A walk along the Clearwater cliffs

While Anne, Kate and Graham were undertaking an initial assessment of grasslands in Pondoland (more details to follow in a separate post), Dorothy, Uschi and Maggie were joined by Lindo Tshapa on their walk in the grasslands along the cliff edges near Clearwater in the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve.

Lindo, whom we all met when he was an intern working for KZN Wildlife at Beacon Hill some years ago, has recently completed his Honours degree in Nature Conservation and we are currently employing him to (hopefully) complete our data capture in the HNTA Herbarium. We love having him on our walks, just as much as he enjoys the learning experience - he is an avid note-taker!

The clifftop area adjacent to Clearwater is where the third Tony Abbott memorial walk was due to take place in October.  As the grassland was burned too close to the event and there were few flowers to be seen on the day, most of the walkers elected to visit the good flowers at Beacon Hill instead. However, on this occasion there had been enough time and rain for the flowers to appear and there was lots to see - even some late Eriosema umtamvunense.

View across the grasslands at Clearwater

View up the Umtamvuna River Gorge with waterfall on left

Umtamvuna Gorge

Eriosema umtamvunense (Photo Graham G)

Along the cliffs they saw Garcinia gerrardii fruits and near the stream was a bright Genlisea hispidula.

Garcinia gerrardii

Genlisea hispidula

Lunch spot at the waterfall

Photos (unless indicated otherwise) by Maggie A and Dorothy M.

Participants: Dorothy M, Lindo T, Maggie A, Uschi T.