Before reading this post, read Part 1 of the Blogitects’ Excellent (Mis)adventures.
Thorsten and I woke up early on Friday morning, eager to explore the Kosi Mouth beach and estuary. Amangwane Camp sits right beside the entrance to the nature reserve, run by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, and the beach is about ten minutes’ drive down a steep, sandy forest road.
I hadn’t planned to blog about the cosmos flowers in Delta Park this year. I’ve already done so multiple times: Once during my #Gauteng52 series and once (very memorably) right before South Africa’s covid-19 lockdown began two years ago. But I went to see the cosmos twice this week and they are so freaking spectacular this year…Or maybe they’re equally spectacular every year and I just forget. Either way, this annual autumn explosion is too good not to blog about again.
I visited Cape Town for the first time more than 11 years ago, with my mother. During that trip, Mom and I attempted to climb Table Mountain in a hilariously foolish way – I’ll let you read about it yourself in the blog post I wrote back then, called How Not to Climb Table Mountain. We ultimately turned back and took the cable car to the top instead.
Last Sunday Thorsten and I went hiking in the Kloofendal Nature Reserve, which is in Roodepoort on Johannesburg’s West Rand. I last hiked in Kloofendal nearly 11 years ago; I know I enjoyed it because I wrote a blog post back then, too. But Kloofendal is even more delightful than I remembered. I also realized this time that Kloofendal has the most spectacular collection of proteas I’ve seen in Joburg.
To finish off my Western Cape road trip (read about the earlier parts of the trip here, here, and here), Thorsten and I spent two days at the De Hoop Collection in a remote part of South Africa’s Overberg region. The De Hoop Collection is a privately owned lodge inside the De Hoop Nature Reserve, which is run by the provincial government entity CapeNature.