Just the other day I had the good fortune to spend the day with two “great whites” – fellow adventurer Patrick Verbraecken and fellow “great guide” Chris Fallows.

Chris, Steve & Patrick

Chris was guiding us off Gansbaai taking us to see some other “Great Whites”.

Great White Shark

Great White Sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) are wonderful animals. They are one of the apex predators of the oceans reaching upwards of 6 metres in length and 2,268 kilograms – all accompanied by a mouthful of impressive, replaceable serrated teeth.

These sharks have a remarkable arrangement that allows them to heat their stomachs up to 14 deg C warmer than the surrounding sea water while most of the rest of their body remains at sea temperature. This makes it possible for them to digest food even under the coldest conditions.

Historically Great White Sharks have been considered to be coastal species, but researchers have found Great Whites diving to a depth of more that 1.2 kilometres and one shark was tracked and found to migrate from South Africa to Australia’s northwest coast and back in less than 9 months. This is a distance of 20,000 kilometres!

Off the coast of Cape Town, when these sharks hunt seals they sometimes reach such a great velocity in their attacks on seals, that they leap up to 3 metres clear of the water  at speeds of 40 km/hr. Chris was the first person to photograph this behaviour. He remains one of the most knowledgeable and passionate marine guides off the Cape Coast.

Yes, I know that they are now officially known as Verreaux’s Eagles but I never liked words with too many vowels and anyway I’ve always known them as Black Eagles. Be that as it may, we were walking along enjoying the beauty of the mountains and I had just commented on how it was ages since I last saw a Black Eagle in the area – when they appeared above us.

These magnificent Eagles with their wingspan reaching up to 2.2metres have always been one of my favourites. They occur in hilly and mountainous areas and their favoured prey is the hyrax.

They are magnificent flyers and seem to simply float on the air. They are almost always seen in pairs and it has been a commonly held belief that they pair for life, however Megan Murgatroyd, who has being studying these eagles recently discredited that belief. Have a look at her wonderful blog at: http://www.blackeagleproject.blogspot.com/

About two weeks ago in the Cederberg, I saw a very recently fledged youngster being encouraged by its parents to fly but this pair seemed to be just getting around to building or renovating a nest:

What a day!!!!

What a place!!!!!

Perfect weather, perfect place, perfect walk.

And then . . . we had a heavenly lunch in heaven – more than half a kilometer above the sea.

First I burnt my hand pretty badly, then Kili became very ill and finally I lost someone very very dear to me. Things didn’t feel great, but as you can see both Kili & I are back on top (of Table Mountain) – and so is Meru!

We had a wonderful day ascending through the mist and descending back below the cloud. We saw three iconic plants – The South African National Flower (Protea cynaroides), the Western Cape Provincial Flower (Disa uniflora) as well as the SA National Tree (Podocarpus latifolius).

The mountain is festooned with flowering King Proteas at the moment. Here Ed & Liz familiarise themselves with the National Flower.

And here is a close up of South Africa’s magnificent national flower.

We were very fortunate to see this Red Disa, which appeared to be the last one of the season.

However, for me the botanical highlight of the day was seeing the Guernsey Lilies (Nerine sarniensis). Although these flowers have been cultivated in Guernsey for more than 300 years, they are in fact originally from the Western Cape.

You will notice that all of these flowers are red. In fact so is the red crassula (Crassula coccinea) and the Cluster Disa (Disa ferruginea) that we also saw today and which is pictured below.

The reason for this is that this is the time of year for the Pride of Table Mountain butterfly (Aeropetes tulbaghia) is doing the rounds . . . and in this area this butterfly is obsessed with the colour RED. So it is a good strategy for plants that flower on Table Mountain at this time of year and want to be pollinated to have RED flowers.

Today we enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the beautiful Noordhoek beach. The cool weather was a welcome change from yesterday’s heat, and the lack of gradient was equally welcomed.

While Pirjo demonstrated “strong women in Finland”, Risto watched and encouraged her. Meru was totally unaware of all the effort being exerted in order to elevate him!

Just before we ended the hike for the day, we came across this beautiful Haemanthus sanguineus (Blood lily) from the Amaryllis family. The deep red colours of this plant certainly attracted the attention of the taxonomists. The genus name “haemanthus” is derived from the Greek words meaning “blood flower” and the species name “sanguineus” is derived from the latin and means “blood”. I certainly don’t think of blood when I see these flowers! They simply make me happy.

The Cape Town weather is famously unpredictable & variable. Yesterday was wet & cool and today was HOT HOT HOT but beautiful. There was barely a breath of wind and not a cloud in the sky and the air was clean.

We had exquisite views of Hout Bay

The walk took us along cliffs and ledges

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