Sunday 2 August 2009

Karoo National Park

A freezing night in the roof tent dawned into a cloudless day. From Malmesbury we made a brief detour to the Allesverloren vineyard at Riebeek West. Alles verloren is the farm where DF Malan, one of the 'architects' of aparteid was born. We were stopping by to pick up some of their port which Duncan is fond of, unfortunately we hadnt considered that it was Sunday and their bottleshop was closed. Never mind. We went down via Paarl to the N1 and through the Hugenot tunnel rather than over the pass. Oddly the northern end of the tunnel exit was aswarm with baboons waiting for I dont know what but noticed the car behind us threw some lunch remains out of the window as we passed.

The N1 winds for hours through the Karoo - an arid semi-desert landscape with low shrubbery and succulents. Though the main thoroughfare between Johannesburg and Cape Town, it is only a two lane highway with few passing lanes or opportunities to pass the car in front of you due to the volume of oncoming traffic. Slower vehicles will pull into the 'yellow lane' which is basically the generously wide hard shoulder to allow faster traffic to pass. You thank them by flashing your hazards once you pull in front of them. All very civilised but the system breaks down when the car travelling slowly in front of you isnt familiar with the custom. Additionally South Africa is undertaking unprecedented levels of roadworks, both 'regular maintenance' on highways that havent seen maintenance in decades and widening main arteries - presumably in preparation for the tourism drawn by the World Cup next year.

We finally got to Karoo National Park, just outside Beaufort West at sundown. On the way to the extremely well equipped campsite from the main gate we passed Zebra and Springbok, this park is home to 60 odd different species of mammal along with a few hundred bird species and loads of reptiles (including 20 types of snake I hope I dont come across). Tomorrow we'll hopefully see some more when we go hiking.

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