South Africa – January 2001

4th trip to Port Elizabeth – Grahamstown area in 2000/2001. January 8 to 16, 2001Reed Valley – Tyolomnqa River Bridge west of East London along R72 found the tiny hairy Haworthia again.
Drove the dirts roads between Southwell, Bathurst, & Alexandria looking for rocky ridges along the several rivers that run through – the Kowie, Bushmans.Grahamstown – Hellspoort, no one home at the farm at the northern end of the poort, so didn’t hop any fences. A wonderful place with lots of interesting crassula and mesembs. Spent the afternoon at the beach at Port Alfred before heading back to Grahamstown and north again to Fort Brown.

Bucklands

Buckland Farm – searched for Haworthia Lepida at Kwandwe (The Fort) along the Groot Vish Rivier. Didn’t find any haworthia but did find Astroloba, Aloe, and Gasteria. We saw zebra, impala, wildebeest, springbok. And a awful infestation of Opuntia growing on the cliffs of the Great Fish River.

Kwandwe was just a run down collection of farms to the west of the national road and south of the Great Fish River, Now it is an exclusive private game reserve. Can’t go walking were Lynn Phillips and I went because there are lion, and rhino there now. Whatever Haworthia grow there are now safe from development, farming, and poachers. Too bad I wasn’t able to locate anything remotely like the Haworthia lepida we have in our collections.

Valley View B&B in Addo on Sundays River. Paardepoort, Jansenville, Stytlerville, and rain. Then back to PE for the flight to Cape Town and on to the States.