Well Readers, after a couple of decent night’s sleep I’m ready to launch myself back into London life. Except, wait! It’s my 25th Wedding Anniversary next week, so in less than 48 hours I’ll be on the Eurostar and heading for Antwerp via Brussels. In the meantime, though, here are a few thoughts on my South Africa trip.

• Don’t leave the Cape without at least trying Bobotie and Malva Pudding. Every restaurant and café seems to have a different version, but they’re all delicious. And Malva Pudding often comes with custard. What’s not to like? Bobotie varies in spicing from very mild to blimey, that’s hot. Personally, I love the combination of fruit and spice and savoury.
• When you get to the Cape of Good Hope, it can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you’ve spent weeks in the relative quiet of the Northern Cape. There are queues to take photos with the iconic ‘Cape of Good Hope’ sign, but there are also toilets and a gift shop and a restaurant. If you’re not desperate to say you’ve been there, I’d probably give it a miss.
• Don’t miss Lambert’s Bay though, the Cape Gannets are endlessly interesting, and views of them are excellent without causing them any stress.
• Kirstenbosch Gardens is every bit as magnificent as everybody says. We were there in the pouring rain and it was still stunning. The Protea garden is an absolute must.
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• It’s worth reading up a bit on the ecosystems and plants beforehand – there is so much variety here, and so many unique and unusual plants that it can be a bit overwhelming. Who knew that there were fields full of species Pelargoniums, or tiny rock plants peeping out from the quartz fields? This is a land full of wonders.
• I really appreciated how well done Boulders Bay, where the penguins are, was done. It’s the people who are restricted, rather than the penguins, and they’re clearly doing very well. It’s a full-on sensory experience – penguins are smelly little critters, and noisy to boot. All in all, well worth risking the crowds for.

• The people that we met were all hospitable, straightforward, kind and helpful. Our South African guides had the patience of saints as we forgot what they’d told us, got lost, tripped over (not me for once!) and generally all had our idiotic moments. I salute them all!
• As with anything in nature, nothing is guaranteed – some people on our trip were very disappointed that the vast fields of orange and yellow annual daisies, that feature in so many promotional posters for Namaqualand and the Western Cape, had already finished, due to the early rains. But there is an enormous amount to admire and investigate in this area, and if you have an open mind and a sense of curiosity, there will always be something to delight and amaze. Now I just need to cross-reference my plant photos and work out what on earth I’ve seen.

This week I needed to post a South African poem – and this work, by Kukuma Putuma, contains  so much. It really needs to be read out loud, to feel how the sound builds and recedes, much like the waves. You can hear Putuma read her poem here.

Water by Koleka Putuma

The memory of going to the beach every New Year’s eve
Is one I share with cousins and most people raised black
How the elders would forbid us from going in too deep
To giggle, to splash in our black tights and Shoprite plastic bags wrapped around our new weaves, forbid us from riding the wave,
For fear that we would be a mass of blackness swept by the tide
And never to return
Like litter.
The elders forbid us as if the ocean has food poisoning
I often wonder why I feel as if I am drowning every time I look out into the sea
This and feeling incredibly small
And I often hear this joke
About Black people not being able to swim,
Or being scared of water;
We are mocked
And we have often mocked ourselves
For wiping our faces the way that we do when we come out of the water-
Compare it to how they do it all bay-watch like
And how we so ratchet-like with our postures and kink.
Yet every time our skin goes under
It’s as if the reeds remember that they were once chains
And the water, restless, wishes it could spew all of the slaves and ships onto shore
Whole as they had boarded, sailed and sunk
Their tears are what have turned the ocean salty,
This is why our irises burn every time we go under.
Every December sixteenth, December 24th and December 31st
Our skin re-traumatises the sea
They mock us
For not being able to throw ourselves into something that was instrumental in trying to execute our extinction.
For you, the ocean is for surf boards, boats and tans
And all the cool stuff you do under there in your bathing suits and goggles
But we, we have come to be baptised here
We have come to stir the other world here
We have come to cleanse ourselves here
We have come to connect our living to the dead here
Our respect for water is what you have termed fear
The audacity to trade and murder us over water
Then mock us for being scared of it
The audacity to arrive by water and invade us
If this land was really yours, then resurrect the bones of the colonisers and use them as a compass
Then quit using black bodies as tour guides or the site for your authentic African experience
Are we not tired of dancing for you?
Gyrating and singing on cue
Are we not tired of gathering as a mass of blackness?
To atone for just being here
To beg God to save us from a war we never started
To March for a cause caused by the intolerance for our existence
Raise our hands so we don’t get shot
Raise our hands in church to pray for protection
And we still get shot there too
With our hands raised
Invasion comes naturally for your people
So you have come to rob us of our places of worship too
Come to murder us in prisons too
That is not new either
Too many white people out here acting God
Too many white people out here doing the work of God,
And this God of theirs has my tummy in knots
Him and I have always had a complicated relationship
This blue eyed and blond haired Jesus I followed in Sunday school
Has had my kind bowing to a white and patriarchal heaven
Bowing to a Christ, his son, and 12 disciples
For all we know
the disciples could have been queer, the holy trinity some weird twisted love triangle
And the Holy Ghost transgender
But you will only choose to understand the scriptures that suit your agenda
You have taken the liberty to colonise the concept of God
Gave god a gender, a skin colour and a name in a language we had to twist our mouths around
Blasphemy is wrapping Slavery in the Gospel and calling it freedom
Blasphemy is having to watch my kind use the same gospel to enslave each other
Since the days of Elijah We have been engineered kneel to whiteness
And we are not even sure if the days of Elijah even existed
Because whoever wrote the bible did not include us
But I would rather exist in that god-less holy book than in the history books that did not tell truth
About us
For us
On behalf of us
If you really had to write our stories
Then you ought to have done it in our mother’s tongues
The ones you cut off when you fed them a new language

We never consent
Yet we are asked to dine with the oppressors
And Serve them forgiveness
How, when the only ingredients I have are grief and rage

Another one (who looks like me) died today
Another one (who looks like me) was murdered today

May that be the conversation at the table
And we can all thereafter wash this bitter meal with amnesia

And go for a swim after that
Just for fun.
Just for fun.

Dear Readers, today I’m heading home, so just a quick post – here are some of the photos that I’ve taken during this botanical tour of Namaqualand and the Western Cape. I will try to work out some identification when I get home, but for now, here’s a chance to revel in the sheer diversity of plants in this area, many of them found nowhere else.

Dear Readers, we are approaching the end of my trip to South Africa, but it wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to Boulders Beach, home to a colony of endangered African Penguins, plus a large number of rock hyraxes. Previously, these small furry animals had been glimpsed at the top of rocks, or seen galloping across the road, so it was quite a shock to get up close and personal with thism.

However, the main attraction here is the penguins. From just two breeding pairs in 1982, the colony has grown to nearly 3,000 pairs, largely due to banning trawling in False Bay, where the penguins breed. There are boardwalks which take you to the beach, and you can watch the penguins feeding their young, chatting away to one another and waddling about from sea to beach.

It was a joy to observe these birds, and even more of a joy to observe the people who were there – many were dressed in their Sunday best, and I’m sure we must have looked like a bunch of miscreants, what with our dusty walking gear and assortment of unusual sun hats. But this was a great way to finish up what has been a busy but rewarding trip.

Dear Readers, apart from our first day in South Africa, we have had absolutely stunning weather since our arrival, however today featured grey clouds and rain. But the West Coast National Park is stunning whatever the weather, and in some areas there were the sheets of yellow flowers that they show in the promotional literature..

Plus there are stunning sea views -and lagoon views –  sometimes you can see whales from the viewpoints, but apparently it’s the wrong time of year for the Right Whales to be passing.

There was a really friendly Grey Tit near the toilets – you can see their close relationship to our Great Tit.

And we actually saw some large mammals – a Gemsbok, a herd of Zebra and this stunning Bontebok. This species was hunted almost to extinction, but was brought back from the brink from a group of 17 individual animals. Today there are approximately 3,000 Bontebok. The one in the photo wandered over and passed our minibus with immense confidence.

And then we started the long journey back to Cape Town, but not before popping into a final bird hide, where two swallows were nesting. This bird was happily flying in and out of the hide.

The rain set in, and we headed back to Cape Town for the final days of our holiday. And we got our first views of Table Mountain – you may remember it was so grey that we couldn’t see it when we arrived.

Tomorrow, more botanising and bird-watching, and the chance of some penguins!

Cape Gannets (Morus capensis) at Bird Island

Dear Readers, today we had a visit to Bird Island at Lambert’s Bay, to have a look at the Cape Gannets. Although similar to the Gannets found in the UK, this bird is confined to southern Africa, and a large chunk of the population nest here. As always with. bird colony, there’s a lot going on, especially at this time of year, when couples from previous years are getting reacquainted, and young birds are attempting to pair up.

It’s not all about the gannets, though I could have sat and watched them for hours. There are also Cape Cormorants here…

…and Crowned Terns (plus a Hartlaub’s Gull)…

,,,all watched over by Harry, the presiding spirit of Bird Island, made entirely of flotsam and jetsam, and with a small bird nesting in his shoulder.

I would love to write a bit more about Bird Island, but it’s a 6 o’clock start again tomorrow, and so I’ll finish here. Only a few more days and it will be home time!

Dear Readers, today we spent all day up on the Nieuwoudtville plateau. As time is short, I just wanted to concentrate on two spots. The first was the Kokerboom (Quiver Tree) forest – these remarkable trees grow all the way up the side of the mountain, in arid conditions where you wouldn’t think anything could grow.

I’ve remarked before about the individuality of these trees – I guess that all trees are individuals (thinking of our great oaks and other splendid trees) but there’s something very idiosyncratic about Quiver trees. Maybe it’s the different bark patterns, and the different growing habits.

Apparently, last time our guide was here you could get out and wander through the trees. Alas, this time they were fenced off, presumably to protect them from people who would damage them. What a shame that people can’t be trusted to be respectful, but there we go. After all, people sometimes graffiti the trees in our local wood, so there are idiots everywhere.

Then we moved on to the waterfall just a few miles up the road. The view from the top made me quite dizzy!

There are 22 little waterfalls which all pour into this one.

All manner of birds and other creatures call this their home, but the most exciting birds we saw here were a group of Fairy Flycatchers, South Africa’s smallest bird. They were much too fast for me to get a photo, but here’s a shot of one so you can get the idea…

Fairy Flycatcher ((Stenostira scita) Photo By Francesco Veronesi , CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39952933

Close to one of the shallower pools we saw our old friends, the Milkweed locusts. They certainly seem to be everywhere!

Tomorrow we’re off to Lambert’s Bay to see the gannets. Very excited!

Dear Readers, the geology is the hidden hero of this part of the world – the landscapes are so breathtaking that it’s sometimes hard to convey them. But Letterklip, not far from the town of Garies in Namaqualand, combines ancient granite rocks with history.

‘Letterklip’ means ‘lettered rock’, and the stones are covered in writing from the Scottish Regiment that occupied the site from 1901-2 during the Boer/South African war.

In some places, the stones were fortified with dry stone walls.

But this is a site of great natural beauty as well, with some exquisite quiver trees.

And then there was this plant, which is rodent-pollinated, and has a very handsome tik-tok beetle in attendance.

This really was a remarkable site. I could see how these natural shapes have influenced sculptors throughout the ages.

And for good measure, the site was surrounded by troops of meerkats, and two rock kestrels were nesting amongst the stones.

It’s been a really busy day, but I wanted to share this experience with you. Now, it’s off to bed – there’s another busy day ahead tomorrow!

Dear Readers, today we spent the whole day in the Kamiesberg mountains above Kamieskroon, looking for interesting plants and for anything else we can find. The Kamiesberg range contains many granite ‘inslebergs’ – these are isolated granite domes which act almost as islands. Many plants can be found only on one of these inslebergs, so it makes plant hunting something of a joy. One particular flower that we found is so extraordinary that I’m going to leave it till last.

This succulent only flowers in the afternoon when it’s sunny – the rest of the time its leaves and flowers face down in a rather sad manner.

This is Gladiolus alatus, a beautiful red gladiolus that seems to love the granitic soil

Honestly, some of the ‘rock gardens’ are so beautiful that you’d think they’d been planted.

I sat on a rock under a tree and this bird turned up – a Large-billed Lark, if I’m not mistaken, and certainly living up to his name.

But when we got back to the hotel, we were shown this extraordinary flower. This is Anacampseros filamentosa, and it flowers for just one hour a day, at dusk. Sorry for the blurry photo! Low light and shaky hand.

With such a short flowering window, the question was always ‘what on earth pollinates this plant’? Well, one answer is ‘itself’ – the plant automatically self-pollinates for most of the time. This is not a great long term strategy, as cross pollination ensures genetic variation, but we did see some small flies around the plant, so maybe it is insect pollinated sometimes. Nature is so full of mysteries!

Tomorrow we head back south to the town of Vanrhynsdorp, with a visit to a private reserve to spot some plants. It’s going to be nearly 40 degrees, so let’s see how we do!

Angulate Tortoise making a break for it

Dear Readers, today we had a full day in the Namaqualand National Park, home to the highest concentration of succulent plants in the world, and more than a thousand endemic species. As previously mentioned, the vast sheets of orange and yellow daisies (including many gazanias) have finished, but there was still plenty to hold the attention.

Of course, me being me, I was greatly interested in the insects, like this blister beetle…

And this plant, a member of the borage family, was covered in bees and butterflies, including painted ladies which are all over the Western Cape at the moment.

The rock hyraxes are becoming firm favourites – they seem to be watching us from every rock. They remind me a lot of the marmots that we see in Austria, and I suspect that they occupy a similar ecological niche. However, the closest living relative of the hyrax is the elephant, so they are not related.

This next was a great surprise, however. What the hell is it?

This is a species of fungus, probably Podaxis beringamensis. For most of the time it grows happily in the termite mound, but every so often it breaks out. The termites probably don’t appreciate this, as it opens up the mound to infection and invasion, and I wonder if some of the debris around the base of the fungus is an attempt to repair the damage.

And how about this small army of locusts? We’re seeing a lot of these about this year, and I’m wondering if the early rains have contributed. These are Red Milkweed locusts, and they seem to spend lots of time hanging around and munching on the spring vegetation.

This was a great introduction to the plants and animals of the Namaqualand region, and I’ll be posting more when my wi-fi signal permits. Off for a trip around the Kamieskroon mountain range tomorrow. Onwards!