Spring in one of the Earth's Last Quiet Places

Spring is officially on the 1st September here in South Africa, but normally our spring does not arrive in the Highlands until much later. Not this year, for, although nights are still cool and crackling fires lovely in the evenings, it is hot in the day, blossoms are shooting out all over the place, birds are nesting, and we have 4 teensie weesie young greywing francolin, big as a thimble each, scratching for seeds and insects under Mom & Dad's supervision, during the cooler hours of the day around the area of Francolin Cottage.

In the Spitskop Mountain, higher, warmer at night, spring wild flowers are popping up and green tufts of grass appearing on the plateaus.The stunning little mountain has many sacred sites and ancient walls and as you climb up worn stone steps your mind drifts into the mists of time wondering about the past generations who  inhabited this beautiful place, built the steps and walls from massive sandstone rocks and boulders.   

Pack a picnic basket and spend a morning up on the mountain, scrambling over rocks, finding ancient sites, interesting plants and shrubs, insects and butterflies, secret pockets of wild flowers against rocks and under overhangs.Take a sunset stroll up the mountain, basket in hand, filled with a bottle of special wine or bubbly, some lovely snacks, fold up chairs, and watch the sun go down in a blaze of red/yellow/golden spheres of light, pink and blue over the Maluti Mountains. Fill yourself with the vastness and silence, and walk, walk slowly and bumble along, walk fast and breath in the clean crisp air, run and take the quietness into your very being, knowing you are truly in one of the remaining Quiet Places of the Earth.

Bring those mountain bikes, for it is special to ride out early in the morning when the world seems to be still dreaming, and cycle along our local scenically beautiful country roads, where you could meet an early herder taking sheep out to pasture or a tractor trundling along. We have maps of the local roads and you can ride anything from 13 kilometers to 44 or more.