On Thursday February 12, 2015 we went back for another hike in the Christoffelpark. Our agenda is to investigate (almost) every hilltop and valley (roi) in the Christoffel park. A large part of this park is not visited by the public and even the park rangers don't come (often) in certain areas of the park. So every new trip can result in the discovery of unknown facts of the park. And even if we don't find anything during our hike, then at least we made clear that there is nothing of historical value and no extraordinary natural phenomena in that particular area of the park. With that as our agenda, there is still a lot of work to do in the park.
This time we investigated a roi that is running from the side of the Seru Pretu, which we climbed last week, in the direction of Boka Tabla. Our starting point was the parking lot at the Boka Tabla Viewpoint. There we parked our cars. From there we walked via the asphalt road to the point closest to the roi. Walking on asphalt is not really what we like, so we were glad that we could enter the vegetation at a certain point.
The roi was not so densily overgrown as we are used to; no abundance of Palu di lechi or Wabi; if there was a dense vegetation at a certain point we could easily make a short detour over one of the sides of the roi.
Soon we encountered a very large object in the roi. Closer inspection showed that it was the upper structure of a concrete miximg truck. We could see some bees entering the structure so we carefully approached it. Apparently there was an accident in the past and the truck rolled down from the hill into the roi. The truck itself is missing so maybe that part was worth recovering. It would be interesting to find out when this happened and what exactly happened. Maybe a search in the online newspapers will reveal something or maybe one of the readers remembers something. If so, please come forward and let me know through the contact page on this website.
We continued our hike through a really beautiful roi with several patches of Common Aloe along the side, impressive trees on the slope, many kalbas trees, fields of Bromelias and only a few artifacts. Not many people have walked here, neither in the past nor in the present time.
After a while we reached a large tanki. There the roi is blocked by a slightly elevated road used by Aqualectra to maintain the power lines. This has created a rather large tanki, currently completely dry.
From there we started our way back to the cars. First back through the same roi but soon we left the roi and went uphill. On the slope Karel was 'attacked' by a cactus; that cactus was no longer growing upright but was bent down in an angle with the former top just at the level of Karel's head. An unpleasant encounter. Maybe we should start wearing helmets in the mondi.
In blue our hiking track on the 1993 Kadaster map
Starting point: Boka Tabla viewpoint
Walking over the asphalt road is not our preference, so we enter the vegetation
This is where we belong
Big surprise; large manmade object in the roi
It appears to be a concrete mixing truck
Inside of the mixer
Large iguana is trusting his camouflage
We continue through the vegetation in the roi
A first artifact, part of the bottom of a case bottle
Another more modern artifact
Made in Barbados
Field of the common aloe
Large field of Bromelia's
Another artifact, part of a jar or pot
Time for a break close to the roi
A dam in a side roi
This is the side roi
Still fungi on a tree trunk
Another fungus at the bottom of the same tree
Impressive trees close to the roi
And then the roi broadens and hiking becomes very easy
Flowering Aloe
Another impressive tree, this time a Brasilwood tree
Also lots of Kalbas trees
The roi is blocked by a dirtroad; result: a tanki
A break in the shade
Fred is taking pictures of a weather balloon probe
Transmitter (top) and motherboard
This cactus was attacking Karel
Top of a case bottle
A bit of climbing was necessary before we reached the parking lot
Back at the parking lot
