Seneca Hill Perennials

February 6, 2008

Quick entry tonight – very tired, and the place we’re staying in is awash in mosquitoes; the longer I keep on my light, the more that will find me.

Left Carnarvon early this AM and set out towards Woodcliffe, at Maclear, stopping en route for supplies (mostly candy bars). We made a few stops, one to photograph a huge drift of the red form of Crocosmia paniculata that Cameron and Rhoda obtained for me from Ballogh, where we stayed two years ago, and that John recognizes as an old passalong form that no-one has been able to attach a name to (addendum: probably a hybrid, not the straight species - it's sterile).  We also made roadside stops to see Agapanthus campanulatus (looked interesting from the road, but wasn’t up close) – at same stop viewed Nerine angustifolia, a few orchids, and Sebaea grandis, which Cameron was thrilled to see and which I didn’t know existed (no surprise there).  Further on we stopped at a site Cameron knew for John to collect DNA and a specimen of Gladiolus crassifolius.

We arrived at our lodgings, after passing a friendly sign with the header “STOP” followed by graphics of a gun, a German shepherd,  and a skull and crossbones, followed by warnings in three languages (too faded to read, alas).  I wish I had the opportunity to photograph more signs in SA…there are some good ones.  Liquor stores, which are abundant, often have names which get right to the point: Kwikka Likka is one.  

Shortly we pulled in at Woodcliffe, a comfortable house perched in a valley between towering sandstone mountains clothed in brilliant green. As soon as we dumped our stuff we grabbed our gear and headed out to explore the valley upstream.  Scrambled up, down and across very steep slopes; saw lots of Tritonia dracomontana, which John says is now the correct name for what used to be T. disticha var. rubrolucens (my “small form”).  This was very useful to know – must amend website to straighten out nomenclature.  Saw and acquired some seeds of Zantedeschia albomaculata and Watsonia confusa, also Xysmalobium undulatum (1,2) – don’t know if any will ripen successfully, of course.  It was hot and humid, and I was really overheated and dragging; we finally reached a stream (runoff from the escarpment above) where I removed camera, glasses and hat, and dumped water all over my head and face  -meanwhile thunder and lightening were playing about, the clouds were moving in overhead; a couple of tremendous claps of thunder reverberated through the valley, and we smelled the ozone; but we actually only got rained on for a few minutes, and in any case we were able to shelter under an immense overhanging boulder above the stream.

Cameron and I then strode on ahead to head for the caves where the Bushmen paintings were to be seen, Cameron intent as much on getting us sheltered before the real storms arrived (which they never did).  John fell behind and, as it turned out, turned back and headed home; we clambered up the steep hillside to these caves, in which there were some formerly wonderful paintings, now rather badly flaked off, including a distinctly erotic one that was quite entertaining; the guy in the rear with a stiffy, the creature in front not clearly a woman (it appears to have breasts, but on closer inspection it also appears to have a muzzle and upright ears – sort of a hyena woman?).  Got lots of pictures, discovered the camera had been set incorrectly, tried to retake as many as possible and missed some critical ones, as Cameron was by then very worried about John (we didn’t know he’d headed back) and said we must hurry back to see what had happened to him.  I was in no shape to hurry down a near vertical hillside (there was a path of sorts, but it was easy to lose), so Cameron went on ahead and I followed at a slower pace.  Caught up with him at the bottom, both of us quite tense and worried, and we walked along mostly in silence, scanning the hillsides and gorges, until about halfway home I found a boot print headed in the right direction, and then we found several more, and both felt we had enough evidence to assume John had just gone home – which he had.  He greeted us cheerily with hot tea, and we were all happy again, though utterly exhausted (two of us anyway), and we sat around sipping beer and naming the day’s photo files on our computers, as we do before dinner each evening. At dusk we all went outside and gazed awestruck at the darkening peaks, while at the edge of the field the crowned cranes slowly assembled, pair by pair, in the dead trees in which they roost at night (Cameron wondered how they keep their balance when/if they sleep).  Lower down in the trees, the guinea fowl were making a racket as they too settled in.  What a magnificent place it is.

Eventually Phil arrived with dinner, which due to my grumblings and her fortuitous inquiry of Cameron as to what we would like for dinner did NOT consist of a variant of the ECRFD.  Chicken for me and Cameron, a steak for John, different veggies, roast potatoes, and a sort of apple crumble for dessert (with vanilla ice cream on top – always vanilla IC) – something of a change from the last week. Phil shared dinner w/us, and among other things she and Cameron exchanged stories of friends and family murdered in the last decade or two – including her elderly father, murdered for a small sum of cash by his gardener and friends – this is not the way to ensure a good night’s sleep when you’re staying in a remote cabin in the foothills of the Drakensberg, without land line or cell phone service.  So I’m hoping I manage to fall asleep, especially w/all the mosquitoes trying to eat me alive.

Tomorrow night we move into a farmhouse tended by the nice Afrikaner couple that pulled us out of the mud two years ago, near Rhodes, after the flash flood.  I imagine the ECRFD will return in full force.

And now to bed.