Open Day

No time for blogging lately, it has been heads down to get everything ready for the Open Day. With a full program of Trail Running, Mountain Biking, Plant Sale, Guided Walks and Stalls there was a lot to be organized. Poor Ellie had to answer stacks of phone calls after the newspaper notices and especially the article in Die Burger, the good thing is though that it brought a lot of new people to the event.

Thanks to a lot of teamwork the Nursery looked very good, moving the plants from the shade house and the greenhouse to the platform was a lot of wheelbarrowing (new word) but it makes for a much better display.

Amazing how many people in PE don’t know where the reserve is and need directions, thankfully, thanks to Neil’s work, we had spiffy new banners to put along the road so I don’t think anyone got lost.

The week before the Open Day the reserve was buzzing with activity (when it wasn’t raining), lots of mowing, some work on the Xhosa huts and marking the trails. It helped a lot this year that only the trails were mown and not the whole field or rows between Proteas as it was much easier for the runners and cyclists to follow the paths.

Sheena giving directions to the 80-odd runners.

First runner to run past Wesley’s bench.

The plant sale was supposed to start at 9:00 but as usual the eager people arrived early and it was impossible to keep them out without causing major unhappiness. It actually helped to keep a steady stream going so our helpers with the wheelbarrows delivering the plants to the cars did not get overloaded. Also, the colour coding of the plants worked very well as it was much quicker at the paypoint.

Hive of activity in the the nursery

At ten it was the turn of the mountain bikers to explore the reserve and to enjoy the paths winding through the fynbos, It was great to see them taking it easy (it wasn’t a race) and enjoy the many Proteas etc. in flower.

It was also very rewarding to see so many kids out there as we laid out our tracks to be family oriented and leave the strenuous and technical routes to the other areas around us.

The official close of the day was at 1PM, unofficially there were still many people lingering on while we tidied up and still sold a few plants to some of the late-comers before winding down and looking back on a very successful day, now the job of replenishing the stock starts.