An intense heat has swamped South Africa’s western Cape province of late, resulting in an extreme drought and varying states of emergency regarding water consumption in Cape Town. The heat has started to dissipate, ever so slightly in this last week of March 2017, mostly noticeable in the cooler early mornings and evenings.  Thoughts of cool bring to mind the onshore breezes and lurking fog-banks of the #WestCoast with its tell-tale cold blue waters, rich in nutrients, nursing the semi-arid shoreline. They bring the Cape Gannets, the exquisitely painted diving seabirds seen in the photograph, which nest in their thousands on a small island in Lamberts Bay harbour. Such thoughts of a cool west coast also bring to mind the much anticipated and prayed-for #winter rains. More than relief, the much anticipated consistent soaking winter rains will lay the foundation carpet for the patchwork dazzle ’n blur of Spring colour at the end of winter’s tunnel. It’s a world of Daisies, Bulbs, Fynbos and Succulents, of Vetkoek, Roosterbrood and home-made Ginger-beer, and you really shouldn’t miss it.  The accommodation this week, #bushmanskloof, was ranked no.#3 of Africa’s top lodges. From here you have the world’s largest collection of rock-paintings in the Cederberg, a marketing ploy if ever there was, but a good one, and probably true.   http://www.bushmanskloof.co.za/

Read more

It was December, and we were heading south in the game-drive vehicle, away from the rocky Karoo slopes to an arid savanna dominated by wavy grass and shattered fragments of shale. Content because we had spent some time with a cheetah, lazing in ubiquitous fashion under a bush, we were looking for rhino. And then we saw this dark lump on the road ahead that wasn’t a rock. From a distance we could see that it was moving, We stopped, I hopped off the vehicle, lay in the road a long way off, my seven year-old Fynn at my shoulder, not budging so as not to become part of his immediate scenery, not to scare hm off. Elbow resting on tiny, sharp stones, left hand cupping the lens, I watched his steady progress. He was quick and relentless on his mission, his scaly padded feet crunching the gravel as he cruised straight past without even a tortoise glance. http://www.samara.co.za/lodges/karoo-lodge/

Read more