Cape Town - When I go for a walk, I often reflect on how much we miss, how many wonders of nature we simply drive past, walk past or fail to notice for one reason or another.
Take for instance a pleasant hike undertaken this past weekend. It was a relatively easy walk up the northern side of the Silvermine reserve and returning to the car via the Silvermine Valley.
At any given point the trail isn’t more than a few hundred metres from a busy road although thankfully for much of the way the highway isn’t obviously visible.
I must have driven up and down that road hundreds of times and actually visited the hiking trail once, years back, on a mountain bike, but on foot it was remarkable how much there was to see.
To be honest I am not overly keen on walking jeep tracks, preferring single paths far from the madding crowd but then it is early in the season, I am not fully fit and a simple stroll on a nice summer’s day seemed like a good idea.
The route had the advantage of being circular, I far prefer not to have to retrace my steps when at all possible.
Parking the car at the Noordhoek end of Ou Kaapseweg, I headed up the jeep track and although the path itself was rather boring in appearance, the vegetation around it was quite spectacular. It was a veritable sea of colour with thousands of yellow pincushion proteas in bloom and sunbirds twittering in delight at spring’s bounty.
Closer to the ground, hundreds of fygies littered the edges of the path, also predominantly yellow. It does seem that the seasons tend towards one favoured colour at a time.
The variety and numbers of flowers was really quite spectacular. As I walked I came across, watsonias, lobelias, pelargoniums, gazanias and a most beautiful satyr orchid (rooikappie).
At such times I can’t ever stop wondering how is it that plants can create such vibrant colour and complex architecture out of little more than poor quality sandy soil and a drop or two of water.
I suppose it helps that we live in the middle of the most diverse plant kingdom on the planet but even then you have to get out there and open your eyes.
What interests me is the diversity, the splendour of the colours and the natural engineering of all this vegetation.
Take for instance the plantain weeds growing along the side of the path. Boring stringy-looking things from a distance, I recall that we would shoot the flowering heads at one another when we were children.
But up close this apparently dull herbage has the most complex symmetrical flowering heads, reminiscent of perhaps a space craft or a satellite and I couldn’t help but take some photos.
Perhaps you need to be a little strange to spend a Sunday morning photographing weeds – but they are only weeds to us. In the natural scheme of things they have a place just like everything else.
In fact after a bit of research it turns out that the narrowleaf plantain has actually been highly regarded by many cultures for its medicinal properties and at least one form of the plant was used to treat snake bites and even bites from rabid dogs.
Who would have guessed?
Anyway I continued my walk, crossing the road at the juncture of the two sections of the reserve and heading down the valley, pausing briefly to photograph a dead tree that looked for all the world like a fish eagle sculpture.
I passed over the top of the Silvermine waterfall, itself worth a short stroll at this time of the year when the waters are still flowing off the mountain in good volume.
From here on the trail is more of a simple footpath, more to my liking in many ways, and follows a serpentine meander down to the base of the valley and a quietly bubbling stream. A few stands of trees by the water’s edge made for a superb picnic spot to rest in the shade and enjoy a sandwich.
I paused to watch a camera-shy double collared sunbird flit in and out of the bush. He wasn’t too keen on a cover photo and remained partly obscured from view in among the branches.
Then a grass bird arrived, looking a little damp and dishevelled and I suspect he had just taken a bath in one of the pools along the river. It was a good plan actually because by now it had grown remarkably hot and I should have perhaps considered having a quick dip myself.
This trail offers a very manageable hike without the necessity of a long drive or great fitness and, should you choose, you can take two vehicles and do half of it. It does not matter too much where you walk – more important is opening your eyes and enjoying the wonders our reserves have to offer. - Sunday Argus