Sandwiched between the Kouga and Baviaanskloof mountains, the "Valley of Baboons" is, at 180000 hectares, the third largest nature conservation area in South Africa.
Because of its uniqueness, the Cape Floral Kingdom is listed as one of the world's 25 "Biodiversity Hot-Spots". For this reason Baviaanskloof, locked away in relative isolation, is a treasure.
At last species count there were 1161 plants, around50 mammals, 310 birds including booted, crowned, black, fish andmartial eagles, 56 reptiles, 55 butterflies, 15 fishes and the most diverse vegetation types in the Cape Kingdom.
The Cape Buffalo and Mountain Zebra have been re-introduced and the rare Cape Leopard isalso seen from time to time. Numerous encounters with baboons are, of course, certain.
There is anabundance small mammals and antelope from the rock dassie to the klipspringer, the steenbok, the kuda and masses of majestic eland.
The Baviaanskloof is the eastern wing of the Cape Fold Mountains, which began life as sea sand that was compressed into quartzitic sandstone layers along the rim of a vast inland sea around 450 Million years ago, when Africa was still part of Gondwanaland.
When this super landmass began breaking up some 200 Million years later, coinciding with a period of high rainfall, the sandstone was ground down and scored into deep valleys.
The Baviaanskloof is a meeting place where Sanhunter-gatherers, Bantu-speaking Iron Age pastoralists and Europeancolonists met.
In caves all over is beautiful rock art, withmuch more undoubtedly still undiscovered. To date, over 200 heritagesites have been located in the area and this conservatively estimatedto represent only about 10% of those in existence!
A Khoi San mummy, believed to be some200 years old, was found in a cave along with Bushman artifacts.Other caves have well-preserved paintings left by long gone inhabitants.
