Southern Africa (and London)-2104: 29. Day 10 (Aug 26)

This afternoon we spent some time at a private resort called Grootbos. The name is Afrikaans for “big forest,” and some of the property consists of an ancient milkwood forest. When the resort bought the property, there were many plants on the property that were not native fynbos. Grootbos has steadily removed the non-native plants, so that today the property consists nearly (or possibly entirely) of plants native to the Cape Floristic Kingdom (discussed in a previous post). The resort property covers over 6,000 acres and contains 765 plant species, 100 of which are endangered.

I don’t believe I’ve discussed Afrikaans yet. I’m sure most of you are aware of it as a language. It is one of the eleven official national languages of South Africa and is spoken by about 13% of the population as a first language. That makes it third among the 4 most common first languages (Zulu is first with 23%, Xhosa is second with 16%, and English is fourth with 10%). While English is only the fourth most common first language, it is understand in most cities and is the most common language in government and the media.

Afrikaans is the first language of the Afrikaner white population and is the first language of 75% of the coloured population. (Remember that the term “coloured” in South Africa has specific meaning and refers to mixed race people under the racist policy of the former Apartheid regime – the specific races being white, black (or native), and Asian (principally Indian).) Afrikaans developed from the language spoken by the Dutch settlers and thus is a daughter language of Dutch and was once referred to as “Cape Dutch.” Ninety to ninety-five percent of the vocabulary is of Dutch origin. Because Afrikaners were generally the most extreme racists of the white population, Afrikaans is considered more the language of the oppressor than English. More on this later when we visit Cape Town and still more when we visit Constitution Hill and the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.

Part of the property of Grootbos is luxurious resort, although exactly how luxurious I can’t say since our trip did not include our staying there. We did not visit the resort buildings, except for the dining room where we had a lunch that was supposed to be spectacular but in my view was only good. But the area right near the dining room (where we had lunch) has a very nice pond in a design that I think is in keeping with the area.

Pond

Pond Close-Up

The area around this pond was also where we found the weaver bird making the nest showing in the previous post.

Grootbos is very scenic with great views of large expanses of fynbos plants.

Fynbos Expanse

More Fynbos Expanse

Still More Fynbos Expanse

At Grootbos, we were very close to the Indian Ocean (the area called Walker Bay). The southern end of Walker Bay can be seen in the photo below. Later tonight we will stay in the town of Hermanus, at the northern end of the bay.

Walker Bay from Grottos

After lunch we took what is called a 4x4 flower safari. We were all packed into a Land Rover safari vehicle (which I’ll discuss in greater detail when we get to our wild animal safari) to drive around some of the property. Our guide was wonderfully knowledgeable about the fynbos plant community and was able to tell us many interesting things – much of which I have not managed to retain.

4x4 Flower Safari

But we did get to see a lot of pretty bushes and plants and since it’s hard to take notes while being bounced around in a Land Rover, you’ll just have to put up with what I think are nice photos without further identification except to know that these are all members of the fynbos community.