Pondoland C.R.E.W. Blog

The Iron Crown

The wind came up, gusty, at our meeting place, but it paused whilst we botanized on the Western Heights, and then came up again when we left, making it seem as if we had been lost in a protected capsule.

As we navigated our way in our vehicles towards the Iron Crown, the road was blocked – camouflaged by fallen Eucalyptus trunks, which lay like cattle grids across the road. Eager arms cut and dragged trees and branches out of road before finally, the old, rickety farm gate opened on utopia – the Umtamvuma reserve. Long grass waved in the wind and the vehicles kicked up clouds of dust from the bone-dry road. Where the earth ends in sheer drops, we stopped.

Our feet led us to a section of the reserve where there had been a controlled burn. Against the black charred canvas, brightly coloured Gerbera natalensis and Gazania krebsiana stood out. In sharp contrast, the Boophane disticha stood out like miniature ant mounds, black in the shiny armour that had survived the fire, all waiting to burst forth in a display of pink fireworks.

Gerbera natalensis

Gazania krebsiana

Boophone disticha

We cautiously meandered along the edge of the gorge, a 380m drop to the river below. We made our way, up and over, and around, the beautiful, huge weathered rocks. Among them were miniature gardens of perfectly bonsaied plants, growing in impossibly shallow patches of soil.

Helichrysum lepidissimum

With our gaze all the while fixed slightly ahead of our feet, our heads shot up at the sound of sudden excitement ahead. Anne and Tracy had come upon a Black Mamba sunning itself on a rock. Like two sentinel meerkats, they kept us back, while we peered at the crevice where the beautiful serpent had disappeared – before turning back momentarily to see who had dared to invade its territory. An Iguana lay nearby watching us, ignorant of the nearby danger.

Tracey

Dik-bek Rock near the Black Mamba Cave

All around, the Protea had dropped their russet seed, and amid the Gerbera natalensis, their woolly stalks protecting them from the elements, Othonna natalensis were beginning to bud and bloom.

Othonna natalensis -Natal Geelbossie

Gerbera natalensis

Protea caffra

Seeds from the Protea caffra

Once again I looked up when our sentinel gave a warning cry. A swarm of bees rose like a black cloud and made a bee-line for us. Debbie, who is allergic to them, disappeared into the edges of the gorge, while Mark, Alf and Anne rolled up like pangolins and didn’t move until the swarm had passed.

Mark

A swarm of bees.

Crouching down as a swarm of bees fly over Mark, Alf and Anne.

At the edge of a cliff where we could walk no further, we sat – like Pooh with a jar of honey – to have our lunch. The peace and the beauty was indescribable. Slowly, an eagle rose up on the thermals from the river bed, spiral after spiral after spiral, until it finally took flight like a kite into the sky.

"Pooh sat down on the stone in the middle of the stream and sang his song. The sun was delightfully warm, and the stone was so warm too, that Pooh decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the steam for the rest of the morning." A.A. Milne