Rondevlei – Hippos in the City

One of the ser­i­ous advant­ages to liv­ing in Plumstead, other than the quick access to just about any­where in the city, is the close prox­im­ity to both the Rondevlei and Seekoevlei nature reserves.

Constantia may lay claim to Kirstenbosch (admit­tedly gor­geous, but over a week­end it is inund­ated) but Plumstead (well, okay, Grassy Park) has a unique eco spot in the city where you can see hip­pos, a part of the world where hip­pos were once a plenty ...

Besides, it's not as if Kirstenbosch made it into the recent Rough Guides' Clean Breaks – 500 new ways to see the world! Up there with 'must do's' like the Natural her­it­age at Isimangaliso Wetland Park, Kayak with whales in Plettenberg Bay and take an eco-wine tour (Green Mountain Eco Route), one of the 50 or so clean breaks for Southern Africa was — see hip­pos near Cape Town.

Photograph by g-hat on Flickr.com (cre­at­ive com­mons license).

It is pos­sible to see big game whilst in Cape Town. Rondevlei Nature Reserve in Grassy Park (that's just across the M5 from Southfield) boasts the only res­id­ent hippo pop­u­la­tion in the Cape. The two nature reserves lie side-by-side, although to reach Seekoevlei, you need first to drive out of Rondevlei and around to the Seekoevlei entrance gate; they are not con­nec­ted, unfor­tu­nately. But the prox­im­ity of Seekoevlei adds an even greater body of water to Rondevlei.

Rondevlei has some of the most spec­tac­u­lar views. Close to the sea here, you are sur­roun­ded by water with clear views of the range of moun­tains that dom­in­ate the south­ern sub­urbs of Cape Town. This pro­tec­ted area is 2km² of wet­land and lake, and a ser­i­ously great place to be first thing in the morn­ing, when the sun still glints off spiders' webs and the calls of water birds rent the air.

It's also the time of day when people are least likely to dis­turb you, and you are free to stroll along the path­ways that lead from one bird hide to another (six hides in all). Ibis, her­ons, gan­nets, egrets, even king­fish­ers (we spot­ted one just next to us on a path one morn­ing) make this their home. Aside from the 230 dif­fer­ent types of birds, there are also very vis­ible mon­gooses and other little rep­tiles, as well as the big guys – hip­pos (although try as you might, they are par­tic­u­larly illus­ive, unless you count spot­ting their fecial mat­ter right on the path as 'see­ing' them).

No, unfor­tu­nately hip­pos are not the tubby, friendly fel­lows por­trayed in dis­ney movies. The third-largest liv­ing land mam­mal they might be, but because of their tend­ency to hide-out in the water, hip­pos (unlike ele­phants and white rhi­nos) are par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult to see. Hippopotamus actu­ally means 'river horse' with a mouth that opens up to four feet wide, so it's prob­ably just as well that they prefer anonymity.

They're also related to camels, whales and deer, inter­est­ingly, and spend just about all day in the water (they can stay sub­merged, if you were won­der­ing, for up to 30 minutes, but usu­ally stay under for around 5 minutes). It's only really at night, after sun­set, that they'll leave the water behind and come up to the land to munch a few things. They also make more than a few grunt­ing and scream­ing sounds whilst under­wa­ter to com­mu­nic­ate with one another, hence their rela­tion to whales.

They eat mainly grasses and reeds (plenty of that at Rondevlei) and are largely noc­turnal feed­ers. And they use their excre­ment to mark their ter­rit­or­ies, fling­ing it around with their tails, which explains the rather lib­eral doses we found on the path early one morning.

There are two lookout towers at Rondevlei that may give you an advant­age over the hippo, allow­ing you to spot the odd head should it emerge (although we've yet to see one). And Imvubu Nature Tours is a community-based tour­ism com­pany based at Rondevlei that arranges island bush camps, boat trips to find the hip­pos and a couple of guided nature walks that take you through Rondevlei's 'medi­cine cab­inet' of indi­gen­ous vegetation.

Here's to spot­ting a hippo!

Useful Links:
Cape Town Nature Reserves
Cape Town Attractions
Cape Town Bed & Breakfasts
Western Cape Accommodation