Brunsvigia bonus jackpot!

Six hours, 400 kilometres, 4 Germans, a sexy local and a single padstal later, I’d finally made it to the self-proclaimed Bulb Capital of the World -Nieuwoudtville – in bulb season to see the famous flowering Brunsvigia. The Germans seemed way less enthusiastic than me, taking a few snaps then moving onto their daily beer ritual like kids to candy.

But I digress….

The journey started with me hangry after a leisurely stop at a padstal on the N7 yielded only homemade ginger beer and fat grapes (and fresh mangos to go, grown on the farm) – thanks to loadshedding.

A visit to the Kokerboom nursery and trading post in Vanrhynsdorp bore no food either, as their empty restaurant was closed for the season. So it was that I arrived in Nieuwoudtville hungry to not only see the Brunsvigia but eat something! We checked into the little stone cottage on the outskirt of town that was to be home to the Germans for the night and laid out a snack table of bratwurst, smoked snoek and cheese, washed down by more beer.

In the late afternoon we made our way to the closest carpet of brightly coloured Brunsvigia in the small wild flower reserve just outside of Nieuwoudtville, with local landlord Hendrick van Zyl’s many instructions for taking the best photos still ringing in our ears.

Brunsvigia orientalis is one of the exciting surprises of late summer, when little else flowers in this Namakwa region. The emergence of large pinkish ‘eggs’ suddenly pushing their way above ground, and then very quickly elongating and becoming topped with spectacular shades of pink or brown spherical flowerheads is a sight to behold!

What makes them even more surprising is that they pop up wild out of the bare ground, without a leaf in sight! The common name for these bulbs is kandelaarblom or the candelabra flower, and their bright flowers emerge sometime in March. The leaves appear from about May, after the flowerhead has dried and broken off (and is toxic). There are generally 6 large tongue-shaped leaves spread flat on the ground while the bulb lies dormant during summer.

Flora lesson aside, they were a sight to behold, scattered wildly across hills and dips, ranging from light to bright pink and red, with the brown heads more camouflaged by the earth. I stretched and leaned in to get the best angles on the most beautiful bulbs, while beer held the interest of the bored Germans. We acquiesced and left the spectacular natural carpet of candelabra and made our way to the local pub for an evening of banter and beer. As the sun was setting, one of the locals teased that we were missing the best sunset in the Hantam, so we all traipsed back into the bus and sped off halfway down the Vanrhyns Pass to marvel at the brilliant setting sun over the endless expanse stretched out before us.

The next morning, we ditched the Germans and went back at first light, just as the sun was starting to make its way up in a misty foggy sky.  The low-lying mist and morning light gave these bulbous beauties an even more special aura, and another few hundred photos later, we raced to the Hantam Botanical Gardens on the other side of town to check out their candelabra carpets.  Johan from the office informed us the carpets were further inside the wide landscape, so we opted for breakfast at the stone house instead.

For as a long as I’ve been exploring this area, I’ve wanted to take the dusty scenic Oorlogskloof Pass from Nieuwoudtville to Clanwilliam, so we trekked through this majestic but often overlooked back road back to Cederberg country.  A brief stop at the Glacial Pavement near Oorlogskloof confirmed that there were huge ice flows in this area around 300-million years ago when we were still part of the Gondwana continent.  We drove through Clanwilliam with a customary stop at a Rooibos factory for a quick stock up and then to the local padstal for roosterkoek lunch, before veering off the N7 back onto dusty back roads off the Graafwater road from Clanwilliam to Boegoeberg, where we were warmly welcomed by Sybrie de Beer, one of five generations of Sybrand Abraham de Beers.

The main Boegoeberg camp is situated near a central lapa covered with a large stretch tent and beautiful chandelier hanging from a tree. We got the four tiny rooms bordering it. The ablution blocks, made from sandstone mined on the farm, have a donkey boiler to heat water for hot showers. Apparently that day and night the task of firing up the donkey boiler fell to us and it was with great enthusiasm and energy that Chris made sure the entire camp had hot water while we were on the farm by regularly chucking chunks of wood into the fire! At one stage, I saw the ablutions smoking and thought they were going to go up in a puff of smoke.

There is a sandstone mine on the farm where sandstone building blocks are still handcrafted to perfection and this sandstone has apparently been used in well-known buildings. Rooibos tea is produced on this working farm as well as buchu, which is harvested annually high up in the mountains. The need to get to the buchu, via many mountain tracks, is how their award-winning 4×4 trails originated.

The next morning, we headed to the coastal road up past Elands Bay, to Bird Island Nature Reserve in Lamberts Bay to see the world’s most accessible breeding colony of blue-eyed Cape Gannets. The overpowering guarana smell and loud bird screaming is enough to drive you screaming off this island, which is linked to Lambert’s Bay by only a breakwater wall.  It also gives shelter to cormorants and penguins (not sure how they handle the smell and noise!).

When holding our breath was no longer an option, we trotted off the island to the other stinky side of the harbour, to buy a fish.  Fishing boats making their way in were already offering their wares and we eventually settled on a 3kg yellowtail that would look good on a braai!  We left town destined for Bettie Bok, a small family-owned artisan goats’ milk cheesery between Lamberts and the Cederberg, where the ever-charming owner gave us a free goat’s cheese tasting and we stocked up on other goodies from his little farm shop.

The Cederberg beckoned so we hit the road via Algeria and bumped into this spectacular region to see the Khoi rock art etched caves, caverns and overhangs and marvel at the rockscapes , giant boulders and red earth at Stadsaal.  To read more about this, see one of my other blogs of my visit to the Cederberg.