Goodbye Namibia - Hello South Africa

Goodbye Namibia – Hello South Africa

I am a bit behind with my blog. This is due to the fact, that;

 1. Internet is still an issues, and

 2. We have been soo busy sightseeing in and around Cape Town, I had no time to blog. But more about Cape Town later, first I will finish off Namibia.

It is bittersweet to say goodbye to Namibia, as it is an incredibly beautiful country. I loved every minute, and hopefully will come back another time.

After Duwisib and Luederitz, we start to make our way downward, towards South Africa. We are still on gravel roads, until we are done with them, our group will have had about 18 tire changes, and one vehicle needed a new clutch. We are lucky so far, we have had no issues.

One of our overnight stops was at a place called the Quiver Tree Forest. I had no idea what a quiver tree was. At first I was really disappointed, as those trees did not quiver one bit, and a “forest” it wasn’t either. I guess if in the desert there are more than a handful of trees together, one can call it a forest. Later on I learned, that I was a bit silly, as quiver has two meanings, and in this case it meant the case where the Bushmen keep their arrows. This is, because the branches of these trees are hollow, and can be used as a “quiver”. Who knew!!!

I did enjoy this forest in the end, as the big attraction was to wait for sunset. Warren took some amazing pictures, I will try and post some off the best. Unfortunately I have to use a poorer copy to be able to upload to the blog.

Next, and the last stop of interest in Namibia was the Fish River Canyon. It’s not quite the Grand Canyon, but really nice. It is approximately half the age of our planet Earth, over 2 billion years old.

We cross into South Africa, it is still very dry and not very green. But bit-by-bit, we start to see more vegetation, shrubs, first small, then larger and larger. Same with trees. Then we come to the area of the “Olifant” river, and now we are talking. First wineries, lot’s of fruit trees, lot’s of lovely flowers, a feast for the eyes, after weeks and weeks of dust and desert. We also start to see the famous rooibos tea bushes. Field after field filled with them. We are a bit in shock. We camp at Lambert’s Bay, right beside the ocean, on a fantastic white, deserted sand beach. Next morning we make our way to Clanwilliam, to visit the Rooibos factory. We learn that the rooibos tea can only be grown in this specific corner of the world, nowhere else. No wonder all we see is rooibos. As I am a fan of this tea, I don’t mind seeing so much of it. The mountainous area where this can be grown is called the Cedar Mountains. Two weeks later we visit a world famous botanical garden outside of Cape Town, and we learn, that they have unsuccessfully tried to plant some of the rooibos there.

This is a Quiver Tree...

This is a Quiver Tree "Forest"

Now it get's interesting, Quiver Tree sunset...

And another one.....

On the same campground by the Quiver Trees, they had some "tame" Cheetahs, that Warren felt compelled to pet. I went into the cage to take the picture, pretty brave of me I thought!

It's a really beautiful animal... 

Here we see the Fish River Canyon. It's huge, the picture doesn't do it justice...

But not as big as the Grand Canyon...

Finally a picture of Warren and I together...

First glimpses of green, after weeks of brown and brown and brown. 

This is very young Rooibos, they grow much bigger than that. 

And after a hard day on the road, we get to enjoy this beautiful view at our campsite in Lambert's Bay.