20 September 2011

Kirstenbosch: Pretty Vygies

Date: 5 September 2011

Location: Kirstenbosch

Walker: Helen, Mum and Dad

The Kirstenbosch archive is here.

When my mom and dad visit Cape Town we always squeeze in a visit to Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. We were lucky to have a perfect day with a real sense of Spring in the air.



Some of the trees were covered in fresh green leaves.



And the vygies (aka mesembryanthemums) were open. I loved their bright little faces, soaking up the sunshine.





The orange ones were particularly intense, almost fluorescent.




We went up the upper garden to see the fynbos displays. As it was a Monday there weren't very many other people around. So tranquil.




The pincushion proteas were spectacular.



We saw many sunbirds and sugarbirds sipping nectar.



And the owl was in residence too!



The Clivias and Veldheimia were flowering...



... and some of the aloes too.



We meandered around until the sun disappeared behind the hill, and suddenly the temperature dropped. Brr, time to go home for tea.


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2 comments:

Marie said...

Hill?? :-)

Lovely, Helen, and there was an owl! We looked for them in February, but no luck.

I will need walking partners in December/January...maybe I may tag along?

Firefly the Travel Guy said...

Beautiful. The fygies are awesome and so are the aloe. Our fygies are mostly purple / pink and also in full bloom. Spotting the owl was a bonus.