Nature Trail - Jonkershoek Nature Reserve

I am fortunate to live in a very beautiful part of the world. I have been pondering a while around a subject or subjects, that I can start producing DTube videos and decided that one of the topics would be something with a treble benefit ....

Showing off the beautiful and often spectacular Western Cape, South Africa where I call home, me getting out into nature more frequently and of course the benefits of physical activity

Assegaaibos (loosely translated as Spear Bush

This blog is just a taster for my DTube debut with the actual hike itself .... so keep your eyes open

Stunning Watsonia

South Africa’s Western Cape is more botanically diverse than the richest tropical rainforest in South America, including the Amazon. Protecting this strikingly unique and beautiful plant kingdom is a WWF conservation priority.
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So my good lady and I embarked on the Jonkershoek Panoramic Circuit .... which I want to use for my first video. I am sharing mostly some of the beautiful flora found on the mountain.

The majestic King Protea

This was a daunting hike of over 17 kilometers with four and a half hours of climbing to start, and a very steep descent for three hours on loose rocks and narrow pathways with a long fall if you are careless.

Rock Kestrel .... many a time I wish I had wings to get me down

The weather was calm and hot with temperatures in the 30's Celcius ( around 90 -95 degrees Fahrenheit) and as the reserve only opens at 07h30, we got a late start of 08h05 which was unfortunate as it meant we would be high up on the mountain with no cover at mid-day.

The natural vegetation of the Jonkershoek Reserve is mainly mountain fynbos. More than 1100 plant species are known to occur. The heathers are present in huge numbers in fynbos, adapting to localised conditions to create hundreds of different species.

After four and a half hours of climbing we thought we had reached the top so we stopped for some sustenance

Trust me, I was shattered already at this stage... thankfully I did not know we still had at least 80m's in altitude to go

The black circle is where we started from and the black lines indicate the contour line we walked along, but do not show all the zig zags and dead ground to get there

In the pic below one can see the thin contour trail we had just come up on.

Well I confess to being exhausted just by recapping our journey.

The hike took us over seven hours, and I must admit I was quite shattered being not in the greatest shape, high temperatures, no shade and of course lots of exercise.

Thanks for stopping by and keep an eye out for my video

Namaste