Year in the Wild Blog

Cape Times Newspaper Column – December 2011 – Gamkaberg Nature Reserve

My fourth column for the Cape Times, published in December 2011, on the Gamkaberg Nature Reserve. (1MB size). Read the online version of the article on the Cape Times/IOL website.

Leaving some of our souls at Gamkaberg

We are very sad to be leaving beautiful Gamkaberg Nature Reserve. Our time here has been very special, and we have had a combination of hospitality and privacy in this peaceful and fascinating place.

The word for me that sums up Gamkaberg is ‘care’. Everything here is looked after with care, and I think even the little plants and birds know that.

We have been so impressed with our little ‘eco-lodges’, which are run off solar power and gas, and have been built out of wood and stone, so as
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Leopards! Here in the Gamkaberg.

There are leopards in these mountains! On our walk down the Tierkloof with reserve manager Tom Barry and field ranger Cornelius Julies, we came across fresh leopard spoor.  “This is a leopard’s highway,” Tom joked. Only it isn’t a joke. There are plenty of leopards in the Gamkaberg. And interestingly, some of them are much bigger than the average Cape leopard, which tends to be about half the size of the leopards found in the rest of Africa.

Tom took us to meet Gareth Mann, a PhD student who
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The fascinating dry side of the Gamkaberg…

It’s only November, but already the southern African summer is starting to sharpen its teeth. In this part of the Gamkaberg, there is no shade for miles around – the low rainfall means there are no trees on the hills. Down in the valleys, only the hardy acacia thorn trees survive.  It’s hard to believe that we’re only 60-odd kilometres from the lush coastal forests on the Indian Ocean shoreline of the southern Cape coast.

But the Outeniqua mountains running parallel to the coast make a
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