APRIL 8th - it was goodbye to 3 of our fellow travelers and the rest of us left Capetown for a 2+ hour drive to Grootbos which is a National Geographic site. Here we expect to see marine and plant life prevalent in the area. We arrived to blue skies and sunshine in time for lunch. There are 3 types of accommodation here - the Villas which are very exclusive, the Forest Lodge which is adult only, and the Garden Lodge which is family oriented. This is quite a different lodge than those in Botswana. There is no set time for meals and you order off a menu. There are not a lot of activities included with our package and we are in the family lodge. The suite we have includes a nanny's room below us accessed via the main veranda. There is also a veranda off the bedroom and bathroom. It has an outdoor shower. Of course, if anyone was using the patio off the nanny's room you would be visible while showering.
We did a forest walk in the afternoon. Not a long or fast walk. The guide, Jo, was knowledgeable and had a million stories about her life and the surrounding area. The trees are predominantly milkwood, a very hard wood that work as a natural fire break. They are protected and, if you should buy land with any of these trees, you cannot remove them and must build around them.
APRIL 9th - we woke to a foggy, cool day but it cleared off by mid-morning. We did a 4×4 desert safari with Jo our guide. She really is very entertaining and we learned a lot about her life and the plants growing in the area. There are not many animals in the area due to the vegetation. They have 4 varieties of antelope and various snakes but we've not seen any sign of them other than some old antelope tracks during the forest walk yesterday.
We went for a horseback ride in the afternoon. It was a very slow gentle ride for about an hour through the fynbos which just means short shrubs. Both our horses liked to stop to eat the grass but we were able to get them moving and it was an enjoyable experience.
APRIL 10th - We had hoped to do an eco boat tour but decided against it due to significant swells. The whales are not present at this time of year but we might have been able to see sharks. Instead, we did another 4×4 safari drive with Ross. There are over 800 species of plants in the area and he found and described a good number of them. The national flower of South Africa is the protea - a beautiful flower that we are used to seeing in Maui.
A major fire tore through the reserve in 2006 destroying the lodges and the fynbos. The lodges were rebuilt and opened in 2007. The fynbos regenerated itself with many new species of plants.
We had a lazy afternoon and packed up for a 7 am departure back to Capetown for our flight to Kruger.
Pictures - 1 - a beautiful sunset
2 - Jo our entertaining guide.
3 - protea bouquet
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