On the Way to Nieuwoudtville 28 Aug

A long drive today, but to start the day our hosts offered to take us to a nearby quarry to see the Black Eagle - exciting stuff.  

Breakfast was wolfed down, bags stowed and off we went. The quarry turned out to be an interesting stop.
 
Both the male and female eagles were showing, plus a nest with a eagle chick in it.

This is the femaile taken with the iPhone through a telescope - digiscoping.

Only a silhouette of the male sitting on a sign at the quarry rim.

 

Apparently they may have had two chicks but typically the weakest one gets thrown out of the nest leaving just the one.  You may just be able to see the chick.

 

There were also a number of other species seen here including Rock Kestrel, African Black Swift and Yellow-billed Kite amongst others. 

So, a somewhat delayed start to our drive, but all in a good cause. Just out of town we see some blue crane and a call to the driver brings us to a halt for this photo opportunity.

Our driver is very good stopping at all requests where possible even reversing for us to get the best views.  Including of these Blue Cranes, which are the National bird of South Africa.

 

Back to the van and our next stop is a wetland birding site at the Berg Estuary. While the van stopped on the side of the road our guide went off to get the key to the bird hide. It seems we had stopped somewhere we shouldn't have because a police car cruised past and shouted at our driver through a megaphone - novel method of traffic policing not seen before. One shop, the Library and the Municipal offices later he finds there is no key - in fact there is no hide there anymore. But there is a boardwalk so we venture out across that.  The birds don't seem to be bothered about us being there. 

Eric is waiting to scamper along the boardwalk, although he does think it looks in a poor state of repair.

The weather is sunny and even warmer than yesterday.  

The wetland is a good spotting site,
 

 
we see both Greater and Lesser Flamingo,

Greenshank, Black-winged Stilt, Yellow-billed Duck,
 
Pied Kingfisher - back end view of it hovering before diving to catch a fish,and then coming up again with it in its beak,
 

 
 Ruddy Turnstone, Little Egret,
 
Purple Heron,
 
Shoveler,

Teal, White-throated Swallow - conveniently sitting on the boardwalk,
 
plus quite a few more smaller birds. 

We also saw this African Black Harrier overhead.

Our next stop was a small diversion, to a place called Aurora, where there was the possibility of flowers. After bumping over approximately twenty kilometres of dirt road that seemed to have more ridges in it than a corrugated iron roof, Aurora turned out to be a non-event. Luckily we spotted this baby tortoise crossing the road at one point along the way, stopping to let it past
 

and we also saw Leucospermum (below) and some wild Gladioli.

 

Next stop - lunch at Citrusdal. As you may have guessed from the name, we are now travelling through the citrus belt of South Africa. The orchards are full of trees laden with various oranges, lemons and nargee (a sort of clementine). Packed lunch today, at a picnic site in a lay-by - but with a view from the escarpment down to the plains.

Eric examines lunch options.

We still have an hour or two drive to our final destination through very different surroundings.

 

We passed this church twice and each time took a photograph, the tree seemed to be leaning at a weird angle in both of them (the first time we thought it was an optical illusion).   So maybe it really was leaning.
 

Carry on through more citrus orchards and past this canal used for bringing water to the agricultural plots, 

 
but with a four kilometre detour into a wooded valley.
 
Why? you may ask. Well - it's to look for three specific species of Canary, but all we saw was this spooky old tree (Eric decided to stay in the van as it looked too scary). 

To be fair, there were lots of little birds flitting around but we were provided with all too short-lived glimpses to allow for positive identification (even for our SA guide).  We did hear some of the sought after birds calling though.

Flying overhead was a Booted Eagle.

 

Next we pass through the flat plains of very poor sheep grazing land, Namaqualand habitat, which supports about 1 sheep per two or three hectares. 

Here the ground is dotted with termite mounds, which, as they are built up and then collapse, over time has had the effect of creating a green and brown mosaic of slightly differing soil composition.  Some better photos illustrating this effect ae to be found later.

We then ascend 3000 metres onto the Namaqualand plateau to reach our B&B in Nieuwoudtville - which was the source of a few minutes debate about possible pronunciation options.  For ease, although not quite correct, people were pronouncing it Newtville.

Our housing for the night was in a number of individual cottages that had been refurbished as each one came on the market, and scattered about the town/village. Meals being served at a central restaurant also owned by our host. 

 

The ceiling of the restaurant, which was originally a blacksmiths, is decorated with flags of various nations including Eric's favourIte.

The cottages were of varying sizes and still maintained their old world charm, if a little rustic, with various artifacts of days gone bye; 

and very little heating (we are now at 1000 metres and the temperature has dropped significantly - ten degrees at that time).

Eric fancies trying the Red Horse chewing tobacco but decides against it. 

Eric helping to prepare the flour for toast in the morning. 

Prior to dinner we have a look around the gardens and spot a new bird, the very smart Southern Masked Weaver.
 

Plus a Cape Sparrow.

Dinner over -  it's to bed after a pretty tiring day.