The Cactus Trip Diaries

We had enjoyed good internet facilities in Worcester. It was good to catch up with emails and to have a few chats with my girlfriend Angie back home. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so we must me very fond of each other !!!

We had also taken the opportunity to re-establish contact with Gerhard Marx for a visit to his nursery once we’d reach Oudtshoorn. He was kind enough to send us some tips for things to see in days to come, which was very useful as David had not yet travelled in this area on previous trips and our info for things to see was thin.

The internet can be a great source of information, if you know and trust the originator. At other times it can be the reason for going on a wild goose chase, such as our first stop today for a choice Aloe. Eunice and David might remind me which one – we did not see it, so I have no name for it. The information was very accurate, a photo possibly taken with a camera with geo-tagging capability. When we got near the spot we found ourselves in the middle of a privately owned vineyard! Tracks that lead higher up the hill to where the plants were supposed to grow, close to the low cloud base, were not suitable for our Nissan XTrail and even with a 4×4 would have taken farther on private property. There was a mountain bike trail nearby and we suspect that the photographer of the image on the internet might have been a mountain biker, so S2742 was a ‘no plants’ stop, with just some scenic shots of the vineyard.

For S2743 we followed a track sign posted to Pienaarskloof. My images tell me that it was a nice sunny day with nice white fluffy clouds in the sky for photographic backdrops. Shame that we did not find a mass of interesting succulent plants. The best we could do (David’s find) was the red flower of a parasitic plant, the genus Hyobanche seems to provide a match.

S2743 – Hyobanche sp (parasite)

At S2744 we were greeted by a sign that told us that ‘These premises are protected by CCTV camera’. Good to know that we would be safe, but our conscience was clear as we had no criminal intend for being here. So what plants enjoyed this kind of protection? Well, here is the plant list: Adromischus sp. in flower, Aloe microstigma., Asclepiad sp., Cotyledon sp in full flower, Crassula sp -‘bald’ C. barbata, Euphorbia sp., Mesemb sp. small shrub, Tylecodon paniculatus, T. wallichii, Unidentified genus species huge bulb, gone over and Unidentified genus species bulb, white flowers – in other words, nothing special. Nice Cotyledon, though.

S2744 – Cotyledon sp

It was around 17:30 and the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows and a red cast on things to photograph. S2745 was therefore more to see where we were and how to get back to the hotel, when Eunice took a look out of the car and saw a plant that a few days ago we spent hours looking for: Euphorbia multiceps! Despite the poor conditions, I still took 18 images of which this one at least shows the plant. We promised Eunice to come back here again.

S2745 – Euphorbia multiceps