Nature Post - Montagu Nature Reserve

I spent a few days away from the rat race in a small town named Montagu some 180 kilometres outside Cape Town. To get there one can take the Huguenot Tunnel or traverse Du Toits Kloof Pass. It was a beautiful day so I chose the latter.

A view of Paarl and the countryside north of Cape Town taken from the top of Du Toits Kloof Pass

Montagu is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, about 180 km from Cape Town in western Little Karoo. It is named after former secretary of the Cape Colony, John Montagu, but was once known as Agter Cogman’s Kloof, Cogman’s Kloof linking the town and railway station
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Montague has a population just over 15000 and is a very popular destination all year round due to its hot mineral springs. Now I can tell you that along with jacuzzi's ..... mineral springs is very near the bottom of my list of things to do. Just above visiting the dentist for root canal treatment.

Mineral springs are naturally occurring springs that produce water containing minerals, or other dissolved substances, that alter its taste or give it a purported therapeutic value. Salts, sulfur compounds, and gases are among the substances that can be dissolved in the spring water during its passage underground.
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The surrounding mountains have fantastic rock formations

We were fortunate to see some 'Klipspringers', not the greatest picture as I was using a cellphone and the lighting was not great.

The klipspringer is a small antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The sole member of its genus, the klipspringer was first described by German zoologist Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann in 1783.
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Besides some awesome Eagles riding thermals all along the rock face there was an abundance of bird life.

I do not think there are many South Africans who knows what a Hyrax is .... but almost all have seen and know what a Dassie is

Hyrax known more commonly as a Dassie here in South Africa. They are common on top of Table Mountain

Hyraxes (from the Greek ὕραξ, hýrax, "shrewmouse"), also called dassies,[1][2] are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between 30 and 70 cm (12 and 28 in) long and weigh between 2 and 5 kg (4.4 and 11 lb). They are also superficially similar to pikas or marmots, but surprisingly are more closely related to elephants and manatees.
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The trail we did was not very challenging and was completed in two hours, roughly 5 kilometres of fairly flat terrain.

Thanks for stopping by...

Namaste