While Jonah traveled Europe with two of his grad students, I decided to get some homeland travel under my belt. In October and November, I had the good fortune to travel to the Drakensberg (Dragon Mountains) to establish my next long-term research program.
In October, my friend, Else, and I went down to do a "reccie" of the area and for her to introduce me to the farmers/owners of the properties I'd be working on. It's about a 9hr drive down to the Southern Berg, so our advisor, Glynis, offered for us to stay at her stunning home in the Northern Berg near Cathkin Peak. This is the view from the back patio. I can't really think of a better way to start the day.
Else and I had grand plans of going up Sani Pass to look for Rhodohypoxis flowers (more on that below), but a little thing called snow ruined the best laid plans. While driving south from Cathkin, we tuned into the radio and heard that people were making snow angels at Sani Top (above).
This is the view of the Drakensberg from the farm I'll be working at in the upcoming years. Sunset Farm is owned by a wonderful lady, Anne. I had the great pleasure to meet her and her daughter in October. The farmhouse is old and beautiful, complete with a giant ship in the library. Anne is a fantastic botanist and ID'ed over 2,000 species of plants on Mt. Mahaqwa. Yep, farm = mountain.
In November, I took Jonah's grad student, Kathleen, and Tash, an archeology student (who also happens to date Blair) down to Sunset to do some field experiments. Our evening companion was Hamish, Anne's old hound. He helped make dinner and keep the cottage warm.
Rain was forecast the day we were meant to go up the mountain, so in an effort to err on the side of caution, I opted to leave the 4X4 at the half-way point up the mountain.
Pictured above is the "I think we've only got a few minutes to go" portion of our hike. Kathleen is striding ahead earnestly looking for small white flowers.
Success! May I introduce to you, Rhodohypoxis baurii var. platypetala, my newest love in South Africa.
Look at how cute!
Tash took a panoramic of the field site at Sunset Farm. There's a small spot in the distance on the right side of the screen...that's the gate that we hiked to for access. A mere 2 hours...
The girls and I set to work looking for Rhodohypoxis milloides to set up my experiments. But, after three hours of searching the marsh on our hands and knees, not a R. milloides to be found.
Plan B: Document the microclimate of the species habitats. I know something fun is going on here, so we used these little iButtons (no relation to Apple) to document temperature and humidity for each species' habitat. These sophisticated little data loggers were placed inside their silicon bubbles, stuck onto braai sticks (don't tell Jonah, but lamb skewers come second to flowers when he's away), and placed at random locales in the field.
Once we placed all the data loggers, I remembered I meant to GPS them. That meant we had to find the iButtons again, which looked like this. The iButtons are about 1/4 inch in diameter...in tall grass. This time, it only took us about an hour to find all 6.
We searched for flowers and iButtons amid things that looked like this. "This" by the way is a rotting cow.
The truck that did not make it up the hill the second time because of user concern.
Instead we had a short hike ahead of us to get back down to the truck and then to the cottage...
On our route, Tash spotted this little fellow. A colorful, camera-shy cricket. Tash chased him for at least 15 minutes to get this shot.
Since R. milloides foiled our plans, we decided that the next best thing would be to go up Sani Pass to 1) collect Helichrysum for Glynis, 2) search for other Rhodohypoxis species at the top, and 3) drink a beer at the highest pub in Africa. In no specific order, of course. This is the South African border post. We goin' up!
Here's a map of our adventure up the Pass. We climbed over 1000m in elevation.
The road we took up and into Lesotho! The last few kilometers are full of wicked switchbacks. I took this photo from the driver's seat as we were descending from the top, on the first of the turns.
4X4 low is your best friend.
After what felt like hours, but in reality was only about 2 hrs, we really needed a beer. What better place to stop than at the highest pub in all of Africa at Sani Lodge (2874m = 1.75 miles).
Old Saint Nick greeted you as you entered the Sani Lodge.
Tash, me, and Kathleen at the highest pub in Africa.
The view from Sani Lodge. A few Basotho guys horses were just chilling out front. That's looking into South Africa.
After a beer and some tea, we headed out to search for Rhodohypoxis rubella*, which easily fit inside my wedding rings. What an adorable little flower! Fun fact: these flowers have subterranean ovaries, which means the seeds develop underground. Mind blown.
*THANK YOU to Else (remember our friend, EL-SA ICE from our Limoncello post?) for reminding me about the actual ovary development of R. deflexa, and that it's R. rubella that we saw at Sani. I stand corrected. We saw R. rubella, not R. deflexa.
After our Sani Adventure, we headed south to Kokstad, or more specifically Hebron, where Jim and Doris hosted us for the night. Jim is an incredible botanist, and lead us into The Valley to find more Rhodohypoxis. This is a fantastically interesting site and I cannot wait to get back! Here are Kath, Jim, and Tash taking a short break from flower hunting.
Rhodohypoxis milliodes
Jim and Doris have branched out into farming cattle, so I share the field site with these lovely ladies. They were mildly interested in our passing through.
After fieldwork, Jim expertly put us to work making lavender and rosemary creams. Jim and his daughter grow the lavender, distill out the oils and make a lovely scented moisturizing cream. Here, Kath & Tash are modeling the products. Jim and Doris gave us sample of each to take home, and wow, they are lovely!
After a fantastic few days in the Southern Berg, we were on the road to our own 'Burg...
Wait...what? ...Boston? Who was responsible for reading the map?
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