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South Africa trip report: the Cape Peninsula
Wednesday, August 28th, 2013 12:37 pmDuring my time in Cape Town I went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula. Something I didn't know at all until I started researching South Africa is that the world is divided into five floral kingdoms, each featuring a different collection of plants making up its ecology. Most of these floral kingdoms span continents, but there's one that's entirely located in the southern tip of South Africa, separated by mountain ranges from the rest of Africa. It's called fynbos in Afrikaans, and the thing which really leaps out about fynbos vegetation when you look at it is the absence of grasses: A field of fynbos is densely-packed shrubs from one end to the other; there's nothing small and low-growing like grass to break it up like we're used to.
The most famous fynbos plant is the protea, which is the national flower of South Africa. Unfortunately, it was autumn when I went, and all the proteas had finished flowering months ago. Indeed, though the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens came highly recommended to me, by the time of year I got there there were no flowers to be seen at all, and they were really slightly boring except to the hardcore botanist.
However, when I was showing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aviva_m my photos, she spotted that a flower I'd photographed growing halfway up Table Mountain was in fact a protea. I have no idea why this protea was still flowering so long after the others.
Anyhow, back to the cape peninsula. We started down the west (atlantic) coast; at Llandudno, the guide told me I was the only non-Welsh person he'd had to correct him on the pronunciation. I suspect people likepapersky would be driven nuts living somewhere with a Welsh name pronounced as if it were English.
On the east (False Bay) coast, we stopped at Boulders, where there is a penguin colony. These are African penguins, a different species from those of South America and Antarctica. They used to be called jackass penguins, because of the braying noise they make, but as the guide said, today it's politically incorrect to call even a penguin a jackass. (Actually, it's because a South American penguin brays like a donkey too.)
Other interesting fauna en route were baboons. I did not see any baboons, but I did see a baboon spotter, who is paid to sit by the side of the road in a hi-vis jacket with a paint gun. Left to their own devices, baboons will snatch handbags from tourists and run away to completely inaccessible places before discarding it on discovering it's got no food in it (and tough on you if your passport and wallet are inside). Paint guns dissuade them nicely: any baboon who gets covered in paint drops to the bottom of the social order, and alpha males are not prepared to risk it.
Also whilst on fauna, the Cape of Good Hope is one of the very few places where you can see ostriches by the seaside. Ostriches do not naturally come from anywhere by the ocean, but they have been introduced here and are flourishing.
The Cape of Good Hope supposedly divides the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Actually, this is oversimplistic; the oceans merge over the distance of a hundred miles or so. Nevertheless, it is true that on the west side of the peninsula the water is very cold, being brought by the Benguela current up from the southernmost waters of the Atlantic Ocean, whereas on the east side it's warmer, being brought from the east by the Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean. However, the fact the east side is also in the shallow False Bay may have something to do with it. (And if you're wondering, it's called False Bay because sailors sailing west would mistake it for Table Bay which they hadn't reached yet.)
The peninsula is double-pronged; the Cape is on the western prong and ever so slightly further south (but not actually the southernmost point in Africa, much the same way Gibraltar is not actually the southernmost point in Spain). The eastern prong is Cape Point, at the highest point on which is a lighthouse. Unfortunately, for *mumble*ty-*mumble* days each year, the lighthouse is enshrouded in cloud; tragically, it took a shipwreck in which people lost their lives before the government consented to build another lighthouse further down.
Cape Point viewed from near the upper lighthouse
Picture taken from here
The most famous fynbos plant is the protea, which is the national flower of South Africa. Unfortunately, it was autumn when I went, and all the proteas had finished flowering months ago. Indeed, though the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens came highly recommended to me, by the time of year I got there there were no flowers to be seen at all, and they were really slightly boring except to the hardcore botanist.
However, when I was showing
aviva_m my photos, she spotted that a flower I'd photographed growing halfway up Table Mountain was in fact a protea. I have no idea why this protea was still flowering so long after the others.Anyhow, back to the cape peninsula. We started down the west (atlantic) coast; at Llandudno, the guide told me I was the only non-Welsh person he'd had to correct him on the pronunciation. I suspect people like
papersky would be driven nuts living somewhere with a Welsh name pronounced as if it were English.On the east (False Bay) coast, we stopped at Boulders, where there is a penguin colony. These are African penguins, a different species from those of South America and Antarctica. They used to be called jackass penguins, because of the braying noise they make, but as the guide said, today it's politically incorrect to call even a penguin a jackass. (Actually, it's because a South American penguin brays like a donkey too.)
Other interesting fauna en route were baboons. I did not see any baboons, but I did see a baboon spotter, who is paid to sit by the side of the road in a hi-vis jacket with a paint gun. Left to their own devices, baboons will snatch handbags from tourists and run away to completely inaccessible places before discarding it on discovering it's got no food in it (and tough on you if your passport and wallet are inside). Paint guns dissuade them nicely: any baboon who gets covered in paint drops to the bottom of the social order, and alpha males are not prepared to risk it.
Also whilst on fauna, the Cape of Good Hope is one of the very few places where you can see ostriches by the seaside. Ostriches do not naturally come from anywhere by the ocean, but they have been introduced here and are flourishing.
The Cape of Good Hope supposedly divides the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Actually, this is oversimplistic; the oceans merge over the distance of a hundred miles or so. Nevertheless, it is true that on the west side of the peninsula the water is very cold, being brought by the Benguela current up from the southernmost waters of the Atlantic Ocean, whereas on the east side it's warmer, being brought from the east by the Agulhas current in the Indian Ocean. However, the fact the east side is also in the shallow False Bay may have something to do with it. (And if you're wondering, it's called False Bay because sailors sailing west would mistake it for Table Bay which they hadn't reached yet.)
The peninsula is double-pronged; the Cape is on the western prong and ever so slightly further south (but not actually the southernmost point in Africa, much the same way Gibraltar is not actually the southernmost point in Spain). The eastern prong is Cape Point, at the highest point on which is a lighthouse. Unfortunately, for *mumble*ty-*mumble* days each year, the lighthouse is enshrouded in cloud; tragically, it took a shipwreck in which people lost their lives before the government consented to build another lighthouse further down.
( View piccy )
Cape Point viewed from near the upper lighthouse
Picture taken from here
