Cape Town - Spring has sprung and the fields of Seeberg, Mooimaak and Postberg in the areas of the West Coast National Park are alive with a carpet of blooms, as SANParks announced the peak flower season is officially here.
A wide variety of flowers is on display, including multi-coloured daisies, bulbs and wildlife for visitors to enjoy after the good rains experienced over the past couple of weeks.
West Coast field ranger Julandi Coetzee said: “The blooming of our flowers this year is actually a bit late, we saw flowers starting to bloom only last week. Normally we expect them to bloom from mid-August until mid-September. This was because of the rain. We did not have a lot of rain this year.”
Coetzee said the peak of flower season was late by about a week this year, and encouraged all to make the trip to the national park to view them.
Senior section ranger Pierre Nell said: “There has also been more warmer weather, which is not normal for this time of year and which we have not experienced in the past two
to three years of the flower season – this usually comes after September. However we expect cooler weather from tomorrow to freshen things up and help the flowers persist a bit longer.”
This comes after fears that the Western region of the country would experience a relatively dry winter this year.
The South African Weather Service’s (SAWS) Seasonal Climate Watch indicated that although autumn and winter were not generally wet months, except for those in the Western region, the tables turned this year and above-normal rainfall was expected for most parts of the country – except the Western region.
Nell said the reserve saw about 2 000 cars of visitors a day during peak flower season before the Covid-19 pandemic, but now the most they saw was 500 vehicles a day.
With the South African National Parks Week only two weeks away, Coetzee said this was the perfect opportunity for South Africans to visit national parks for free from September 12 until September 18 and view these beautiful species at their peak.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za