Storms River Mouth: Flora and Fauna of Africa

Storms River Mouth was one of my favourite places along the Garden Route. Indigenous forest and fynbos covers the area. Rivers have carved deep gorges as they wind their way from the plateau to meet the sea in a frothy mix at the mouth of Storms River.

We stayed in a cabin in Tsitsikamma National Park on the edge of the ocean. The crashing waves rocked us to sleep.

There are a number of walks in Storms River, and some paths hug the coastal cliffs and pass through dense thickets of stinkwood, yellow-wood and milkwood trees.

On our first day, we walked along the suspension bridges for a stunning view of the park’s diversity: sandstone and quartz rock formations line the gorge and rocky shoreline. In the right season, the fins of massive southern right whales are visible out in the ocean.

In the morning, before we left, we did the Blue Duiker trail. Sadly there were no Blue Duikers, but we did see the Kysna Loerie and lots more of the funny little dassies (rock hyrax) scurrying along the forest floor. Bizarrely, the animal's closest relative is the elephant, even though they look like under-sized wombats.

Here are some photos of the things we saw along the way.

Fynbos

Black-shouldered Kite

Spiders nest?

Dassie

Crab spider

Knysna Loerie

Reed buck

Grasshopper

Knysna Loerie

Rowing in Wilderness, Knysna gelato and Storms River Mouth bridge

Day 10 - Wilderness Canoes and Storms River Mouth

On our last day at Wilderness, we hired a 2 man canoe from Eden Adventures and rowed up the river with a few drinks, our small camera and some binoculars. It was the perfect spot to see water birds, and just relax and soak up the beauty of this country.

After a while, the river turns into a trickle, and we left our canoes on a rocky shore to join a wooden pathway through the treetops, which finally climaxes in a waterfall.

Canoeing

 

Stone Chat

After our three hours of walking and canoeing, we drove to the unofficial Garden Route capital: Knysna.

Matt and I bought some gelato and strolled along to see the Knysna Heads, two great sandstone cliffs flanking a deep channel through which the sea pours into Knysna lagoon at the mouth of the Knysna River.

A heron in the estuary

Sadly we didn't have time to explore this town more fully, but I hear good things about Knysna forests, the restaurants and the nearby elephant sanctuary.

We drove onwards to Storms River Mouth, and arrive in time to do one last walk before sun went down, along the rocky shoreline to the suspension bridge.

View from bridge

Next blog I'm going to focus on all the birds and flora that we saw on our holiday - and hopefully correctly identify everything!