by Dominic Chadbon | Feb 11, 2022 | Fynbos |
Typical. You come all the way to Cape Town for a summer holiday and what happens? The wind blows so hard you lose your favourite hat. Oh, it’s bright and sunny alright, but the beaches are filled with flying sand and the ocean has been whipped up into a frothing...
by Dominic Chadbon | Oct 13, 2021 | Fynbos |
What does it take to get a bit of mountain named after you? I mean, I’ve been tramping up and down these Cape Mountains for a quarter of a century and all I’ve got are dodgy knees and a stress fracture. The thought occurred to me as I was hiking Elsie’s Peak, a modest...
by Dominic Chadbon | Sep 16, 2021 | Fynbos |
I know you love nature but I wonder what kind of nature-lover you are. The biologist E O Wilson identified two types. I fall into the first: the ‘big organism’ tribe. We are always on the lookout for large exciting things – mammals, birds, butterflies, flowers –...
by Dominic Chadbon | Aug 19, 2021 | Fynbos |
Mention the coastal town of Blouberg to Cape Town’s metropolitan elite and you’ll be met with a chorus of disapproval. “Too windy” one will sniff; “and so sandy!” another will chime. True enough about the wind I suppose, though the kite surfers don’t seem to mind. And...
by Dominic Chadbon | Mar 12, 2021 | Fynbos |
Like a big hot engine that’s just been switched off, Cape Town’s dry summer begins to cool down in March. It’s still warm at times – often extremely – but clouds are hovering on the horizon and subtle movements are afoot in the fynbos. Plants have withstood the...
by Dominic Chadbon | Feb 23, 2021 | Fynbos |
Let’s first get the bad news out of the way: identification of fynbos plants is not easy. There are, as you know, thousands of plant species in the mountains of the Western Cape and they come from many different families – some of which you know (like the Iris, Daisy...
