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Published: September 24th 2013
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We left Montagu aiming for the lesser used road between there and Sutherland, which went via Ladysmith and Maitjiesfontein. The road was beautiful and we could see snow on some of the peaks as we came into Ladysmith where we stopped briefly to buy some cheese.
From Ladysmith we drove via a dirt road alongside a river stream through some red-brown and tightly folded mountains. On the other side of the pass we were faced with a loooong straight dirt road running back along the mountains and some wonderful scenery as well.
The road between Maitjiesfontein and Sutherland is a beautiful strip of Klein Karoo climbing up a pass onto a plateau. As we were winding up the pass we were surrounded by lots of
baaaaah’ing as we passed through about 500 sheep coming down the pass on the same road. Just a bit further on we found the snow and not long after we were buying some Karoo lamb chops for a braai in Sutherland.
After checking into a place called Stary Night Self Catering we realised the night tour at the Observatory was starting in 2 minutes so we raced over there and found the rest
of the group huddled in the outdoor visitors telescope station. They aimed the visitor scopes on first the Moon, then Saturn and about 10 other stars and far off clusters which were really cool to see! A crude photo of the Moon and Saturn are in the pics below.
By the time we got back to the house the temperature had plummeted to near zero so we
braai’d inside on the stove instead.
The next day we headed back to the observatory plateau for the day tour which entailed a short informative video, a walk around the numerous telescopes up on the plateau and a tour inside the large SALT (Southern African Large Telescope). All super interesting! Some fun facts... many Northern hemisphere countries have telescopes at Sutherland since the Southern Hemisphere gets a good view towards the perceived centre of the universe during winter. The SALT telescope has 50 x 1sqm mirrors used to reflect the image back up to the receiver. The method for rotating the entire contraption inside (mirrors & receiver) is by jetting compressed air under the feet and
floating it!
Facts aside, we continued on from there feeling much smaller in this
universe of ours and headed for Fraserberg. There was nothing in Fraserberg as expected so from there we headed down to the Karoo National Park through some very picturesque terrain.
The Karoo National Park is situated right next to Beaufort West and has a really nice campsite. We set up camp, braai'd and slept in the van for the second time. The next morning we packed up and headed out on a big loop game drive to see a bit of the park. It was nice, but a bit too much of the same after a while although we did see a good few antelope, some ostriches and a couple zebras.
From the Karoo NP we headed East for Graaff-Reinet, for the Camdeboo National Park for another nights camping in the van. The road there was typical Karoo flatlands with long straight roads - very pretty. We got there late and after setting up had another braai. The plan was to head to the Valley of Desolation viewpoint for sunrise so it was an early night.
In the morning Steve was up early and we headed off with Cristina still napping in the back. We got there
just in time for sunrise and it was really stunning (pics below). We reckoned we could actually see down to the long straight road we were on the day before.
From there we headed on to Cradock, but that'll continue in the next blog post.
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