This post is for the #wednesdaywalk challenge and the #makemesmile challenge collaboration. This collaboration initially took place once a month, but due to its popularity, @tattoodjay (of the #wednesdaywalk) and @elizacheng (of #makemesmile) decided to make it a weekly thing.
Currently, @tattoodjay is assisting his wife who got injured recently, but if you want to know more about the rules of #wednesdaywalk, visit this post by @tattoodjay where you will find all the rules at the bottom of his post after you've enjoyed his beautiful photos from his walk.
Last weekend we decided to visit a venue that you wouldn't necessarily associate with walking or hiking trails...the local S.P.C.A. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) in Kloof.
It was a wet, cloudy day with some intermittent rain...
The S.P.C.A. is running various projects to raise funds. We visited the local S.P.C.A. in the past to make donations, but we thought we would pay them a visit this weekend to see what their little craft market is like. After that, we wanted to go for a walk as we have seen what looks like walking trails on their property.
As we arrived relatively late Sunday morning, we saw it was quiet
and that there was nothing going on. They were closed and there was no craft market for the day. Apparently, it is running on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
We asked if we could go for a walk and the friendly security staff said it would be no problem at all.
I parked the car in the parking area and as we got out, we saw some movement on the roof of the one building right next to the gate.
It was a peacock, trying to get the attention of a female...
I entered through the gate to get a better view.
It soon became clear that he was not the only male competing for the attention of the female...lol.
Okay, let's go for a walk...
Before we headed out, I saw a structure to the far side of the buildings that got my attention.
Upon closer inspection, I found it was an area built in memory of some beloved dogs, honoring their memories in a beautiful manner.
The main feature seems to contain the ashes of dogs...
A closer look at this wall containing the ashes...
To the right of these containers, this beautiful dog's prayer is installed, in memory of all the police dogs that served. This has clearly been installed by the South African Police Patrol Dog Unit, Durban.
To the left, there is a wall providing space where the name of your dog can be displayed.
Let's be off...let's go for a walk!
I enjoyed the colorful view of the area where we would be walking, looking at it from up here.
We first walked down this little road, back towards the "main" road (talking about the "main" road being the road you follow inside the S.P.C.A. property to get to the offices and where everything is happening).
Back on the "main" road, we would be walking down the road, until we get to the bridge which you can see in the next two images. We would then go onto the bridge after which we would find a trail from where we could enter into the bushes.
Going onto the pedestrian bridge...
Once on the pedestrian bridge, we passed by a little man-made dam.
Just after the dam, we passed a beautiful tree, that was clearly marked as a "Broom-cluster fig" tree.
Looking back, being able to capture the whole tree in the next shot.
Then we found the trail and it was time to enter the bush.
We were clearly done with walking on fancy walkways for the time being...
A couple of minutes later, we had to start climbing over some obstacles and go through underneath some others.
At this point, we had to make a bit of descent to get down to the little stream that we wanted to cross. This "little stream" happens to be the Umbilo River, which eventually presents us with the beautiful waterfall of which I have shared some photos in Paradise Valley recently.
According to Wikipedia, the mouth of the Umbilo River is situated in Durban Harbor.
If you watch closely, you'll see a green "marker" in the center of the photo, about two-thirds down. From there, if you look slightly to the right, just above it, you'll see the little bridge in the background that we were now about to cross.
In the next image, you can see the little bridge clearly, with the water flowing underneath it...
We realized that we must have moved in a semi-circle and we were back just below the little man-made dam that we passed on the first pedestrian bridge earlier.
To our left, we noticed that we were at the top of a cliff, from where the water was going over the side. Due to the density, it was hard to tell exactly how high we were. But it was clear that it was pretty high...
Once we were across the bridge, I looked back and I was pretty grateful for the assistance of the rope to hold onto while climbing up the embankment on a wet and slippery surface after crossing the bridge.
Suddenly, we were moving out into the open, leaving the dense area behind us.
Looking ahead, we were in for a bit of an uphill walk, but it seemed like an easier walk with a nice little footpath ahead of us.
In the next photo, you can see a typical scene to be enjoyed on this part of the trail.
Then we started getting some beautiful views of some rocky areas above the gorge just below us. This is the same gorge that we went through a little earlier. But now we were higher up and the gorge is quite deep at this point.
Then we saw this tree (in the foreground) and we were amazed by all the colorful shades of green in the same tree.
Suddenly there was an opening and we had this view, looking out over Pinetown.
Some color around us...
I loved this view of more rock formations...
Suddenly, about a meter to the left of where we were walking...
I have no idea if this was here all the time or whether it has something to do with the recent floods we've had here...
Then we arrived at the camps where the S.P.C.A. keeps the larger animals such as donkeys. I saw a donkey higher up, but as I got the camera up and ready, he pulled a disappearing act on me...lol. As far as I know, this branch of the S.P.C.A. is also involved with horses, so I take it this will be where you would see some horses too...
The Kloof Country Club is bordering the S.P.C.A.
Here some golfers can be seen in action from a distance, having a good time...as seen from the walking trail we followed on the property of the Kloof S.P.C.A.
Then we ended up on this little road and I realized we should be very close to the end. We clearly followed a circular route and we were almost back at the main area from where we started our walk earlier in the morning.
Back at the car in the parking area, I looked around...and guess whom I saw there...?
Remember the two peacocks who were competing for the female's attention earlier in the morning? Well...this one was just chilling all by himself now...
And that's all for today, folks!
Thank you for reading my post, I do appreciate it!