Sarth Efrika

Libby and I have spent the last 10 days in South Africa, based in the Western Cape. What a country! South Africa has everything: mountains, coast, semi-desert, forest, great food and wine and fantastic weather. We spent 4 days in Cape Town, touring the Cape of Good Hope, visiting Table Mountain, the splendid backdrop to the capital of the Western Cape, losing ourselves in the world-renowned Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, and taking a tour with an inhabitant of Langa, one of the local Townships (a real eye-opener revealing how most of the population of Cape Town lives). Then we visited Fransschoek, a beautiful small town in the wine region dominated by vineyards and dotted with world-class restaurants, before continuing east along the Garden Route and spending a single night near Oudtshoorn to see Meerkats and, finally, three nights at the Hog Hollow Lodge, set in the heart of the Tsitsikamma Forest. With great views of sunbirds and white-eyes feeding on our balcony, this was a mesmerising place to end our stay.

Despite the trip not being dedicated to birds (Libby is not a birder so my birding was done en route), we managed to see a good number of species (122) including many of the Cape's endemics such as Cape Cormorant, Orange-breasted Sunbird, Cape White-eye, Black Oystercatcher, Black (Verreaux's) Eagle, Knysna Turaco, Cape Sugarbird, African Emerald Cuckoo, Pale Chanting Goshawk and many more. Mammals included Bottle-nosed Dolphins, Baboons, Meerkats, Vervet Monkeys, Bushbuck, Rock Dassies, Bontebok and Eland.

We only scratched the surface of this rich and diverse country - in fact we only scratched the surface of the Western Cape - and I very much hope to make it back there very soon. In summer (the southern winter), the bays are inhabited by Southern Right Whales and albatrosses from the Southern Oceans, a great reason to return!

Some photos below.

Photos below: Cape of Good Hope; Karoo Prinia; Blacksmith Plover; Cape Batis; African Penguin; Meerkats; and Greater Double-collared Sunbird