Driving over Ou Kaapse Weg this morning was a real treat. Due to the fact that a front end loader was inching its way over the pass behind a bread truck and closely followed by a double flatbed horse and trailer, interspersed with 100 or so cars, I was able to glance idly from side to side for the entire 10km route. This revealed the current revegetation occurring on the mountains after the devastating fire last February. Although we may be complaining about the dry winter we have had, it turns out that nature arranged everything perfectly as usual. Occasional soft rain has allowed uniform growth over the entire expanse of the area, with no flooding or washaways that have caused havoc over the last few winters with road closures and major traffic disruption.
Dark pink watsonias cover great swathes of veld, with the white, light pink and salmon coloured varieties also putting on a good show. The pincushions that survived the fire are a mass of orange and yellow flowers, and even those that were thought to have been burned have shot out new leaves along their branches. The splendid Orange Nodding Head (now regrettably called a less aptly descriptive mountain dahlia) can be seen on the rocky slopes and the bracken has fully recovered around the streams and waterfalls, which surprisingly are still in spate.
Bright yellow flowers on long stems wave in the fresh northwester and the upper reaches of the pass are covered in masses of salmon coloured multifloral plants (I was told what they are, but the name escapes me).
Names of course are unimportant if you are simply wanting to admire and take in all the beauty that this drive affords us every, free of charge. All it takes is a good traffic snarl-up and you can do it!
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