Day out to De Mond Nature Reserve

We desperately needed a day off from painting, tiling, banging and crashing, (and especially Steve, who is doing the majority of the work on the cottage at the moment) so on a bright, sunny morning last week, I got Steve out of bed and told him that he wasn't doing any work in the cottage that day - we were going out! I told him we were going to De Mond Nature Reserve, somewhere we kept talking about visiting but, somehow, it was somewhere that we never seemed to get around to actually visiting.

I packed a picnic, explained to the dogs that we would play with them when we got back, and set off. It is only about 40km away so it didn't take too long to get there, although the last part of it is on gravel road.

En route, we stopped to watch Blue Cranes displaying, and some very young lambs playing.

Blue Cranes

When we arrived at De Mond, we parked in the car park and walked into Reception to pay our entry fee and were pleasantly surprised when we discovered it was free entry to Cape Nature Reserves all week.

The first bird we saw upon entering the nature reserve  (we actually heard it before we saw it) was this Cape Eagle Owl, sitting in the tree outside Reception. Stunning! There are two of them, and we saw them both - just sitting there watching us!

Cape Eagle Owl

A short while later, we set off on our hike over the river bridge and into the dunes, and down towards the sea, past the Spring flowers, butterflies and other wildlife that had come out to enjoy the sunshine.

Cape Wagtail

Cape Grassbird

Yellow-billed Kite

Green-backed twit(cher)

After a few kilometres of walking along the beach, with not another person in sight, and just our own footsteps and some sea birds for company, we arrived at the river estuary and the lagoon.  We followed this back to the bridge, having completed a big loop.

Greater Flamingo

Greater Flamingo

Swift Tern

Pied Kingfisher with breakfast in its mouth

African Darter

White Fronted Plover

Sacred Ibis

Angulate Tortoises!

After lunch and a break to give our aching feet a rest, we had another short walk before heading back home. On the drive back, we stopped to look at these too.

Cattle Egret

Oribi

Puff Adder

Overall, we walked about 9kms. Not a bad day's exercise - and a lovely day out! Yes, the dogs did get a game when we got back!

De Mond Nature Reserve - we totally recommend it. If you want some peace and quiet, and a break from a busy life, it's definitely worth spending a few hours here. There is even a cottage to rent if you want to stay overnight.

Lots of progress...

 There has been all sorts of work being done in the cottage.  Some pics below.

Kitchen tiling going up

Tiling around the sink area

Main bedroom doors being stained

Smaller bedroom being painted

Lots of help with painting the old wood burner

While all this work is going on, the baby chicks are growing up fast.

Lots of chicks in the box

An interesting find when Steve was out cycling last week - a parrot-beaked tortoise. A first for him!

It's good to see some beautiful flowers starting to bloom in the garden.

It must be Springtime!

We sometimes find it hard to believe that we are getting anywhere with it, but there is so much work going on in the cottage...

Much of it is difficult to see, because it consists of time-consuming (boring) jobs such as sorting out the damp problems, and then it seems as though we are never making any progress, but it is definitely starting to look much better now. We are getting through litres and litres of paint, and it is going somewhere - most of it on the walls and ceilings, but some of it does end up on the floor from time to time! Mango and Alfie even helped do some painting last week. Mango spread it on the floor with her paws, and Alfie painted the walls with his ears!

Kitchen area - gloss paint going on.

Living area - ceiling and some walls painted.

Living area - more paint going on!

There is a lot of work going on in the bathroom as well. The ceiling is being painted, and there should be paint going on the walls next week.

Other things happening around Brookway Farm:

The chicks are growing bigger. We can see that they don't all look the same now and they are starting to get their feathers, but we still can't tell which ones are male or female yet.

Our fruit trees were pruned last week so, hopefully, they will look better next year and will be able to produce more and better fruit. We are still not sure what some of the fruit trees are. We will have to wait a few more weeks until they get their new leaves to be able to work out what they are, but we know we have lemons, quince, guava, pomegranates and almond.

We also bought three more trees - a lime tree, an orange tree and an almond tree. In all, we have planted forty new trees since we moved into Brookway.

Spring is definitely on the way although, as I write this, we have heavy rain!. Until a couple of days ago, we had some beautiful weather, which has really encouraged the blossom. The rain certainly makes everything grow!

We have some guests staying with us for a few months. They promised they would keep the front paddock grass down. It meant a few repairs before they could move in though.

Gate and fencing needed fixing.

Some of the wildlife seen around Brookway recently:

Cape White-Eye

A tiny Slug Eater

Raucous Toad

Gymnogene raiding a Weaver's nest

Gymnogene devouring its prey

Just need to decide which looks better in the new flower bed:

1. Salvias

or:

2. Alfie