Day 6: Namaqualand, Tuesday, Sept 2
QOTD:
Somebody tell me what's the word?
Tell me brother, have you heard
From Johannesburg? Happy Birthday, Bro!!!
Weather: Hot! Though in the morning and after 3pm not quite so hot, maybe mid 70s...and dry all the time
Warning: THB is going to include a few flower pictures with this posting and then the bulk of pictures are in a separate post. Skip this post if you want to miss out on the normal blah, blah, blah of the “what did THB do today” and skip over to the good stuff in the picture post.
 |
| We're in door No 1 |
 |
| Flowers from our short morning walk |
 |
| Breakfast menu (spec = bacon?), THB always orders roosterbrood |
 |
| Rusks |
Take a short walk before breakfast (we have a pre-breakfast of extra dry biscotti from Mies Huis), some flower shooting (flowerspotting is called...what? apparently birders are called twitchers). Cold buffet and you can order hot items; THB has granola and yogurt and orders wors and roosterbrood (sausage and toast….roosterbrood?), ordering in Afrikaans with the waitress doing her best to correct his pronunciation. Or, wait, was THB ordering in English and she was helping him out? The sausage not to THB’s taste. No decaf, we share a french press at full strength with hot milk. This means THB and DB will be more hyper than usual as we flowerspot today.
 |
| The first of THB's selfies, that's Lita on the left and two of the widows listening in |
Lita is our local guide, a 4th generation Kamieskrooner whose big-time hobby is the local flora, including having built her own nursery and not really selling the plants. She’s got a great sense of humor, speaks nice and slowly, and has a great eye for flowers. Her knowledge appears all inclusive, she handles every question during the day with thoroughness and specificity (are these the same thing? she doesn’t waste any words!).
 |
| Near Lita's house, the original village, now in ruins |
Our stops: the abandoned village that preceded Kamieskroon, Lita’s nursery near the abandoned village, the bulk of the day in Namaqua National Park (also spelled Namakwa and many other ways), and finally at the end of the day a slow tour of the town of Kamieskroon (Lita is now living in a retirement complex in town).
The Park is actually pretty small, which is a blessing because if there were any more flowers to see, we would’ve needed to take two days rather than one. Lunch is a picnic in the park, and “tea” is also at the same picnic spot a few hours later. Sandwiches, drinks, small tarts and a super sweet twisted churro, included.
 |
| Lunch being served |
 |
| Alex taking his own pics |
THB rides shotgun all day today so he gets to chat up Alex and help out with general in/outs of the van and, most importantly, is in charge of remembering to turn on the a/c, endearing himself to the back of the van (and thus DB!).
 |
| Flowerspotters |
Probably the most unusual part of the day outside of the diversity of flowers is seeing someone use a drone to take pictures. A first for everyone in our group, not just THB.
 |
| Here comes the flower drone |
 |
| Note how many flowers there are |
 |
| The dronemaster carrying his vehicle back to his vehicle |
Back to the hotel where we find the shower is way better than the Breakwater’s, you can actually adjust the temperature easily!
Before dinner, Alex holds a quiz. Needless to say, THB goes negative on the answers immediately as all the questions are related to the history of South Africa or, in one case, Rhodesia. However THB is going to come prepared tomorrow night with his own quiz (Who won the World Series last year? Name the famous shortstop for the Yankees who is climbing up the all-time top 10 in hits? What famous baseball owner is closely associated with a mule? What TV series starred a talking horse?)
and THB is pretty sure none of them will get any right either!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment