by KBergReserve

Walk Report – Dec ’18 – Feb ’19

December 2018 An advantage of birding over botanising is that, if you choose the right spot, the birds come to you. So it was that our December walk found us getting comfortable in the spacious bird hide in the Rooisand Nature Reserve. Binoculars? Check. Bird guide book? Check. Flask of tea or coffee and a snack? Check. Good company? Check. Then we waited. The decision to go birding rather than botanising was motivated by the desire to do something a little different – and make the walking a little easier. A trip to the Rooisand…
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by KBergReserve

Walk Report – July 2018

– By Tim Attwell (19 May 2018)  The aim of the exercise was to find less seen and seldom recognised members of the protea family close to home. Where better than Rod’s Trail? Maybe because it’s in Betty’s Bay’s back yard there is a tendency to overlook this extraordinary little trail through Kogelberg Sandstone Fynbos on the slopes of Voorberg when looking for the rare and remarkable. So it was that we set off from the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens, up Kloof Road, behind the Disa Youth Camp and on to the mountainside. The objective…
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by KBergReserve

Botsoc Kogelberg Walk Report 18th November 2017

For some reason the assembled Botsoc members and guests were reluctant to scan the distant heights of the contour path from the Fairy Glen parking area before we set off. ‘Let’s just get on with it’, they said. Sometimes it’s better to just sally forth and deal with the steep gradient as it comes. So that’s what we did. The objective was to survey the early summer flowers on the western slopes of the Three Sisters Peaks by traversing the contour path from Kasteelkopnek to Spooknek and descend via Dot’s Dash and the Klipspringer path…
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by KBergReserve

WALK REPORT

West Bank Roundabout - Tim Attwell The weather forecast promised a clear but chilly day. Well, it was clear, but certainly not chilly at Fairy Glen when we set off across the R44 and the bridge over the Palmiet River to pick up the path which took us southwards along the west bank of the Palmiet River towards the sea in the distance. The aim was to have tea at the mouth of the Palmiet Estuary and return via a path which took us away from the river through Overberg Dune Strandveld, Hangklip Sand Fynbos…
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by KBergReserve

WALK REPORT: SATURDAY 22 APRIL 2017

-Barbara Jenman On 21 Feb this year a wildfire swept across Clarence Drive, raced towards Pringle Bay and consumed a substantial part of the fynbos of the Brodie Link, also known as the Hangklip Nature Reserve, damaging some homes in Pringle Bay and threatening many more. We went to see what flora was emerging two months later. Maybe the little rainfall in the interim had helped. The surprise was evident. Fire resistant Mountain palmiet (Bergpalmiet), Tetraria thermalis, was still intact and erect. “They stood out in isolation in what looked like a wasteland,” says walker…
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by KBergReserve

WALK REPORT: SATURDAY 18 MARCH 2017

-Tim Attwell It’s small comfort to those who lost so much to wildfire this summer that fires are part of the cycle of life in the Cape Floristic Region. We join many others in our heartfelt sympathy with those whose homes were lost or damaged in Pringle Bay and Rooi Els during this summer’s ‘fire season’. With fire and its aftermath in mind, thirteen members and guests set off on Saturday 18 March, from Fairy Glen, following the steep and rocky Kasteelkop path to the shale band, at an altitude of 200 metres, on the…
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by KBergReserve

WALK REPORT FOR JANUARY 2017

-Tim Attwell An easy walk, circumnavigating the Palmiet Estuary is one of our area’s most beautiful routes. With a brilliant blue sky overhead, eleven members and guests set off from Fairy Glen, dart across the R44 and duck under the forest canopy hiding the steps down to the popular picnic spot on the rocky riverside. The holiday crowd is already gathering, we say hello but don’t linger. The path along the east bank of the Palmiet River, in the direction of the river mouth, takes us through a tiny patch of Afrotemperate forest, an outlier…
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by KBergReserve

NOVEMBER WALK REPORT

- Tim Attwell Botsoc Kogelberg Walk Report November 2016 It’s one thing to go for a walk in the garden, it’s quite another to really look and see what is going on there and begin to understand. Enthusiastic communicator and passionate about fynbos, Harold Porter National Botanical Garden guide Etienne Smith, welcomed upward of twenty members and guests into his world. In a slow ramble along pathways already well known to many in the party, Etienne revealed secrets they didn’t know. More than the names of plants, it was the stories that captivated; stories about…
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by KBergReserve

OCTOBER WALK REPORT

- Tim Attwell Botsoc Walk 15 October 2016 It was as we expected and much more. Twenty members and guests piled into high clearance vehicles at the Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens and set off for Kasteelkop Nek in the Kleinmond Mountain Nature Reserve. Today we would not be toiling up rocky mountain paths, but ambling down a jeep track to see Western Coastal Shale Band vegetation up close, interpreted for us by renowned botanist and botanical historian Dr John Rourke. Starting at a spot with splendid views of fold upon fold of mountains in…
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by KBergReserve

MARCH WALK

Botsoc Kogelberg Walk Report: 19 March 2016 Tim Attwell The village of Pringle Bay was anything but sleepy on the morning of 19 March. The hugely popular and well organised annual Village Festival made assembling the eager Botanical Society walkers among the crowds of festival goers tricky to say the least. Not to be deterred, sixteen members found each other at the Drosters Centre and drove in convoy to the start of an exploration of the much less populated and splendid coastal path beginning at Moonlight Bay (aka Grootbaai), circling round to Cape Hangklip with…
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