Cumberland, 4 Dec, 2022
Report: Penny Purchase
Photos: Kate Brown, Dave Langstone, Andy Pepperell, Penny Purchase
It was a cool cloudy day for our Cumberland hike. Dry too, so the paths were not slippery, except for one small area up a slope under indigenous trees.
Libby led a group of 13 of us, mostly old stagers. Merle and Morgan are new members and this was their second hike with us. Dawn Norton is also a fairly new member but hiking often, so fast becoming an “old” member!
The Kranz walk is always awe-inspiring with spectacular views down into the gorge.
We lingered at various view points and longer at our tea break to savour our refreshment and the stunning environment.
We saw zebra on arrival and a herd of impala but not much else, in the way of animals.
But on the Kranz walk we did encounter a large herd of cattle. Were they Ngunis?
But what were those majestic, wide and high horns? There was speculation about the breed … were they the Ankole breed, originally from Uganda?
I confirmed this with Candice of Cumberland after the hike. The owners of Cumberland bought them to inter-breed with the S.A. Ngunis. They are a hardy breed that can adapt to harsh conditions and fairly disease and tick resistant. Their meat is lean, tasty and low in cholesterol. Their milk is plentiful.
This information comes from a website which Sue van Malsen found and entered on our Whatsapp group. It was written by Glenneis Kriel about the breeding of Ankole in S.A. Thank you, Sue.
Insects we came across were a clutch of green locusts eating … or breeding?… on the indigenous grass.
Also, later we saw a tiny, industrious dung beetle valiantly pushing its ball of dung to a place where it could lay its eggs.
Pretty butterflies flitted here and there.
Late spring flowers were out and here the butterflies were enjoying themselves. We spotted some bright orange watsonia. There was a meadow of dainty flowers, in the uncut grassy area leading to the picnic site, forming a swathe of mauvy-blue, which greeted us at the end of the hike to the kranz.
We gathered at the shady picnic site for lunch.
The grass had been neatly cut and the toilets were spotless. The tables and benches were clean. This makes Cumberland such an attractive place to hike and picnic.
Well worth the R50 p.p. entrance fee. We were the only visitors.
Some of the hikers left for home after lunch. Libby then led some of us on a further smaller hike on the Horseshoe route.
We were looking forward to seeing giraffe here, where they normally camp out. No sight of them. They must have moved … frightened off by a gaggle of Midlands hikers??
We did however see some kudu clustered on a high hill.
The heat was building up, so hot and weary, we made our way back to the picnic site along the dirt road through a welcome avenue of shady trees.
We had covered 13.4 kms according to Dave Langstone.
That ended a most enjoyable day at beautiful Cumberland with pleasant slow paced walking. Cumberland never fails to enchant!