Category: Herman van Bon Photography

Canopy Walk

With plenty of blahblah .. blah KirstenBosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town is promoting the new Canopy Walk. Their budget is unlimited and whatever financial loss they make the South African government is paying the bills. The trees at Kirstenbosch (still a beautiful garden in its own right!) are relatively young and, partly, plantation trees. The visitors of Kirstenbosch will walk over the trees and looking straight forward see the backside of Table Mountain which shape from that side is everything except a table..

Enough banter!

How different is it in the Eastern Cape (near Plettenberg Bay along the Garden Route) where the Canopy Walk is located in an ancient forest with trees of over 800 years old and you walk partly under the canopies of indigenous/endemic old timers like Yellow Wood and Iron Wood. In nearby Nature Valley there is also a Board Walk (free of charge). Both are from a botanical and nature aesthetic point of view far more interesting than their new born cousin in Cape Town.

See for yourself:

 

CanopyWalkEC5

Chilling Cheetah in the wild

Some, in fact most, tourists visit a sanctuary, a game reserve of a zoo to see animals. That’s the safe way. I rather see them in a natural environment. But than one must be lucky to see any because most of the ‘wild’ animals are shy unless you enter their territory or protecting their young ones etc. Last week I was lucky during a forest walk on a hot day (45 degrees Celcius/113 degrees Fahrenheit).  A cheetah chilling in the shade, every now and than turning his head around. Carefully (standing with the camera holding at knee height, not making myself small by sitting) I shot some pictures. The whole shooting session lasted about 30 seconds and Yvonne was covering my back. After that we walked slowly backwards for some distance before we walked forward again but than in another direction.. 😀

I processed  all images a bit different.

The choice is yours! 😀