane distichum, just coming into bloom. These plants, like Clivia, are used in the local herbal medicine or "Muthi". Such plants are routinely stripped from the wild, even from nature preserves, and used or sold for use by the local witch doctors. Our innkeeper, young Craig Rogers, wants to start growing the Boophone and a few other local Muthi plants to sell for traditional medicines. I explained to Craig how to cross-pollinate his blooming plants to increase his yields of seeds -- but will he remember?

Inside her extensive shade houses, she has cultivars and seedlings galore. Perhaps her best treasure are the plants of the Tipperary Peach clone she has.

Liz Boyd's Tipperary Peach plants.

From Liz's home we drove into Pietermaritzburg and visited Brian Tarr at the Pietermaritzburg National Botanic Garden. Brian kindly showed us around the stands of native Clivia miniata from various wild habitats. He keeps the plants from a givne habitat growing together in the garden, and is careful not to contaminate plants form one habitat with plants from a different place. It give you a good feel for how miniata grows in the wild.

Next, we drove to Sean Chubb's farm atop the rolling hills outside Durban. This time is the first that we have visited Sean when his Clivia were in bloom. I finally got to see Chubb Peach seedlings in bloom on their home turf. Sean has some nice plants, from which he selects the finest to keep for showing and breeding. He also selects some excellent plants for sale.

Finally, we drove to Durban Airport, where we caught a plane to Cape Town.

We are staying at the African Villa right in Cape Town, below the slopes of Table Mountain. It is a very comfortable bed and breakfast with very modern decor. We can recommend it.

Today, we started with Table Mountain, then drove out to Simon's Town where we saw the famous colony of African Penguins. We had an excellent lunch at a restaurant on the beach near the park. From Simon's Town we drove around the cape out to Cape Point and then to the Cape of Good Hope, where busloads of Japanese tourists were having the pictures taken while stand beside the sign designating the Cape (actually in the parking lot).

After the Cape, we drove around The Chapman's Peak road along the steep shoreline. Think of Highway 1 in the Big Sur country of California and you have the picture.

We ended the day with a fine seafood dinner at the Waterfront Grill in Hout Bay, on the shores of Hout Bay. Then back over the mountains to Cape Town and our snug beds in the African Villa.

The afternoon was given over to shopping in the malls of the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. We stayed around for dinner there too, and then took a taxi back up to the African Villa. It was a pleasant, low-key afternoon and evening.

By your third visit to a distant place, you begin to find that you have already bought most of the souvenirs that have any appeal to you. This has hit us on this trip. Finally we will be going home with suitcases not much heavier than when we left home.

We stopped off on the way to Hermanus in Stellenbosch, to visit Cape Seed and Bulb owner Jim Holmes. We looked over Jim's spring 2006 crop of newly blooming clivia seedlings. Jim was in the midst of trying to separate out the 'Snowball' qualifying seedlings from the rest.

From Jim's, we drove on to Hermanus and visited Felicity Weeden's home. Her kitchen, dining room, living room, and probably other rooms, were full of potted Clivia plnts she was going to take that afternoon to Cape Town for the Cape Clivia Show. She is a breeder, not just a collector of clivias. She has a shade house in the garden that was full of very nice seedlings, many in bloom.

Henriette Stroh is in the Cape, down from Pretoria on a brief holiday and to visit the Cape Clivia Show. She drove over to Felicity's and led us back to her vacation home on the other side of Hermanus. This place is not a clivia domain. She grows daylilies here, as well as many indigenous but attractive flowers and shrubs. Her home seems to be set in paradise, with the mountain of a nature preserve visible from the french doors of her living room and bedroom.

After a nice tea with scones at Henriette's, she led us to some of her favorite walks spots along the shoreline cliffs and beaches. Hermanus has some wonderful shoreline walking trails, improved for wheelchairs in most areas, and patroled by a private security force employed by the residents of the town.

After leaving Henriette, we returned to the Auberge Burgundy and then strolled across the central square or market place in Hermanus to the second story restaurant "On the Bay" for dinner, where Irma and I had lunch 2 years ago. The menu is limited but good, and the food is excellent.

We stopped off on the way to Hermanus in Stellenbosch, to visit Cape Seed and Bulb owner Jim Holmes. We looked over Jim's spring 2006 crop of newly blooming clivia seedlings. Jim was in the midst of trying to separate out the 'Snowball' qualifying seedlings from the rest.

From Jim's, we drove on to Hermanus and visited Felicity Weeden's home. Her kitchen, dining room, living room, and probably other rooms, were full of potted Clivia plnts she was going to take that afternoon to Cape Town for the Cape Clivia Show. She is a breeder, not just a collector of clivias. She has a shade house in the garden that was full of very nice seedlings, many in bloom.

Henriette Stroh is in the Cape, down from Pretoria on a brief holiday and to visit the Cape Clivia Show. She drove over to Felicity's and led us back to her vacation home on the other side of Hermanus. This place is not a clivia domain. She grows daylilies here, as well as many indigenous but attractive flowers and shrubs. Her home seems to be set in paradise, with the mountain of a nature preserve visible from the french doors of her living room and bedroom.

After a nice tea with scones at Henriette's, she led us to some of her favorite walks spots along the shoreline cliffs and beaches. Hermanus has some wonderful shoreline walking trails, improved for wheelchairs in most areas, and patroled by a private security force employed by the residents of the town.

After leaving Henriette, we returned to the Auberge Burgundy and then strolled across the central square or market place in Hermanus to the second story restaurant "On the Bay" for dinner, where Irma and I had lunch 2 years ago. The menu is limited but good, and the food is excellent.

Right after breakfast this morning in Hermanus, we went for a Whale Spotting boatride. It appeared that most whales were off sleeping somewhere at 9:00 AM. We finally found two whales dozing on the surface a couple hundred yards or meters apart. These two were photographed intensively by the tourists on our boat, including us. On the way home, just before the harbor, we encounter a courting pair, frolicking on the surface. More pictures!

The whales are in False Bay off Hermanus from sometime in late June until October or very early November. During this time, they do not feed at all; in fact, there is nothing much for them to feed on in these water. To feed, they must return to the Antarctic Ocean well to the south.

They come here instead to have their calves, if they are pregnant, or to mate of they aren't. Other activities are pretty much limited to loafing, "logging> (sleeping on one half their brain at a time), and just generally hanging out.

The water was smooth, the wind nil, and the sun was shining. We saw a few whales. It was a successful morning boatride.

On the way back to Cape Town, we stopped in Somerset West to visit the Vergelegen Wine Estate for a late lunch. The grounds are gorgeous, with some quite large, 300-yr old Chinese Camphor trees. The camphor trees have huge trunks with gigantic, lumpy bases. The food in the restaurant was excellent.

We arrived back in Cape Town in late afternoon, well-fed and tired.

It seemed to me, without my making an actual count, that Ian Brown and Felicity Weeden has a majority of the ribbons. I made a random assortment of pictures which I will eventually -- I hope -- get posted to the images pages of this blog.

Then we headed north and eventually northeast to get to Nieuwoudtville. We drove north on the N7, which runs all the way to Namibia if you follow it far enough. Between Clanwilliam and Vanrhynsdorp, some of the scenery was strangely reminiscent of New Mexico. In the forground stretched what looked for all the world like sagebrush, leading up to the foot of a high, very long mesa. The land was nearly treeless except for a few scattered gullies. The long mesa turned out to be the Gifberg, well known in bulb lore.

The road from Vanrhynsdorp to Nieuwoudtville was even more high desert in character. The "sage brush" was even shorter, and there were sandy patches here and there that were quite bare. We came to the mountains, actually the western South African equivalent of the Drakensberg Escarpment, and drove up ca. 1000 ft. over Vanrhynsdorp Pass to a more luxurient plateau, complete with farms, sheep, and trees. Nieuwoudtville is on this broad plateau landscape. I think this is the Bokkeveld Plateau.

Our accomodations for tonight and tomorrow night are in the Rooidakhuis or "Redroof House." It is fieldstone on the outside and indeed does have a red roof. No telephones. But there is a nice shower.

We awoke early this morning (Monday) to rain -- in Namaqualand, where the rain is supposed to be only ca. 13 inches per year up at this altitude (ca. 2,000 ft. above sea level). Irma and Barbara decided to stay at the guest house, while Beate drove Rashid and me to the meeting point in Vanrhynsdorp for the Clivia mirabilis habitat tour. We assembled at the guest house where most of the others on the tour were staying. Down here in Vanrhynsdorp, at elevation about 1,100 ft. above sea level, it is sprinkling rain intermitently. We debate what to do.

We go. We load into three vehicles and head out to the farm where the clivia plants are growing in the wild. We are asked to kindly refrain from telling people who are not on the tour where the actual habitat site is. There are 10 of us, including Beate; since Irma and Barbara did not come, she has the chance to join the tour. Beate isn't really a clivia person, but she is pretty game, and in better condition to climb around a rocky cliff than most of us! We drive about an hour on asphalt and then dirt roads, under overcast skies and through occasional rain showers. We climb into the mountains.

The two ordinary cars are parked at the point where the dirt track starts to climb sharply. The third vehicle, a 4-wheel drive that can comfortably carry 4 passengers, is used to shuttle us up to the farmhouse. They take the old geezers up first, and that includes Rashid and me.

At the farm house, we unload and find two ladies, Betsy and Erika, putting together the makings of a "braai," or cookout. We look around while the 4X4 returns for another load of visitors.

The farm is diversified. They run about 40 head of the native Nguni (pronouce it like "un-goon-y") cattle as well as some sheep, and they plant such things as rooibos, the small bush that is the source of Rooibos tea. "Rooibos" (pronounce it like "roy boss.") just means "red bush," and the bushes turn out to be very bright green, with scattered tiny yellow flowers. The very narrow, ca. 1 inch long leaves are pointed toward the tip of the shoot and pressed closely to the stem. At a distance, they look almost like evergreen shrubs such as juniper or arbor vitae.

We left Nieuwoudtville at 6:30 AM today, and Beate, our guide and driver, had us at Cape Town airport in 4 hours driving time. It was a beautiful, mild, sunny day. After a stop at a Wimpy's for a breakfast on the fly somewhere south of Vanrhynsdorp, we drove almost straight through to the airport in Cape Town, to catch our domestic South African Airways flight to Joberg. The 2-hour flight to Joburg was uneventful, but the meal served, a late lunch, was quite good: lamb stew, green salad. Arriving late in Joburg turned out not to be a problem at all (see above!)

We just ate our dinner on flight SA 207, and I'm catching up on the blog.

We had troubles getting connected to the internet during pour trip, not because South Africa is primitive but because my @#$!%^&* laptop computer's wireless networking refused to work with any of the wireless nets offered by several of the places we stayed. That has got to get fixed before we travel again.

In spite of all the food I ate while in South Africa, I apparently only gained 1 pound while there. This will doubltess distress my recent traveling companions, and will probably annoy my wife too.

It will soon be October, so it's high tiome I started moving potted plants that were outdoors all summer back inside the greenhouses. I don't count these pots, as it would probably be too upsetting. I'd find the number much to small while my family -- who do much of the twice-annual pot moving -- would find the number far to large.

It was a wonderful trip. I started it by telling everyone it would be my last trip to South Africa. Now, I'm not so sure about that. Part of my wavering is due to the wonderful hospitality and warm hearted friendship offered to visitors by the people of South Africa. If you every get the chance, be sure to go to South Africa for a visit.