Flights of fancy

On our hikes we see many fantastically shaped rocks, weathered from both sides by the northwesterlies of the Cape's winter storms and the summer's sometimes gale force southeasters. Your imagination can run riot as you find names for these sandstone artworks, often covered in lichens and fuzzy growth, in a range of colours from deep orange to palest grey.
Growing up on the slopes of Trappies Kop, we spent hours as children playing among the rocks, some of them ships, or houses, or just My Rock. Many a time we came across snakes lying on ledges or in the gaps between split boulders and we would run as fast as we could back down the mountain, through the garden (no fence) and into the house shouting,
"Mom, Mom! We saw a puffadder!", then rush back up the mountain to finish our game.
A resident cobra (still there, although probably many generations later) has lived under a sun-warmed stretch of concrete at the edge of our garden since I was a child, visiting the fish pond outside the back door to snatch a frog, or sometimes nestlings in a nearby tree, and he is spotted at least once a year on his jaunts in the garden. The greatest concern is that they also move around at night.
I look at the ledges as we walk by them and wonder if we have passed a puffadder, and definitely don't put my hand into any places where one could be lying. A lifetime of living in proximity to snakes has made me very aware of where they like to lie, and I would hate to disturb one and possibly expose it to the danger of being harmed. I also hesitate to take my dogs on walks in case they come across a snake, which might have an unhappy ending for one or the other. There's no knowing what reactions will be forthcoming and our time in nature is for pleasure, not drama.
Here are some photos of what we have seen, including our closest encounter with a puffadder - a very recently shed skin!