South Africa Day 2 - Blown Away (literally - and that ain't easy!)

The wind continued a little more strongly on Day 2 – our first stop was on a cliff over the ocean – that did not help the wind situation. I was afraid the tiny woman we had in the group was going to get blow away, because I almost did. Although I did walk a bit, moving away from the van was not comfortable. We were searching for the Cape Rockjumper which we never found – had to look over the edge to find it and no one was comfortable doing that for a long time. Here is a video of the spot:

This Hamilton Russel Vineyards near Hermanes on the south coast of the Cape. It has a lot of hikers, but none of them were happy that day and I’m sure they enjoyed the fruit of the grape when they got back.

Lots of farmland on the way to DeHoop because the normal route was washed out @3weeks ago. One bridge we took was just opened that day. There was a lot of damage. Here are some of the birds & Habitat we saw along the way.

Pale Chanting-Goshawk

Grassland Habitat

Stone Owl Sculpture

African Pipit

Very Fuzzy Denham Bustard -- at least I saw it well in the Scope

African Spoonbill & Black-headed Heron

Capped Wheatear

Blue Crane

Black-headed Heron

Karoo Bustard -- pretty close to the van

The Road through the Mountains to DeHoop Nature Reserve

I did not expect the menagerie we found at DeHoop – the Baboon, Ostrich, Antelope & Zebra has the run of the place – pretty amazing. We were even told to keep our doors & windows locked because the Baboons know how to open them when unlocked. Yikes!

Bontebok

Rehbok

Baboon & baby boon (photo credit: Helen Mako)

Scrub Hare (photo credit: Helen Mako)

Steenbok

Cape Zebra - all black stripes (the ones in Kruger have brown shadow stripes) (photo credit: Helen Mako)

Sunset at De Hoop (photo credit: Helen Mako)

The group (Photo credit: Waiter - but Helen asked him to take it)

Me, Vince (the guide), Jim (the Canadian), Aussie Dave, across the table Mary, Welsh Dave, Helen Mako, American Dave (Mako and he got another nickname later on) Any mathematicians out there? What are the odds we would have 3 Daves in a group of 7?

We stayed in De Hoop two nights, so more tomorrow.