I will gloss over the two nights we spent at Misty Mountains near Lydenburg. The resort is lovely but it more than lived up to its name. In 36 hours we had fog so thick you couldn’t see the road signs, thunder, lightening, torrential rain and hailstones. We couldn’t go out of the chalet and the only new bird we saw for the trip was African Pied Wagtail.
Having put our son on a plane for London, husband and I headed off to Giants Castle in the Drakensburgs, via a pit-stip in Johannesburg. The industrialisation gives way to miles and miles of cattle farms. This is a long trip on a good road, which by-passes all of the towns. Turning off at Estcourt, the road becomes very bad. The settlements stretch for miles and were some of the poorest that we encountered. There are lots of speed bumps; just as well because there are people, cattle, goats, dogs and chickens all over the road. The road is very badly pot-holed over much of the 40 miles from Estcourt to Giants Castle.
The scenery is magnificent. I am definitely not a hiker, though I like walking (at my own speed). We did either an easyish walk or a section of a more challenging walk each day for the 6 days that we stayed. There are lots of birds in the camp and I got into the habit of having a walk round in the late afternoon, after all the walking parties had checked in and stopped making a noise! Bird watching from the veranda was once again very rewarding.
Visitors included: Southern Boubou, Cape White Eye, Cape Canary, Streaky-headed Seedeater, Red-winged Starling, Common Bulbul, Greater Double Collared Sunbird, Olive Thrush, Cape Weaver, Cape Robin Chat. I saw a pair of Olive Woodpeckers on the first night of our stay and later a pair of Chorister Robin Chats.
Just outside the camp, we had very brief views of Gurney’s Sugarbird. There were very few shrubs and bushes in flower. The rocky slopes were alive with Stonechats and the river belt below the camp was alive with little birds, sadly most of them unidentified. However, Levaillant’s Cisticola and Yellow Bishop were definitely present and there was a Yellow-throated Longclaw in the picnic area. One individual and a family of three Ground Woodpeckers were also seen, plus a group of Red-necked Francolins. A lone Secretarybird was wandering about on the hill side.
Beware the baboons if you stay here! They will try to break into your chalet if it isn’t locked and they march about the camp as if they own it! We left via the Mooi River road, a much more pleasant journey. We discovered a Crane and Wetland Sanctuary but didn’t have time to visit. Our last exciting bird sighting was a perched Jackal Buzzard before we drove through an epic thunderstorm on the way back to Johannesburg.
To all of the LBJs and fly-overs I couldn’t ID, I apologise. I will publish a full list of sightings when I’ve finished looking over the photos.
Pat
I enjoyed reading all your reports, Pat & seeing your photo's. You certainly did get to have a brilliant list of bird species.
I guess you had a lot of wild animal photo's too?