Hiking around Fort Nottingham

Christie Exall submitted these pictures and this account of the regular walk hosted by Lion’s Bush Conservancy on the third Thursday of every month:

Roy Tabernor, owner of Els Amics Restaurant at Fort Nottingham, lead 5 hikers, on the 17th January, onto the lush and vast grasslands at the top of “his” mountain.

The view from the top always takes my breath away. We could see Kamberg, Mount Erskine and Mount Lebanon, in the Highmoor area, and even Cathedral Peak to the West. To the South the high points of Loskop and Spioenkop and to the East the ever present Nhlosane. We walked across the grasslands, up hills, down valleys, crossed a stream and eventually descended steeply through one of the many indigenous forests, onto steep grasslands which brought us back to the museum.

Horse flies worried us as we descended through the forest.  We hiked a distance of about 9.3 kilometers in glorious weather.

Wild flowers which we came across:

• Geranium drakensbergense
• Monopsis decipiens
• Watsonia confusa
• Eulophia clavicornis
• Utricularia livida
• Satyrium longicauda
• Streptocarpus gardenii
• Agapanthus campanulatus

Question: Which is the natural habitat of the Dais cotonifolia? (Sometimes mistaken for Calodendrum capense -Cape Chestnut)

To book a spot on the next Fort Nottingham walk, contact Roy on 082 487 0922. Donation to Lion’s Bush Conservancy.