With the Western Leopard Toads now calling, you may be interested in this video that Naas Terblanche uploaded: The Story of the Western Leopard Toad. This is a little story about how we found it…

Laurianne and I weren’t looking for toads. We were on the hunt for Shiraz from this famed valley shared by Raka and Boschrivier wine farms, but we found both (Sauvignon Blanc and Port too).

Naas and Elsabé own Vaal Vlei – a wine farm, fly fishing and accommodation plek just a few kilometres away from Stanford on the Papiesvlei/ Elim Road. We’d seen the road before, but had never ventured down it.

A sign on the door of the tasting room basically said “if we’re here, we’ll help you”. We knocked, rang the bell and waited a bit … we were about to leave when Elsabé appeared and welcomed us into the tasting room. While we waited for Naas to come down from his fly fishing dam we couldn’t help but notice the many pictures of toads on his walls. We remarked on them as we tasted his latest vintage of Shiraz (in as-yet-unlabelled bottles) and he said: “Do you know the Western Leopard Toad?” with a glint of fanaticism in his eyes.

We explained that we lived in Zeekoevlei and that we and other residents help Dagney keep our local toads alive during breeding season. Naas nodded knowingly. Naas’ idea of a good time is spending hours and hours in streams and vleis in the dark of night with his camera and audio recorder capturing toads and frogs. His work features in online reference material and in some serious frog apps. There’s a sample of his frog work on the Vaal Vlei website which features the 12 local species identified so far at Vaal Vlei.

Naas, Laurianne and I talked toads while tasting (more and more of) his tasty Shiraz; the next thing we knew I was helping him to upload his video to YouTube and we’d moved on to tasting his Port. We could have stayed all day going through his extensive research on frogs and toads … and next time we just might.

If you are into toads and frogs, then you’ll be delighted by Naas’ passion and knowledge. If you enjoy wine, then you’re also in for a treat. Either way you won’t be disappointed!