Hunting for Orchids

The other day I was thinking about this extremely endangered orchid, the Brachycorythis conica subsp. transvaalensis or better known as the Albertina Sisulu orchid. How do we get better public awareness of this small ground orchid. I was already doing social media for the Proteadal Conservation Association which is trying to protect the area where the last remaining orchids are found from scrupulous developers. And the answer was more social and mainstream media champions.

This orchid has a name, Albertina Sisulu, a political name yet a name none the less and I thought about my friend Jedidjah who runs a website, "I have a Name - This is my story" and has a very successful social following. So I contacted her and she was keen to come out and see the rare orchid, it would sure put a different spin on "I have a name". I also invited another friend, Heather from the 2Summers fame.

This morning it started raining and sadly Heather pulled out, hopefully she can come another day. I phoned Jedidjah to see if she also wanted to postpone but she was still keen. I said to her that we would have to hike just over a kilometre in the on/off rain unless we had a 4x4 and then we could get closer. She answered that she is driving a 4x4 so it was all systems go.

We got about a third of the way when the dirt track became very clay like so we abandoned the 4x4 and continued on foot. By the time we got to the orchid I was soaked through to the skin and Jedidjah was just all smiles in us finding the Albertina Sisulu in these conditions. It was a muddy and successful adventure.