Sheba Lookout Parking Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Roadside cache at Parking spot.
Beautiful Mount Sheba Nature Reserve is extremely popular amongst
bird lovers and is regarded as one of Mpumalanga’s premier
forest-birding destinations. The reserve is privately owned, but is
open to the public - many of whom use the particularly good series
of walking trails to set their sights on a particularly unique set
of birds. Mount Sheba lies nestled in amongst mountain peaks just
above the pretty historical town of Pilgrims Rest. It covers 1110
hectares of land that need at least a day to explore. The landscape
includes steep hillsides covered in dense afromontane forest in the
upper reaches, with thorny thicket on the lower slopes, river
valleys and gardens. Scenically, it is a stunning reserve. The
upper slopes of the reserve that give way to open grassland are
covered in beautiful examples of Protea, and these, together with
an array of imposing rocky outcrops and boulders, attract birds
such as the African cuckoo hawk, the forest canary, the Africa
emerald cuckoo, Cape eagle-owl, blue-mantled crested flycatcher and
Gurney’s sugarbird. The gardens at Mount Sheba are an
excellent source of not only birds, such as the malachite sunbird,
but pretty flowering plants, fruit trees and open lawns that are a
perfect space, particularly early mornings, to catch sight of the
southern double-collared sunbird and the Knysna turaco. The plant
life in the reserve is equally tantalising and rare plants such as
the clivia caulescens, gladiolus varius and disa extinctoria are
well worth uncovering. Animals at Mount Sheba include the oribi,
klipspringer and African wild cat.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
gerr rlr yriry