Cindy's Africa adventure: Tuesday, Sept. 11

Today was pretty low-key. We got up and had our coffee and little brekkie then stopped in to the Wi-fi Palace to check email, read some news and upload the blog.
We thought about just hanging out on the property but Albert said we could not miss Nature's Valley down the road so - off we went. It wasn't far at all, just beyond the elephant sanctuary.
We drove through some farmland and, yes, got stopped on the way back as cows were crossing the road to go get milked.
After a couple of miles, we drove into an indigenous forest with some very large and old trees. I took a photo but it was really the wrong time of day but you can get a sense of what the trees and gorge looked like. Albert said there were a lot of old yellowwood trees, a tree with which we're not familiar so it might be one.
The yellowwood family is primeval and has been present in South Africa for more than 100 million years. The species is widespread, and in forests, they can grow up to 40 meters in height with the base of the trunk sometimes up to 3 meters in diameter. The bark of the real yellowwood is khaki-colored to grey when it is old, deeply split and peels off in strips - so I think what I got in the photograph is a real yellowwood. It is a slow growing tree, and the wood is hard and is used in making furniture, It is South Africa's national tree.
The road became steeper as we drove down through a gorge covered with greenery. Then we saw the ocean at the bottom of the road so we stopped and took a long walk along the beach and a portion of the estuary where the Salt River enters the ocean.
There weren't many people - a family having an outing, some beach combers and some fisher people.
Looking back from the ocean, you could see why the English called it The Crags, as there were many craggy rocks.
Walking along the beach, we found these small snail-like creatures who were moving rather swiftly through the sand while some just buried themselves. They made trails like a snail, as you can see in the photo. Albert called them walking shells, and they apparently love to eat blue bottle jellyfish so named because it looks blue when it goes into the water. Albert said his kids used to round up the walking shells when they were on the beach as youngsters.
We didn't see any birds except the Cape wagtail. As one South Africa birder said, most North American birders don't even know what a "wagtail" is .. it doesn't really sound like a bird, but in Africa, the name wagtail is well-known. The medium-sized relatives of Africa's pipits are common throughout Eurasia and Africa. There are six species in total. The Cape Wagtail is the most common of southern Africa's wagtails and is also one of Africa's most commonly seen and most numerous species of birds.
You know it's a wagtail because it bobs (or wags?) its tail as it forages.
We drove on just a bit through a residential area where the baboons were roaming. We saw a troop moving through someone's yard. It looked like most of the homes probably were summer homes or summer getaways.
At the end of the road there was a small grocery store and restaurant so we stopped for lunch. The one odd thing we saw when we pulled in was a militia-type guy with a bullet-proof vest on. Don't know what that was all about - and we didn't ask.
We chose an outside table in the restaurant next to the bird feeders and got our eyes full with an abundant number of small birds, many of which we would call hummingbirds. There were at least five different species hanging around so I tried getting some photos. They were in the shade so I wasn't very successful. I did get a photo of what Albert called a robin that sang to us last night. It's about the same size as our robins but much fatter and has a black cape but it's a Southern Boubou, and you can see and hear its song here: https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-Lkry-SF01&hsimp=yhs-SF01&hspart=Lkry&p=Southern+Boubou#id=2&vid=f7cba3e94f4d7a2384b11beba58f124b&action=click
As we were driving back to the road to exit the area, we came upon a bush buck grazing in someone's yard so I did get a photo of it.
We came back to our place and hiked down the hill a bit to see the waterfall. We didn't quite make it to the waterfall though. It was very steep and long. It actually reminded us a lot of New Zealand where everything was up or down a steep hill.
Back for a nap and to reconnoiter, as we have a three-hour drive to Port Elizabeth tomorrow, then a 1 ½ hours flight to Durban where we'll pick up another car and drive another 30 minutes or so to Ballito, a suburb north of Durban. We're supposed to go snorkeling Thursday morning. I guess they're going to provide us with wetsuits since the water isn't nearly as warm as we thought it would be.