We heard about the Cape Floral Kingdom of South Africa from David Attenborough. Not from him personally, but from one of the Planet Earth shows. There are 6 Floral Kingdoms in the world. They are grouped by the types of plants found in each area. The smallest of these is the Cape Floral Region and it is the only region to be found within the borders of a single country. This region is 35,000 square miles and it contains 9000 species of flowering Fynbos of which 70% are only found in this region. It is a World Heritage Site and it has the third highest level of biodiversity in the world. So, of course, we took a Floral Safari with our mate, Andrew, from the Addo Park Safari. It was a foggy start as we drove out of Port Elizabeth and headed west. Andrew gave us a running commentary of the towns, surf locations, horse ranches and all the bays along the way. We saw some cool birds along the way as we drank our tea and woke up a bit. We got to a floral reserve and explored the flowers and the birds that rely on them for food. For the botanists in the audience, this region contains the Fynbos group of plants. Within the Fynbos are the Proteas which are flowers (the king Protea is pictured above) the Ericas which are like heaths and the Restios which are grass like. Among the flowers that have gained world wide acceptance are gladiolas, geraniums, nerines and ixias. We drove along the coast up to Jefferies Bay where there is surfing, both in the ocean and on the sand dunes. We passed a small lake and saw seven or eight different types of birds. Egyptian geese, domestic geese, bank cormorants, grey headed heron, red knobbed grebe, and a pair of rufus necked little grebes. That little pond really attracted the birds. We continued on to a flower sanctuary where they had a display center. We were early so they only had yesterday's blooms on display. A quick stop at the WC and we were off into the fields of flowers. Not only were the flowers magnificent, the sunbirds that were flitting from flower to flower were also spectacular. The sunbirds are the South African equivalent of our humming birds. The biggest one is still pretty small and the small ones were tiny. Sugarbirds are also found in this area, with many of them endemic and found only here. The Cape Sugarbird had a very long tail and even though I saw two different ones, I could never get a good picture
The fog was hanging close to the shore
It made for a fun ride as little towns would poke their heads out of the fog
This is a cannon that was salvaged from the wreck of the Sacramento. It wrecked in 1647 and the 72 survivors had to walk to Mozambique. It took them six months to walk the 800 miles and only nine survived
Calamari boats are tied up in protected waters
The crew is sleeping during the day since the fishing is done with hand lines at night
This stretch of dunes is Jefferies Bay. Redbull has had airplane races here and it is a huge surf location
There was a flash of red in the wings and we stopped the car to see this Knysna Turaco bird, what a beautiful creature
These birds zipped across the pond in a flash
Grey Heded Heron
The cormorant
Red Knobbed Grebe
The little grebe is to the right and the one to the left is an exotic, for these parts, and may be a green winged teal possibly from North America!
Here is an even longer wake! Go little grebe, go!
Yesterday's King Protea is closed up and sleeping
We were the first folks to arrive at the flower sanctuary and they were still setting up the sample blooms for the day
Another Protea on display
The fog had lifted up into the tops of the mountains
Wild cannabis
Pincushion flowers
Such bright colors
An old meeting place a bit worse for wear
Huge bunches of blooms
Details of the preceding group
Large blooms still developing
The landscape was impressive
Pink and beautiful
Sinuous branches
At the edge of the reserve was a deep deep gorge
There were many impressive bridges over very deep gorges
Hey Andrew, it's your birthday, its your birthday
A gem of a flower
A red winged starling
a shelf mushroom
An idyllic setting
Very far down it goes
The red face Spurfowl
Some of the flowers were small
But even the small ones were bright and beautiful
Delicate bloom
The dirt track that we drove along
A Malachite Sunbird
Details of the Malachite with a long tail and green plumage
Amethyst Sunbird
A Cape White Eye in a Coral Tree, top left. This tree was a hive of activity with 20 or so birds in it at all times
The Cape White Eye
Any bird wanting this nectar will need a curved bill
Gladiolas
The fog is coming back
Familiar to anyone from Florida, they are at home here
One open Protea and one closed
Lots of different colors
Looking back up to the bridge from the bottom of the gorge
Driving away we see lots of dairy cows
