The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Knersvlakte

The convoy on the Knersvlakte

Dudley and his fossils

Someone once said that travelling is a never-ending string of goodbyes. It surely felt like it this morning when we left Noup, saying goodbye to Dudley and Aletta Wessels, our hosts. They surely made Noup a pleasurable and successful scientific base.

Piratiny wreck

Like yesterday, on our way back from doing sampling Dudley took us on a slight detour to the coast to see the wreck of Piratiny, a 5000 ton Brazilian steamer that got wrecked there in June 1943. Later on after dinner he also showed us some incredible fossil samples from the area. The district is an 18 million year old paradise for palaeontologists as we could see from the ancient elephant molars and teeth from a monster shark called the Megalodon that makes a Great White look like the miniature klipvissies that Herman van der Bank and the fish team caught for sampling. The tooth in the picture attached is about 7 cm long.

Elephant molar fossil

Megalodon tooth

So as I’ve said, saying goodbye was rather sad, but it changed immediately when Gerhard offered me a ride in the new Hilux. Oops I’m not supposed to talk about it yet, so I’ll just whisper: The new Hilux is something special. It’s got a grand Buddy seat... Enough said. Rather watch the press for more information.










On our way back we suddenly turned off the N7 at Groot-Graafwater, about 40 kilometres from Vanrhynsdorp and headed straight into the Knersvlakte. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and everybody got out. What’s happening? I asked to no-one in particular.

“We’re here to check on the baby’s bottom and to pick up a hitchhiker,” answered Annelise, the expert on the Knersvlakte. She asked us to tread carefully on the pan of quarts pebbles we were standing on. Apparently it is teaming with life, but I saw nothing.

Bababoudjies

Then she stopped, bent over and there it was. A vygie called Argyroderma delaetii, but commonly known as bababoudjies. Look at the pic and you’ll see where the name comes from. Unless you’ve never seen a baby’s bottom or don’t understand the Afrikaans name. Although it looks like a baby’s bottom, the plant we’re looking at is about the size of half a matchbox, but can be anything between 25 – 50 years old and is endemic to the Knersvlakte.

The Hitchiker

Almost right next to it, she found the hitchhiker. Another vygie called Dactylopsis digitata or Duim-en-wysvinger in the local dialect. It looks exactly like someone hitching a ride and is also endemic to the area as is 155 other species. I immediately wanted to go and find them all, but unfortunately it was time for another goodbye.

So here we are, safely back at Klipbokkop but fortunately it is not yet time for another goodbye. Just goodnight until we blog again. But before I blog off, I saved the best for last: the score. Between yesterday and tomorrow and between Noup and Klipbokkop, they’ve added another cool 180 species rocketing the total to 819! Way over halfway after only the first stage. OK guys, breakfast tomorrow morning is delayed to nine o’ clock.

Goodnight!