Put a spring in your step with this walk
NATURE lovers should diarise one of the South Coast’s loveliest regular ‘green’ events, the third annual Tony Abbott Memorial Nature Walk, in the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve, starting at Clearwater Cafe, on Sunday, October 2.
Bacon and egg rolls, with tea or coffee, will be on sale from 8.30am and the walk starts at 9.30am for 10am. After the walk, a buffet lunch will be available but this must be pre-ordered.
Entry fee for the walk is R20 per person and the proceeds will be used for environmental education projects.
October is the perfect time to visit this stunning piece of wilderness as that is when the vivid orange clivias brighten up corners of the shady forests. It is also the season when all the other wild flowers burst into bloom, transforming the sunny grasslands into colourful flower gardens.
The walk route will offer nature lovers magnificent views of the gorge and the river.
The Umtamvuna Nature Reserves is a very special place, an island of pristine wilderness, tranquility and scenic splendour, just a short drive inland from Port Edward. Under the custodianship of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the rugged reserve is incised by a deep river gorge, carved into the rocky ground by the Umtamvuna River, the natural border between KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Primarily a floral reserve. you need to walk it to appreciate fully what it has to offer. Although it is situated on the KwaZulu-Natal side of the river, its heart is really in Pondoland in the Eastern Cape. As a haven for plant life it is of immense importance for it is part of what scientists call the Pondoland Centre of Endemism.
In laymen’s terms this means Umtamvuna Nature Reserve it is part of an internationally recognised botanical hotspot, boasting a huge variety of grasses, wild flowers, trees and shrubs, many of them not found anywhere else on earth – and new plants are still being found in this wondrous floral region.
In fact Umtamvuna is a flagship of one of South Africa’s most valuable areas of plant diversity, right up there with the much-touted Cape Floral Kingdom.
The walk commemorates the work done by the late Tony Abbott, a much-loved and highly respected South Coast botanist who devoted much of his life studying, photographing and collecting the plants of the centre of endemism. In his quest to do this, he spent many happy and productive hours in the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve, his ‘back yard’ and a place that was very close to his heart.
