West Coast Wild Flowers

September is a good month for seeing the spring wild flowers on the West Coast. I wrote about the first day of our flower-seeing in a previous post here. The second day of our two day trip saw us up early and having breakfast on the patio in the tranquil garden at Nancy's Tearoom in Clanwilliam.

I couldn't resist stopping to admire the yarn bombing in front of the row of quaint shops in the main street.

The visitor's centre had told us that the best display of the wild flowers in Clanwilliam was over but we had seen wonderful flowers at the Flower Reserve before so we stopped in. A few spots still looked pretty.

It was only 9.30am and the gazanias were still opening.

Along the N7 that goes north to the Namibian border, we encountered numerous stop-go's that added almost an hour to our journey. The road is excellent where it has been completed but there were extensive roadworks around Clanwilliam itself. This is in part due to the planned raising of the dam wall to provide water for the vineyards and the growing agriculture taking place in the area. You can see the dam wall and the roadworks for the new road in photo below. We sat in the car for ages with this view waiting our turn at a 4 way stop-go, all very orderly but slow going.

Leaving Clanwilliam we cut across to the coast and the West Coast National Park. Large trees dotted the fence-line of a sprawling wheat farm.  Trees of this size are an unusual sight in this area. I love their shape.

Posberg forms a small section of the WCNP and is right on the Atlantic coast. It is open to the public for a short period every year during the flower season. The cars were bumper to bumper in places - the flowers spectacular.  I know they look like dots but there really were a few ostriches and zebra in the far distance here. I wonder if they snack on the flowers.

Carpets of flowers covered the ground wherever we looked.

These lucky people were on a guided walk. What heaven!

At Plankiesbaai we had a walk on the beach and a picnic tea.

 

And finally, a last look back before we headed for Cape Town and home.