snippets from a day trip

[leachy]

not quite a travel tale, but a collection of images of this all too often overlooked karoo gem.
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if ever the camdeboo national park lives up to the meaning of its name, it might be in the middle of the rainy season

which, i am told is often in december when it is swathed in greenery.......

december 2012 was, however, a different matter, as it was more like a "watery hollow" than a "green hollow"..........

i took a day trip from nieu bethesda to graaff reinet

and popped into the park as the rain had subsided after 3 days of incessant downpours

reminiscent of the lowveld summers..

reception was very friendly and helpful tracking my wild card on the web

as i was without the receipt or the card (have not actually had a card for two years - - -just a receipt)

the first stop was at the newly acquired andries pretorius monument

which had been relocated there the previous december........
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the cold granite blocks seemed to leak bleakness into everything around me
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it had been a long while since i had seen the early use of the inverted commas -

with the opening "commas" at the bottom of the line preceding the quotation.....

and a long time, too, since i had read such prophetic words

so very relevant to all aspects of our existence in south africa
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from there i headed off in search of the treasures of the camdeboo.......

[Mel]

That's gonna be interesting We passed by Camdeboo in March / April 2012
but couldn't make it in as we had a reservation with... I think it was the Karoo.
And since we hadn't done the road trip before we weren't too sure about the
timing.

So bring it on.

[Sprocky]

Now this could be an interesting trip.

Please show us more of your ,,top quality photos"!

[Lisbeth]

as i was without the receipt or the card (have not actually had a card for two years - - -just a receipt)

Not your fault Happened to me too, as Sanparks never sent the card , but luckily we encountered a very nice clever guy at reception, who got everything sorted out (a nice surprise to me.....the very nice clever guy I mean)

Great map

[Richprins]

That quote gives me gooseflesh, leachy! Remarkable!

[Amoli]

Very interesting... would like to see more

[nan]

I'm ready too

[leachy]

nice to have a few folks who might want to see what the camdeboo had to offer

[leachy]

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you might be forgiven for thinking that i had suddenly landed up in the middle of a wetland on the garden route
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this is the view,

the only view
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from the khwalimanzi hide
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a karoo shongololo - seems a dark shade of red compared to ours up north..
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karoo thorn bush

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so i took the road from the hide towards the viewing area indicated on the map

and found the viewing area totally submerged.....
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one is allowed to alight from one's vehicle in this national park

so i ventured closer to the water's edge

where i was startled by what i thought to be the local version of the "loch ness monster"
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only to see that it was merely some type of karoo dwelling amphibian
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trying to get closer to the "salad bar"
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this was the view, from the vicinity of the viewing area

looking across the dam towards the valley of desolation
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sacred ibis majestically flying by
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[Flutterby]