Kraankuil to home

During the day yesterday I drove around the area, trying to avoid getting my car stuck in the rather large mud patches which had materialised in the dirt roads following the overnight rain.  I was pleasantly surprised by some fairly classical karoo images (considering of course we are the end of the rainy season, so the place is much greener than is often the case):

But this morning was very special. What a magnificent lightshow!  After all the initial days with no clouds, and boring skies, the last two days have have much more rewarding skies. This morning we went out with a general direction in mind, but no specific image (which I generally try to avoid, but I really hadn't found the killer locatioon the day before). Eventually we stopped on the side of the road well before sunrise, with two koppies and some clouds above them determined to be the morning's target.

By the time the sun was just breaching the horizon, those clouds had dissipated and that image with them.  But instead we were blessed by a completely unpredicted show of colours and cloud shapes and textures in a different direction. Some of those results are below, followed by a couple of the area once the sun was fully up and casting warm colours on the veld and hills.

Then it was unfortunately time to head home. It's been a wonderful time, experiencing very different parts of the karoo, all beautiful in their own way. And in an unusually wet season, so the veld is looking better than it has for many years.  Of course that can't be said to be entirely 'typical' of the karoo, so I'll have to go back when it's dried out somewhat, to capture some of that extreme dryness.

I think next time I may just focus on one region / biome of the karoo at a time, to understand, and capture, each region more authentically.

In the process I have met a set of very friendly, very welcoming hosts, stayed in unusual accommodation, been fed fantastic South African, and more specifically karoo lamb, dinners, learned a lot about the area and some of its history.  Hopefully in the process I have captured some images which express the typical, and beautiful, karoo landscape.

Now the shock of driving home - off the dirt roads onto the mad national long distance roads, and what a horrible brown smog over Joburg when approaching from the south-west.

As soon as I have filtered through all my pics, I will post a bigger set on the website (and larger pics), and update the blog to reflect that.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me, and I'll be back in the outdoors just as soon as I possibly can!

Tim

Taaiboschfontein to Kraankuil

From Taaiboschfontein its a quick dash up the N1 (with a short diversion to take a snap of Three Sisters) to Richmond, then off the highway onto the gravel road through De Aar and on towards Hopetown. For the two hours between Richmond and De Aar I saw one man with his dog, one donkey cart with a family, and two men on their bicycles, and that's all. No cars, and no-one else. Makes it very easy to just stop anywhere along the road to observe the scenery. And what a change of scenery, with the big mountains of Beaufort West area giving way eventually to huge plains of scrub, and this year a lot of extra grass, with occasional koppies.

Some pics along the route:

Karoo: Three Sisters

Karoo Windmill

Kraankuil proved to be a big challenge photographically, with such large open spaces and little elee to work with. But the first surprise of the stop was to be a gathering storm coming in from the west on Monday afternoon. Pieter and his wife kindly drove me along various farm roads, to try and get a reasonable view of the approaching storm. What a pleasure to see a storm in the karoo, but evidently there have been a lot of them this season! The rain arrived while we were still photographing it, and drove us home. It was to rain for several more hours that evening.

Karoo storm over salt pan near Kraankuil

The next morning Pieter and his wife offered to drive me to a salt pan about 20km away, which after the night's rain he was expecting to have some water in it.  Arriving there we were a bit apprehensive because it was so open and flat, but as the light developed, with the clouds of the previous night, it turned out to offer some very unusual photo opportunities. The pan indeed had a lot of water in it, and the edges were very muddy so one couldn't walk into it. The focus was on the colours of the sky, reflections in the pan water, the warm colour of the mud once the sun came up, etc. Not at all pictures I was expecting in the karoo!

Karoo: Kaalpan Salt Pan Sunrise after rain 

Karoo: Kaalpan Salt Pan Sunrise after rain

Karoo: Kaalpan Salt Pan salt water windmills

Karoo: Kaalpan Salt Pan early morning after rain 

Pieter's farm is too small to really walk on, and the landscape so flat with any point of interest so far away, which meant rather driving around the area during the day and snapping whatever caught my eye.

In the late afternoon yesterday we went out again to a spot I had seen during the afternoon, but alas the clouds had blocked out the horizon, so no pics at all from that session.  This morning we went for a drive without a clear pre-prepped plan, but just stopped along the roadside when it looked interesting. We were treated to a fantastic light show as the sun was rising, painting the clouds all shades of pink. I'm now about to make the dash home, this mornings pics will be loaded from home tonight.

I haven't come across any WiFi during the trip, so I've had to rely on the cellphone.  But doing uploads through my cellphone has proved quite a challenge - coverage on the farms is pretty sporadic, and very slow going if it works!  This was prepared early this morning, but after a hour of struggling it bombed out just before finalisation.

I'm now driving through the tired old towns of Luckoff, Fauresmith, and Jagersfontein, (where there is at last some 3G coverage) on my way to Bloemfontein, then home.

Taaiboschfontein Guest Farm

Next stop is Taaiboschfontein Guest Farm, off the N1 between Beaufort Wets and Three Sisters (see the map in one of the earlier posts to see exactly where it is). What a lovely place, run by Markus and Nelia Fourie. Markus is a vet, but also runs a sheep farm, and is the early stages of an aloe nursery, while Nelia runs the guesthouse. Again, great people. Nelia is just gushing love and care for her guests! In many places where you get good service, its often its good service by professionalism, here it's great service from the heart. Definitely worth a stop-over for the Joburg-Cape Town traveller.

Again this part of the karoo veld is looking completely different to anything I have seen before, with much higher rainfall this season than for decades. What a difference a two hundred kilometers make, this is the area of big, wide mountains. The farm is in a valley between two sets of mountains, and a completely different challenge to photograph. 

In the early morning Saturday attempt I thought I had lined up a great shot with a farm road pointing straight at the mountain, so that was going to be my 'leading lines' in the pic. I took a couple of snaps as the sun was coming up, but quickly discovered that the sun was rising directly behind me, and since I was standing just beside a tree, the shadows of me and the tree lined up perfectly with the road, and totaly destroyed the lead-in lines. One morning's photo op wasted! The rest of Saturday was spent wandering around the farm looking for photo opportunities, but still no clouds in sight, and very harsh light, so I only took a few photos.  The early morning and late afternoon sun on the grasses is beautiful, but with the big mountains, big afternoon shadows arrive very quickly and obscure the view, so make it a challenge to find a suitable spot.

Yay! Monday morning brings some clouds, but just when I need to leave! A few early morning pics were reasonably successful, but sadly its time to move on again. This time I'm off to Kraankuil, betewwn De Aar and Hopetown. Hopefully the clouds will follow me.

Some pics from Taaiboschfontein:

Sundown over Taaiboschfontein grasslands

Sunrise on Taaiboschfontein

Taaiboschfontein farm windmill

Karoo golden grasslands (Taaiboschfontein farm)

Taaiboscfontein Guest Farm wild aloe

Taaiboschfontein before dawn

Taaiboschfontein before dawn

Taaiboschfontein farm early morning with staffie

Taaiboschfontein farm early morning

Langberg to Osfontein Corbelled House

 Friday morning was an early start again, heading out across the koppie half an hour before sunrise.  Thick grass, dark rocks, thorn bushes, and no paths don't make it easy to clamber over koppies in the pre-dawn light. Its a chilly morning again, I brought the fleece and jacket, but didn't think I would need the gloves. Standing around waiting for the sun to rise, especially when the wind blows, isn't the warmest of occupations. Looking around, I see a hint of clouds, but sadly behind me, not where the camera is pointing! Not useful for this morning, but at least it gives gives me hope that more will come. I think I heard something on the weather report before I left that a cold front would be coming up from Cape Town. That's not good for the cold, but might bring some interesting clouds. A couple of pics from that session:

Langberg Guest Farm pre-dawn

Langberg Guest Farm sunrise

Then its back to the farm, an excellent farmstyle breakfast, and pay up, and I'll be on my way.  They have a pretty sophisticated set-up at this farm - I'm able to pay with Credit card! It will be very different in the ones to come.

Heading off at 9 am (minus one pair of fancy sunglasses, which got nicked at Magersfontein) I get on the R357, through Douglas, to Prieska. It's a bit potholed at first, then becomes a very nice road, and I make good time to Prieska. The biggish trees of the highveld grasslands were gradually making way for smaller bushes, and the grassland becoming sparser and more scrubby. At Prieska I thought I might stop for drink and lunch at a coffee shop, but turns out Prieska is one of those towns where loads of people are just hanging around town doing nothing, quite a few walking along with their beer bottles. I'm sure there's a pleasant enough coffee shop somewhere, but leaving my car on the street with expensive camera gear inside wasn't appealing, so I left again and stopped at a lay-bye outside town for a stretch.

Keeping south again, in the direction of Carnarvon, I soon hit the dirt road, which was to last most of the remaining 200km. It was actually a pretty good road, of course barely any traffic, and easy to stop along the way to check out any candidate photo opportunity.   At last a few hills appeared south of Prieska, and it also wasn't long before I noticed the clouds building up - hurray! I had to stop and take a picture of an otherwise un-spectacular scene.

But it then became flat, long and pretty dull.

You may ask ""what am I supposed to see in this picture?'". Well, nothing really, that's the whole point, the Karoo is full of lots and lots of scrubby nothingness. In case you don't believe me, try driving on these roads - many kilometers of straight roads, an occasional turn, and then out it stretches again into the barren landscape.

Karoo open road

Karoo Windmill

I'm not surprised that when this chap found water in this nothingness, he got a bit over-excited when naming his windmill!
























Fortunately, there are some interesting sites to break the monotony. This one is a salt pan of some sort, it is actually being mined just out of the picture on the left.

Karoo Salt Pan

Finally arrived in Carnarvon, which looks like quite a bit of effort has beem made by quite a few residents to restore and look after their old karoo homes. I didn't have time to stop and expore, but will have to come back tomorrow. Back on the tar road south towards Loxton, the turn-off to my next destination - Osfontein Corbelled Guest house- came up quickly.

It's run by a lovely couple - Natascha and Stegmann Lubbe- who invited me into the farmhouse for coffee, and to catch a re-run of Kate and William's wedding! But the accomodation is what brought me here - they have very successfully restored an old corbelled house on their farm. These are houses that were built in parts of the karoo by trekboers  in the early 1800s. With very little building material available in the desolate karoo, they built these houses from smallish pieces of flat stone. Round or square walls, then an igloo shaped roof, made with overlapping stones, using a clay as a mortar. There are still several standing on various farms, mostly further south west, and a bit too far for this trip. But a very authentic stay-over, and fantastic people. Stegmann even herded his sheep especially for me to take photos (where do you want me to move them to? And his sheepdogs moved the heard into the right place!). He told me this season they've had the most rain since 1974, so his dam is full, the grass is still quite long, and he seems happy with the result.

Some pics from his farm follow:

Osfontein Guest Farm

Osfontein Windmill by twilight

Osfontein Corbelled House by candlelight

Osfontein Guest Farm before dawn

Osfontein Corbelled House

Osfontein Corbelled House

Now it's off the the next farm. I had to take a diversion through Beaufort West to get to a chemist in a hurry (a tooth infection starting) and to get cell phone coverage. I don't know yet whether I will have coverage at the next place, let's see!
Tim

Langberg Guest Farm

First stop Langberg Guest Farm, 22km south of Kimberley. The first thing I noticed driving south yesterday was the  gradual dissipation of clouds - not good news for landscape photos in general, but particularly a problem in the  wide open spaces of the Karoo, where you need something to give interest in the sky.  It hasn't been possible to  come through earlier, hopefully its not too late.

I clearly haven't got into the Karoo proper yet, its more the edge of the Highveld grassland. They have apparently  had very good summer rains, so there's still a lot more grass around than I was expecting. Good for the animals, but  very difficult to take photos in the long grass!


The farm does some olives, but is mostly game farming now. When I asked why the gate to the hiking trail was  padlocked, I was told 'well, we now keep buffalo in there, and we are worried they might kill someone'! Ok, so I  will go in the other direction....

The accomodation is based on the old stables from 1860, that have been done up very well, each main stable forming a room. Very nicely done, good dinners served (if you order dinner in the  morning!) - what a pleasure compared to my usual of coming back to the campsite after dark and only then starting to light the fire, cook food, etc.

This morning's photography wasn't a big success, its always difficult first time out in a place. And with the very long grass, and thick bush,  its pretty difficult to find a clear view of anything, plus once the pinks/blues have gone, that empty sky is really boring!' We'll try again tomorrow morning...




Also spent some time a few kilometers away at Magerfontein, the site of one the the Anglo-Boer war battles. I'm glad  it wasn't me who was trying to cross this open grassland to attack the koppie, while being shelled by Boer guns from  the hill.

The tiny white markers near the bottom of the photo is the trench line where the Boers were dug in. The Scottish Highlanders lost this particular battle.

Tomorrow, after an early morning photo attempt, then breakfast, it will quite a long drive to Osfontein farm, between Carnarvon and Loxton, via Prieska. I've never been anywhere near these places, and barely heard of them, so it should be interesting..

And we're off!

Car's packed (it's a WHOLE lot easier without all the camping gear!), camera batteries charged, hiking boots loaded, and I'm ready to go.

First stop Langberg Guest Farm, 22knm south of Kimberley, for 2 nights.

Map of the Karoo photo trip

What would we do without Google Maps, Google Earth, Garmin, and other cools tools?!

The farms and (initially) planned routes are shown on the google map below (click on the link below it for a bigger view):


View Karoo Photo trip April/May 2011 in a larger map

Last two nights in the Karoo booked

Booked my last farmhouse stay - two nights at the Kraankuil Guesthouse, about 30km south of Hopetown.  Pieter (the farmer) tells me that they have had good rains recently, and the place is looking beautiful.  Apparently his wife has just bought a camera, so she will be enthusiastic to show me around the farm as well as learn something about photography.  

The farm is also next to a main rail line, so perhaps there will be a chance to capture one of those great Karoo freight trains.

That's why I stay in farmhouses - its a great chance to meet really great people who really know their areas, and are always willing to help an ignorant traveler!

Planning a photo trip to the Karoo

Ever since driving through the Little Karoo on the way back from Cape Town at the end of 2009, and realising how difficult it is to capture meaningful images of the magnificent wide open spaces - numerous beautiful views could only muster very bland, almost empty images - it has become a bit of a mission and go back and improve my photographs of the Karoo.  Since I've had the working title of my next photo book (Through Arid Lands) in my mind for quite some time, but still being very short of images to use, there is a second imperative.

An opportunity has finally presented itself to spend a few days exploring the Karoo, so I am now planning to leave next week Wednesday (27th April).  It is of course overlapping with numerous public holidays, so some of my preferred destinations are not available this time, but that just means I will have to go back!

The first 5 nights have been planned and booked so far, in all cases trying to stay on working farms or country lodges which are each closely connected somehow to the local history or way of life.  This time I will not be camping - too many changes of location in a short space of time, plus there are not too many suitably located campsites.

First stop will be two nights at the rather decent looking Langberg Guest farm, south of Kimberley, then a long drive through Prieska and Carnarvon to stay in one of the original Voortrekkers' corbelled houses on the farm Osfontein, just before Loxton.  Unfortunately it is only available for one night.  Then it is turning back north, and two nights at the Taaiboschfontein Farm, south-west of Three Sisters.

The remaining two nights are still to be booked, but I'm hoping to make a routing through some of the famous old railway junction or diamond towns like De Aar, Belmont, Jagersfontein, and others.  Those are to be booked tomorrow.

As soon as all is planned, I'll be putting up a Google Maps routing map showing all the routes and stopping points.  Some of these places I've never heard of before either, so its going to be fun to learn and explore more of this beautiful country!

I hope you'll join me.
Tim

Little Karoo: Gamkaskloof (Die Hel)

Gamkaskloof, also known as “Die Hel” or “the Hell, is a fascinating, hidden valley in the heart of the Swartberg Mountains where a small, proud, community lived in isolation for more than 100 years. Access was on foot and horseback and harvests of dried fruit and wild honey were carried out by pack animals. The first road into the valley was built in 1962, facilitating communication with the outside world, but also ultimately leading to an exodus of all the valley’s farming families.
Entrance to the valley is through the same dirt road, beginning about half way along the Swartberg Pass, and is a beautiful 50km drive, although not for the faint hearted (nor for those driving their ‘luxury German sedan’ with low profile tires and low front spoilers). The warning sign at the beginning of the road attests to the risks!

Gamkaskloof (Die Hel) entrance road

Winding road towards Gamkaskloof (Die Hel)

The first part of the drive is a pleasant dirt road winding its way along the valley. A valley edged by kilometers of rock that had obviously been flat a long time ago, but now snapped off and pushed up on one side in tortured formations.

Pushed up rocks

Tortured rock formations en-route to Gamkaskloof (Die Hel)

But then you arrive at the edge of the real Gamkaskloof, and you look down over that narrow strip of green, fertile, farmland. It’s the last chance to stop for a photograph, beyond this the road dives down the edge of the mountain towards the valley in a series of tight, rocky, turns. Often there is only enough road width for one car, and for many cars, some of the corners require 3-point turns. Certainly no place to stop for photos, so I don’t have any of this section!

Looking down into fertile Gamkaskloof Valley

At the bottom of the valley, one passes some of the original mud brick houses, a few of which have been renovated and now used as cottages for overnight accommodation. This brings us to the Farm Mooifontein, owned by Annetjie Joubert (neé Mostert). She is the only remaining "born and bred" inhabitant that has retained property in Gamkaskloof. She came back permanently in 1998 and skilfully converted the original farmstead (Fonteinplaas) into comfortable guesthouses, has a caravan park, camping sites and the only Kiosk and Licensed Restaurant in Gamkaskloof. I came away from the kiosk with a stock of jams and chutney made right there in the valley.

Original Gamkaskloof mud homes

Fonteinplaas, home of Annetjie Joubert, in Gamlaskloof

Restaurant and kiosk in Gamkaskloof