A Colour Safari
“Midnight’s like a super tanker” announced David, as we broke into a trot. “Not quick to halt, so you’ll have to give him plenty of notice”. Great, I thought, nervously recalling being unable to stop on a breakneck horse ride through a Cape vineyard during a previous South African trip. Why do I always get the horse with no brakes!
I took a deep breath and focused on the Namaqualand scenery around us. David and his wife Ann were our guides through the veld surrounding Springbok in South Africa’s, Northern Cape Province. A sparsely populated, semi-desert that once a year, in the southern hemisphere spring, bursts into a colourful riot of wildflowers.
Sadly, we had picked a year when the rains that trigger this unique event had
failed and the flowers were few and far between. “In a good year, we get about
five inches of rain” reflected David “but this year we barely got an inch and
that’s just not enough for the flowers”. “Most disappointing for you” he sympathised
“but this landscape is just as colourful and spectacular without them. It’s a
shame more people don’t visit and enjoy it out of the flower season”.
David was right. A few days earlier we had trekked in awe along the rim of the breathtaking Fish River Canyon, over the border in Namibia. A giant gash in the Earth’s crust, a couple of hundred miles north of Springbok. Often compared with the Grand Canyon, this smaller version is surrounded by big, silent Namibian landscapes topped off by those vast open skies that only Africa can supply.
We had stayed nearby at the remote and quirky Canon Roadhouse, with its unique collection of vintage motors and other colonial memorabilia, before driving south to the Orange River and the Green Kalahari. This strip of fertility created by the river is not unlike the Egyptian Nile valley, a bright green oasis in an otherwise parched land and an opportunity to taste wine and grapes exported to Europe.
Continuing south we crossed the river, entering South Africa and Namaqualand, eagerly anticipating the acres of colourful flowers promised by the guidebook. Instead we were greeted by dull dusty koppies and flat-topped grey mountains. A landscape, colourless to eyes more familiar with the green expanses of the far-off and damp UK, where it can rain 5 inches in a single day.
But, as we drove further and the sun fell from its bleaching zenith the terrain slowly revealed its multi-coloured secrets. Vibrant orange and red hues in the rocks, and acid greens and yellows provided by the strange thin stems and flowers of the cactus like Euphorbia. A spectacular landscape which was a colourful vision in its own right.
Arriving back at David and Ann’s Namaqua stables, I pulled off my riding boots. As I did so, I noticed a small patch of bright orange daisies struggling to grow in the dust at my feet. I smiled to myself, not such a wasted trip after all.
