Hiking in the Karkloof Mountains

On Father's day weekend, Allen and I decided to go for a hike in the Karkloof mountains!  We had a great day in the beautiful indigenous forest.

 Into the forest! This is a strangler fig.  It name sounds a little bit scary, but no worries if you aren't a tree! It gets a very small fig on it when it fruits.  The first thing we came across was actually a barn owl!! I wasn't able to get any pictures of it since I didn't see it until it was flying right in front of us! It was amazing to see it fly.

 The tree plantation keeps going further and further into the indigenous forest.  This was taken from the lower part of the mountain. (this should actually be the first picture)

 This is a pretty good representation of what the trails looked like.  In some places it was pretty steep, but overall it was a nice gradual climb.  

 The stream!  The stream was absolutely beautiful.  The water is actually clean enough to drink!  We got to do some rock hopping =)

This is around about where the alternate path for the stream is during the summer, since there is a lot of rain during the summer and very little during the winter.

 Here is a small waterfall.  I didn't go into the water since it was pretty stinking cold and we had a few more hours of hiking ahead of us!

 If i'm not mistaken this would be a lemon wood tree.  They are hollow and this one actually has another lemon wood tree growing inside of it!

 Getting close to the big waterfall.

 Here is the big waterfall!! It's a small stream in the winter, so there isn't a lot of water falling down it, but it a beautiful sight.

 After going to the bottom of the waterfall we made our way to the top!! This is about as high as we got.  In the summertime the grass is a bright green and filled with flowers.

 This is looking the other way. We could see for many miles.  It wasn't clear enough to see the ocean, but it was quite a site.  To the left you can sort of see the cliff face of the waterfall. 

 Looking forward and a bit up, is the highest peak between the Drakensburg mountains and the sea.  You can't really see them in the picture, but there are bunches of antennas on top of it.

Standing at the top of the waterfall looking out! 

 A little to the left

Sitting at the top.

A nice warm fire in the fireplace when we got home =D 

The moon a few nights ago.  

St. Lucia Day 2 & 3

Our second day in St. Lucia we got up earlyyy to go to hluhluwe game reserve! We had to be out of the house at 5!!  So when we got there, the sun was just coming up! 

 The first bit of game that we saw was a bird!! This is an Africa Hoopoe. 

 

Then (after some rhino and zebra) we saw a pride of lions!! They were super super far away so it actually took us several minutes to see them (cars were stopped and we were trying to see why).  They were lying in a river bed.

 So this... is the biggest.. Rhino ever... I wasn't able to get a good picture of him, but he was sooo big!!  Definitely one of my highlights of the game drive.

 Pumbaa! This was a huge warthog that we saw right after the giant rhino.  In this picture you can see him down on his knees eating. 

We saw a herd impala and a wildebeest.  Throughout the game drive we saw hundreds of impala.

A nice looking white rhino.

I was able to get a nice picture of some oxpeckers on a rhino! 

Lilac-breasted Roller perched on a dead tree.

Lions round 2!!  This is a picture of the 2nd pride of lions that we saw.  Both prides were far away, but we still saw 2 prides in 1 day!!

Elephants fighting each other! After driving for over 6 hours we finally saw elephants and they were fighting!! What an amazing sight.

Black bellied bustard.

Water buffalo

Garret sure did enjoy the game drive.  Soaking it alll in!! ?

Angry young elephant

Family of elephants

Face off!  They didn't fight, but they posed nicely =)

Warm fuzzy feeling inside?

A herd of kudu.  This is now at Simangaliso wetland park.

Baby white rhino!  These are the last couple of rhino that we saw.  We were hoping to see some black rhino, but we were only able to see white rhino the whole weekend.

Crested eagle holding dinner.

We saw some more kudu as the sun started to set.  Same bunch as earlier.  Hluhluwe is a much bigger game park, we saw a lot of animals multiple times at Simangaliso.

Sunset to end the day at Simangaliso.  This was the last time we saw the sunset in St. Lucia.  We drove home the next morning.  St. Lucia is one of the most beautiful places I have visited.

St. Lucia Day 1

Last weekend (13th) we went on our end of the year retreat to St. Lucia!!  We had a great time and we were able to reflect and talk about important things that we have experienced and learned throughout the year.  I'm going to break this trip up into multiple posts, we did and saw so many things!  If you were wondering what the name of all of the birds are that I posted pictures of on Facebook, you will be able to find them here!

The first day we went on the estuary on a boat like this one!  So this particular estuary is the biggest in SA.

The first thing we saw were some crocodiles!

The estuary used to be dredged to keep it cleared, but thankfully they no longer do that.   This is where they used to store the machines and take them in and out of the water.

So from the distance it looked like there were some odd rocks in the water..

But when we got close we could see that they were hippos!  During the day the hippos stay in the water to keep cool since they cannot sweat.  But at night they come out and graze.  When the sun started to set, we would have to be careful in town because the hippos would be out and about.  They are very dangerous animals since they have extreme tempers and are very territorial.   They actually kill more people than any other animals in SA.

Even though the estuary is connected to the ocean and is affected by the tide, it was still very low.  Our tour guide told us that the top of the bank used to be the water level.  No significant rainfall for 18 months =(

Juvenile Giant Kingfisher

Some water buffalo.  The estuary has game parks on both sides of it.

This is a Goliath heron!  We weren't able to see it for long because a Fish Eagle came about, so the heron took shelter in the trees.

The Goliath heron from a bit further away.

On our way back I was able to get a picture of the Fish Eagle that scared away the Goliath Heron earlier on the boat ride.

Woolly-Necked Storks.  This one is sunning itself to dry its wings!

Mangroves.  These trees are pretty amazing. They are normally on the water but the water level is low.  Anyhow, because the water has a lot of salt in it, these trees actually sacrifice a branch to store the salt in.  So all of them have 1 dead branch.

Great White Egret 

Some baby hippos sunning themselves.  The pink on the hippos is actually a secretion from their skin to protect them from the sun.  They have sun protection, but they can't cool themselves without going into the water.

You see the hippos in various levels of water, it just depends on how hot they are feeling.

White breasted Cormorant 

This Pied Kingfisher caught lunch!! We actually got to watched it catch the little fish =D

This is what the estuary looked like without all of the zoom.

The teeth of this crocodile look so scary!! I had to add the picture.

Looks like one hippo stepped on the toes of the other!! After the ride on the estuary we took a walk on the board walk and saw more hippos!
The next post will be the from the last 2 days of our retreat in St. Lucia.  So much wild life!