The 800k detour!

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The 800k detour! (having trouble loading photos as internet connection is too slow - will try again later)
Again a local gave us good advice but this time it was ‘go west now to see the spring wildflowers - the rain has come early.’ We debated this over 2 rest days, again in a nice cabin at Upington doing the washing, and decided to head into the setting sun. The 400km journey west to Springbox had a South American feel (not that we’ve been to S Am!!) with huge sweeping semi-arid plains between various oddly shaped piles of rock - well mountains actually of all sorts of shapes (I could just imagine a gaucho galloping across). (Strangely) my navigating skills were tested that afternoon as we had difficulty finding the Namaqualand National Park - a whole park!! (Note that this was Hugh’s birthday treat....) and drove another 70-80k unnecessarily - the road to the park went off the wrong side and under the new highway - grrrrr.....
Eventually fields of dramatic orange daisies high up in the massive granite hills greeted us - and there had been a few other colours along the road. They did look a bit as if they had been tended /cultivated in some respects but it did say that they had been old wheat fields. Next morning there where many more flowers just everywhere: the sun was out all the time (the day before had been a bit cloudy and the daisies close) and more had popped up and opened after the rains.
We also visited the Geogap Nature reserve (the next morning) which in a different way was even more impressive as it was wilder and more natural looking and on the slopes had lots of endemic succulents (some very strange plants) also beginning to flower. This place had a botanical collection of succulents all laid out and named - fascinating for my botanical past. Springbox was a copper-mining settlement and when the mines closed (50s-60s?) this land was donated as a reserve and the succulent collection was set up in memory of some mining person’s wife who was a botanical person (whatever that is!!) This is also the area where you find the unusual quiver tree - several different varieties.
The 250km drive back to the Augrabies Falls National Park that afternoon was very pleasant as the sun was behind us and we caught the Falls just as the sun was going down. This is where the Orange R which started way over east in Lesotho plummets out through a granite gorge of the massive central plateau area of S Africa. It is low flow now so must be pretty thunderous with higher levels in the wet season.
Next morning we began the 4 day trek back through NW S Africa, over the border into Botswana and way north into Zambia - and that will complete the part of this trip on our own. The sidetracking to the Khalagadi and Namaqualand Parks was worth it, albeit extremely cold camping, and we’ll be passing through Springbox with Barbara in another 6 weeks time so different flowers will be out.

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