Bushman’s Kloof
Monday–Thursday September 24– 27, 2012
From Cape Town we drove north on highway N7, which runs up to the border with Namibia (red line on the map). Bushmans Kloof wilderness reserve is the red pin at the top of the map.
This map shows the location of the four lodges we called home during our trip. The third one was Bushmans Kloof, with the red pin.
A Kloof in South Africa, we were told, is a ravine. There definitely was a ravine, with a good sized creek.
We are here to see flowering plants. There are five areas in the world with a Mediterranean climate (rain in the winter, never the summer), and they amount to only 7% of the earth’s surface. We have been to the other four (Western Australia, Chile, Spain and Italy, and California) and want to see the differences. It is spring here, autumn in the northern hemisphere.
It’s a bit drier than we expected, but there are a lot of flowers.
A ranger told us ice plant is native to South Africa. It is found in California, and to our surprise, is considered an “invasive” plant there. We saw ice plant in Western Australia, too. It has gotten around!
Besides flowers, Bushmans Kloof also has some interesting animals and old cave paintings.
These are Cape Mountain Zebras, which is endangered; fewer than 3,000 are left. It is smaller than the zebras we saw in Sabi Sand, and has floppy ears.
Here is a baby zebra, with oryx and their long horns.
Bontebok and Springbok.
The San Bushman cave paintings on the reserve go back 2,000 years to 9,000 years. Here is our ranger talking to us about elephants at one of the caves. The second picture is inside a different cave.
Unlike at Tuli and Sabi Sand, we could walk around at Bushmans Kloof. Still, care was taken, as common snakes in the area include:
Boomslang, Black spitting cobra, Cape cobra, Coral Shield cobra, Rinkhals and Puff Adder.
Another look at the Kloof.
A cute bird, and then some flower photos.
One last animal picture!
After leaving Bushmans Kloof , we drove south for five hours to Grootbos, a nature reserve. On the way we went through wine country.
We left Sabi Sands and drove about 2 hours to the airport, flying out of the Nelspruit airport (MQP) about 2.5 hours to Cape Town.
We arrived in Cape Town late in the afternoon and spent the night in a guest house up towards the city’s beautiful Table Mountain. The next morning we left for Bushmans Kloof, a three hour ride to the north of Cape Town.
Next—south to Grootbos Nature Reserve
