Year in the Wild Blog

The ellies of Knysna…the mystery of the reality

The Knysna Forests…home to the southern-most elephant population in Africa, and the only free-ranging, unfenced elephants left in the country.

Yesterday I went for a walk with Gerrit Slinger, a field ranger in the Goudveld section of the forests. About thirty kilometres behind Knysna in the foothills of the Outeniqua mountains, Goudveld includes both indigenous forests, commercial pine plantations and swathes of fynbos.

Gerrit and I walked down a steep gorge to the banks of the Homtini
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Circles in a wild forest

The so-called “Wilderness” section of the Garden Route National Park is astoundingly beautiful. It consists of a series of large lakes fed by the Touw River, and these lie between the traditional Knysna forests and a beach more than 30 kilometres long.

The four lakes are world renowned birding sites, and two of them – Langvlei and Rondevlei – are RAMSAR sites, an international accreditation, meaning that they are protected from all human interference or development. You’re not even allowed
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De Hoop Nature Reserve…whales, water and wind!

The big, beautiful, bountiful De Hoop Nature Reserve…that’s where we are now. It’s just east of Agulhas National Park, and is quite similar in landscape, but because it’s been a conservation area for longer, there’s a greater sense of wilderness.

And the locals say there’s no better place in the world to see
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Sjoe! Maar die wind waai daar by Agulhas!

- by Thandi Davies.

We feel pretty windswept at the moment, and a bit perplexed as to how there can be so much air to blow!

This week I have found a new favourite author - Dalene Matthee. I have just read her last book, Driftwood, translated from Afrikaans, which was very evocative of the land and sea scapes of the Strandveld. It was exciting for me to read a book about the very place I was staying, especially in South Africa.
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