Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Whales at De Hoop, Western Cape
I'm often accused of talking a load of b*ll*cks and this is one of the times where it is true.
According to Smithers' Mammals of Southern Africa, the testes of the Southern Right whale weigh 500 kilograms each. It is just as well that whales live in the sea, imagine carrying (dragging!) those around on land. The reason for such largesse on behalf of nature is that females mate with more than one male, so the best chance for the male to get his genes in to the next generation is to produce a large amount of sperm!
The name "Right" is a throwback to the days of whaling, it was the right whale to hunt because it had copious blubber and floated when harpooned. The good news is that from facing extinction in the 1930s they are recovering at an estimated 7% a year.
Everything about this whale is large! They can weigh up to 60 tons with a length of 16 metres and the tail fluke can be 5 metres wide. The females that are calving off this coast at present will be expected to produce up to 600 litres of milk a day for a baby that grows 3cms a day!
I mention this because even these statistics do not prepare you for the awesome sight of a Southern Right breaching, with two thirds of it's body out the water, just 300 metres from your sand dune viewing point at Koppie Alleen in De Hoop Nature Reserve.
Angela and I spent 3 glorious days whale watching at De Hoop, with dozens of Southern Rights visible on the surface, many with calves, some breaching, some tail lobbing (slapping) and some just swimming around, but all clearly enjoying themselves. They will leave for Antarctica in November, their breeding and calving duties over, to start feeding again in the plankton rich waters there.
De Hoop is another of those places to see before you die. Why this is not a national park (it is run by Cape Nature, the Western Cape provincial parks organisation), is a mystery. Angela and I shared our campsite with no one but birds, baboons, antelope, and ostrich and were serenaded by Cape Eagle owls as the sun set over the lake below us. "Shared" turned out to be the correct word in relation to the baboons, we left a front compartment on the trailer unlocked on our last day and came back to find our battery charger dumped on the ground along with half chewed firelighters and matches. There was no sign of the wax candles; the baboons probably enjoyed the animal fat in them!
We've mentioned the plant life (fynbos) here on our visit earlier in the year, it is a unique and special landscape. Thanks to some rain the fynbos was beginning to flower, signalling explosions of yellow, mauve and orange flowers whose names sadly remain a complete mystery (it's hard enough keeping up with the birds and mammals!)
Prior to De Hoop we revisited Tsitsikamma National Park, where we'd spent Christmas. This time the 300 or more camp pitches were empty and with good reason, Force 10 gales threatened to rip our home apart! We packed up the trailer tent and opted for the 2-man tent instead, sheltered between the car, the trailer and the only hedge in 500 metres of rocky shoreline.
Next stop Hermanus to hopefully see the whales from a boat and get some close up photos and more great memories!
- comments