7-12 July 2005
This post is a photo journey down the Whale Trail. It was the second time that I walked this wonderful trail.
- Morning tea on Potberg. The Breede meanders to the coast below.
- The trail follows Potberg’s spine.
- Cupidoskraal hut is a welcome sight after 15km on day 1. Contrast the diversity of the fynbos in the foreground with the drab green of invasive bluegums behind the hut.
- Protea as far as the eye can see. Who would believe it’s mid-winter? We experienced five warm, windless and cloudless days.
- Deon above the ecotone where fynbos on sandstone gives way to fynbos on limestone. The bay at Noetsie, our destination on day 2, foams invitingly at centre left.
- Succulents on limestone in riotous colour. The bright red-green in the valley is alien Rooikrans I think.
- Noetsie.
- I thought this looked interesting.
- Bush cuisine conjured up by Alwyn. Noetsie’s meal comprised springbok and veggies done in foil on the open fire.
- Noetsie in the morning. All evening and night we heard the whales blowing in the bay.
- Rugged coast.
- Leaving the hut at Hamerkop on day 4.
- Morning on the beach between Hamerkop and Lekkerwater.
- Blowholes.
- What is it?
- Alwyn and Deon plan and visualise the evening’s meal – or something.
- Last time I promised myself a return to Vaalkrans. Vaalkrans is the Olde Seadog Inn of my boyhood stories.
- This time the weather provided the perfect ambience for seafaring yarns – fog and crashing seas. The cave under the hut reverberated under the onslaught.
- A wild scene. For once the whales are drowned out by the din.
- The morning after, looking east. Later we watched a pod of about sixty dolphins porpoising up the coast.
- A last look at Vaalkrans.
- Ingrid prods our environmental consciences. As she said – if each one of us lugged 10 plastic bottles off the beach, that would make 120 each day. I wonder if we could outmatch the rate at which passing ships litter the coast. Perhaps a cleanup expedition is called for…
- A group on a high: (b) Alwyn, Lorette, Marion, Karen; (f) Deon, me.
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