Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden & Table Mountain

Sunday, July 3, 2011
Tried to do laundry today, but got all the way down the hill just to find out the laundry place is closed on Sundays, so we had to hike back up the hill with our dirty clothes. The rest of the day was relaxing, just read my book and worked on a paper.

Monday, July 4, 2011
Happy 4th! We had a field trip to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens today with our guide Laurence Kruger. Kirstenbosch has thousands of endemic species of South African plants, many of which are found only in the Cape peninsula! We saw some sunbirds, which were very brightly colored (beautiful) and a sugarbird, which is a small nectar-bird with a tail longer than its body! In the evening, we headed to the pub down the street from our dorm and had a beer in honor of the 4th! Happy birthday, America!

 Guinea fowl, they are everywhere! Notice how much they resemble dinosaurs!

 Cool aloe plant.

 Awesome old tree in Kirstenbosch. If I remember correctly, this was here before the gardens were built.

 Cool protea!

 Another cool protea, the King protea!

 Pretty flower!

 Laurence, our guide, teaching us about the animal that does the most damage... Not a large herbivore, but mice!

 The Orange-Breasted sunbird, so pretty!

 Adam and I in a Rondavel.

The clouds were engulfing Table Mountain, so cool! There is often a large cloud blanket over Table Mountain and not a cloud in the rest of the sky.

 The sunbird, check out that tail!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Since yesterday was an all day field trip to Kirstenbosch, we only had the chance to head to the pub for 4th of July, but today was a free day, so we did laundry, read some of our novels for class and had a BBQ! It was a lot of fun! The boys immediately flocked toward the burning coals to man the grill and the girls happily waited for the boys to cook up the feast! After the BBQ we watched a movie called Mapantsula, which is about Apartheid, so sad! Learning about the history in a book is one thing, but our field trips and the movies we have been watching have made it that much more vivid for us and have definitely had an impact!

Loverswalk Rd ♥

 Being studious in the warm winter sun!

 America.

Adam and Nick, the grill masters!

Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Today's field trip was to the top of Table Mountain! We took a gondola-type thing to the top, which was 1,085 meters up. Laurence came with us again, which made it that much more rewarding! If I could take a field biology class with him, I absolutely would, his knowledge and enthusiasm of nature is infectious! Table Mountain is cool because it is like a table, flat on top, and you can therefore see Cape Town from every direction. We hiked around the top, from one side to the other. It was beautiful up there! We also saw LOTS of Hyraxes (aka Dassies), which are the closest living relative to the elephant, but they are the size of a large rabbit! It was a gorgeous day and we stayed up until the sun set.

 Gondola to the top!

 The landscape of Table Mountain and surrounding mountains.

 View from the top! So beautiful up there!

 Adam at the top!

 Lion hill, the peak in the front is Lion's Head and the smaller hill in the back is called Signal Hill (but also sometimes Lion's Rump). Robben Island lies in the background, where Nelson Mandela spent 27 years of his life.

 Me and Adam overlooking Cape Town (notice the World Cup stadium in the background - I love soccer, but this stadium is ugly and takes away from the landscape).

 A Hyrax (or Rock Dassie)! Remember, this is the elephant's closes living relative!

 More Dassies!

 Laurence and I. :)

 View from our hike - False Bay.

 Landscape on the top, very flat!

 Made it to the far side of the mountain!

 Lion hill again from the other side, on our hike back.

 Cape Town.

 Crazy jagged cliff.

 Sunset!

Adam at sunset.

Cape Point, South Africa

Saturday, July 2, 2011
We spent the day at Cape Point and Boulder Beach (where the penguins are)! Our guide was awesome! He is a botanist from South Africa and is very knowledgeable about the Fynbos (similar to chaparral in Southern Cali) and made learning about plants fun! We saw wild ostriches, and a few ungulates as well as penguins!!! We first went to Cape Point where we learned about the importance of natural fires in the Fynbos in the Cape Peninsula and the plains of South Africa. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse hill and could see the southern tip of the continent! It was very cool and beautiful up there!
We then moved on to Boulder Beach, where a colony of African (Jackass) Penguins have made their home. They are SO cute, I think I took over 200 pictures! It's the breeding season, so there are males fetching sticks and presenting them to the females and nest building. Additionally, this species of penguin breed for life, so each pair is like a Penguin-couple! And they are very loving towards each other! We ended the day having dinner in Camps Bay at a local restaurant. I wasn't feeling so well by then, so didn't enjoy the meal as much as everyone else, but it was still fun to have a group dinner with the whole group. I will only post a few penguin pics, but just in case you can't tell, they are just awesome!

 A Bontebok, a medium sized ungulate at the Cape of Good Hope!

 Wild ostriches! Two males (dark ones on the outsides) and two females!

 If Rio de Janeiro is where the sign is pointing, then America has to be where I am pointing... I think.

 Pretty landscape at Cape Point (western shore)!

 Cape Point, so cool!

 Adam and I on our way up the hill to the Cape of Good Hope!

 Our sweet bus... the speedometer doesn't work and there is no defrost. It's Africa.

 This Rock Kestrel was just sitting by the bus looking at us, it was beautiful!

 Love.

 The tip of Africa!

 Love.

This is a bar that sits on the water and as the tide comes in the waves get bigger and splash on the windows, very cool!

 Penguins at Boulder Beach!

 Breeding pairs and juveniles (the gray, fuzzy ones) at the beach.

 Cute!

 Fetching a stick for his mate to build her a nice nest for baby making!

 Not sure if this was a mama and baby or a breeding pair, but cute nonetheless!

 Shaking the water from his wings.

 Boulder Beach, so pretty!

Boulder Beach again.

 So excited for the penguins!

 They're the cutest! Can you tell I was excited/happy to be there?!

 I got to be so close to this one I could have touched it! Didn't, though, because I respect nature.

 Young love. ♥

 This one obviously has a high maintenance chick for a mate. He was trying to lift this huge piece of drift wood!

 Lone penguin.

 Me at the colony!

 Adam excited about the penguins!

 Me at Boulder Beach, too pretty to not get a pic!

 So pretty!

 Boulder Beach again, I couldn't get over how clear the water was.

 Cutie!

Oh, hello!