GOOD NEWS FROM HAROLD PORTER!

Bridges in Disa Kloof undergo repairs at last After a very lengthy and frustrating wait, the bridges which were damaged by the massive floods in November 2013, are finally being repaired.  We are delighted and relieved to be able to announce that repairs started on Monday 18 January 2016 and should be completed in June of this year. The long wait was caused by having to comply with the many regulations demanded by the Department of Environmental Affairs, which included a Botanical Survey, an Environmental Impact Assessment and a Hydrology Study, all of which had…
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THE BATTLE OF BETTY’S BAY

Ed Silberbauer, Convenor The December hack, no 632, will take place on 6 December on the banks of the Dawidskraal River. Meet at Frik Potgieter's house at the end of Four Streams Road on the river side. The enemies to be tackled are the huge number of myrtle (Leptospermum laevigatum) seedlings. At this stage they are still easy to pull out by hand, so we need hands in vast numbers. Access will be no problem due to the fire that raged through that area in March. This year there will be no 'office party' as…
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AFTER THE FIRE

The fire that started on 4 March this year on the far side of the Dawidskraal River, swept across the commonage for the next three days. It left in its trail a desolate landscape. Amazingly, in less than two weeks, bright red clumps of April Fool (Haemanthus canaliculatus) could already be seen, flowering bravely amid the ash and blackened vegetation. This is an endemic plant, appearing only after fires in marshes between Rooi Els and Betty’s Bay. Arum lilies came next, followed by dense stands of light-green Bog Fern (Thelypteris confluens) and clumps of the camphor-scented white Swamp…
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