From Knysna we headed for Swellendam and spent the evening at Rose Cottage at Wildebraam Berry Estate on the outskirts of town. This was very pleasant but not a specific birding spot so we just enjoyed hearing and watching the Guinea fowl while having a braai for dinner.

Next day we headed for Ceres via Worcester where we made a stop at the Karoo Desert Botanical Gardens which is always a favourite spot for birding. Midday wasn’t ideal for photographing or birding but we saw a few birds and managed a reasonable photo of a quiver tree before having lunch at the new restaurant complex in the gardens.

Our booked accommodation for the night was Klipspringer Cottage at Fairfield Mountain Cottages in Ceres and we must confess to some anxiety about this booking as we had been unable to contact them on the supplied phone number for directions and there were no directions on their website. A visit to their Facebook page had a location in the middle of the Karoo more than a hundred miles from Ceres and was starting to ring alarm bells about a scam website. It was with some relief that on dropping into the Information Centre at Ceres there were clear directions and we shortly found our destination after a brief stop at the local Spar for braai supplies. It was great to see some local specialties like “Kalahari Kreef” and “Pofadder” in the meat section.

The small pool was a great escape from the heat of the day and once the sun had dropped a little, Edin and I took a walk up the mountain looking for pictures before making the daily braai fire. Morning dawned a little cooler and with the daily noise of workers and tractors heading into the orchards to pick apples. Despite the name we didn’t think that there was much chance of actually seeing a Klipspringer so it was with some surprise that I noticed Edin feverishly mounting a lens on her camera the next morning and telling me that there were Klipspringers in the grass. A pair moving slowly up the mountain after presumably spending the early morning feeding down on the flats passed within 20 meters of us. They posed co-operatively on a rock outcrop just next to the cottage before heading further up and disappearing amongst the boulders.