Sunday Flower Walk on the Bike

An injured dog meant Pippa stayed at home with them and I went off on the bicycle to follow the pipeline from the old Wesselsgat dam which used to supply water to the village of Grabouw. The dam and pipeline have been abandoned and I wanted to see if it was possible that water from a leak in this line could be flooding our road to the Country Club.

Wesselsgat Dam in a deep ravine

The dam is in a narrow ravine, probably very silted up by now, and it looks as if water was pumped from it up to this filtration plant (?) before running down by gravity to the village. So, water caught in this could just run down to the Club which is just above the level of the now nearly full Eikenhof Dam beyond. The Village now draws water from there.

Derelict Filtration Plant?

There was a single watchman at the plant, but he wasn't enough to stop all the metal pipes from being stolen.

Lizard keeping watch!

Blue under the throat, not sure if that makes it a Bloukop Koggelmander or Blue Head Agama. Total length about 6 to 7 inches.

Although it isn't easy to spot flowers from a bike, I did have my eyes peeled when I was able to look around and I wasn't disappointed! Being a 'new' area, there were some unfamiliar plants.

Leucadendron laureolum?

There was lots of yellow around again, several of these Leucadendrons made me get off and look.... L. laureolum?

Flower of L. laureolum?

Still only one flower per plant, what we think is a Euryops. Just look at the Fibonacci sequence in the layout of the florets in the middle!

Euryops flower?

Another example of the little three-petalled daisy-type flower:

Unknown flower

Among the yellow, these Lobelia tomentosa always seem to add a splash of violet!

Lobelia tomentosa

Thamnochortus spp?

This looked like a Mum and Dad restio, flower detail of the male:

Thamnochortus male flower?

... and female:

Thamnochortus female flower?

Anina has kindly responded to a preview of this mail, and says:

These are probably Thamnochortus but I can't tell which one. It's most likely T. lucens, but the female flower doesn't look like lucens on the photo. One would have to see details of the whole plant to be sure.

What is even more interesting is that she is not familiar with the following plant.

Beyond, another pair, now that we know to look out for the difference:

Unknown Restio 

And

Unknown Restio

I wasn't disappointed in the Ericas I found:

Erica plukenetii?

Could they be E. plukenetii or Hangertjies in their pink form?

Erica plukenetii?

Here and there were examples of our favourite Saltera sarcocolla:

Saltera sarcocolla

And what must have been an impressive display some months ago of Phaenocoma prolifera, although I had to look hard for any still in flower:

Phaenocoma prolifera

Different Proteas grow in that area, P. repens or Suikerbossie living up to their reputation of being the most common:

Protea repens

And a few of these, could they be P. lepidocarpodendron?

Protea lepidocarpodendron?

Amongst them were these tall Ericas we remember from before, possibly E. longifolia:

Erica longifolia?

I was surprised by this unfamiliar tall daisy:

Unknown Daisy

I had two bird experiences, one a Malachite Sunbird above these pink proteas. I first watched an aerial display, with its characteristic pin tail with two tufts, lost sight of it and looked up, and there he was on the protea bush next to me! By the time I had my camera out again, he was off!

The other was a smallish kestrel or sparrowhawk which flew out in front of me at head height near this daisy and settled on the top wire of the power lines, just a foot or so before the insulator. By the time I'd ridden close enough to the pole, stopped the bike and taken the camera out, off he flew in a looong loop away from me, to the next pole, again just a foot short of the insulator. He repeated this about six times, before flying off back to where he came from, probably thinking, Got rid of that one nicely, and robbed him of a shot every time!

Tomorrow I'll have sore muscles I never knew I had, but it was worth it, pipeline as well as the flowers!

:-) A