Day 3 at the daisies

We woke up to clear skies and cold air after a rather wakeful night for me (the bed was like concrete).  With a maximum temperature of 13 forecast for the day, there was no point in rushing out to look for flowers and after a leisurely breakfast and stroll around the vicinity of our cottage, we set off for Springbok. I always imagined the Northern Cape to be vast areas of flat desert, but of course it comprises Klipkoppe, which are rounded granite hills, many smooth but the majority being covered in loose boulders formed by exfoliation, the result of the extremes of temperature experienced in the region.

Although the fields along the road were covered in yellow, orange and purple flowers, none of them were open, as they do so under ideal conditions from about 11am. We bypassed the most important town of the region, Springbok, and turned off to visit the copper mining town of Nababeep, now way past its heyday, and an unprepossessing town it was. One cannot imagine what anyone does there to make a living or even survive. Even its coating of bright orange daisies didn’t detract from the general air of decline.

Our destination for the day was Goegap, a nature reserve near the Carolusberg mine. On the way we turned into Springbok as we wanted to buy meat for tonight’s meal, but it was Friday and the end of the month, and you can only imagine the chaotic conditions, with taxis and every wage earner in the region in town for shopping. There was absolutely no chance of my going into the local supermarket just for a pack of mince, so we abandoned that idea and decided to just cook what we had – a repeat of last night’s dinner – chicken and vegetables.

We reached Goegap, passing a vast mine dump at Carolusberg, and miles of closed flowers stretched in every direction. The day was slowly warming up and patches of orange daisies half opened for the many tourists who had made the trip, and when the sun was behind the flowers and backlighting them, there was no shortage of oohs and aahs. Besides flowers, there were many birds, gemsbok, baboons, Brant’s whistling rats (scuttling in and out of their burrows with whole plants that they were digging up, for food or nesting material) and zebra. The sunshine warmed us nicely in the car, but outside the wind chill was freezing and we also scuttled back inside. The office building at the nature reserve is newly built and although there were signs to a kiosk and curio shop, there was unfortunately nothing on offer, as the running of these shops is subject to tender and as is the norm, no decision has been made as to who will be awarded it. So the public have no access to any form of refreshment, miles from nowhere at a tourist destination. We hadn’t taken any padkos as such a situation is unheard of in a country where every road trip is punctuated by stops at a roadside farmstall or other eatery. However, we survived, having discovered a bag of naartjies in the boot, and later in the day, the temperature rose sufficiently for many flowers to open and provide us with a spectacular display.

We eventually returned to our cottage, where we spent the remains of the day sunning ourselves on the stoep and taking photos of the flowers in the veld nearby.