The Great TREK - #10

July the 10^th -  Our 3^rd Leg

We had an early farmer's breakfast at the lodge and decided to go to Keetmanshoop and visit the Quivertree forest (Kokerboom in Afrikaans) and the Giant's playground (Will understand the name from the photos I will publish).

The Giant's playground is both amazing and beautiful formations of the massive dolerite boulders and it is amazing how they are stacked up on each other done by nature.

Both the Quiver tree forest and the Giant's playground are found on the Gariganus Farm 157 that is situated about 20 km from Keetmanshoop.

The Quiver tree is only to be found in the North Western Cape and Southern Namibia and is not a tree but a plant being the Aloe Dichotoma. The trees can grow to be 200-300 years old with a base diameter of about 1 meter.

After visiting the Forest and the Giant's playground , we left to our final destination in Namibia, very close to the Fish River Canyon, where we stayed for 2 nights at the Canyon Village lodge, which is about 20km from the canyon itself. Arrived at 17h00 as the road, once again, was grovelled and we were riding a rented car (Fabulous VW Polo Vivo), unpacked the car, got ourselves into the lodge, relaxed a bit and went for dinner at 19h30.

I must say that this place is extremely quiet, excellent to unwind and relax.

Beautiful dead tree

Our lodge at Goibib Mountain Lodge

On our way to the Quiver tree forest

The quiver Tree Forest - Namibia

The Quiver tree Forest in Namibia

The Quiver tree Forest in Namibia

The bark of a Quiver tree

The Quiver tree Forest in Namibia

Beautiful ALOE

The Quiver tree Forest in Namibia

Giant's Playground 

Giant's Playground

Giant's Playground

Fish River Canyon

Way to the Fish River canyon

On our way to the Canyon lodge we came across this roadhouse - Simply beautiful

Canyon Roadhouse

Canyon Roadhouse

Canyon Roadhouse

Outside the Canyon Roadhouse

Outside the Canyon Roadhouse

The Canyon lodge

The Canyon lodge

 

The Canyon lodge

The view from outside our room.

The Great TREK - #9

July the 9^th -  Beginning of the 3^rd Leg

Did an early breakfast in the lodge so that we could prepare and leave for Namibia (our 3rd leg of our tour).

As we were packing the car from our cottage, my son got the fright of his life, as when he got to the cottage (around the corner from the car) he confronted a big male baboon inside ready to leave with our big bag of food on his hands. He called out for me, and I decided to chase this big baboon (big mistake), but oh boy, he turned around and made some weird sounds and showed his big teeth. All I did was shout while lifting my hands, so the baboon turned around and left. Adrenalin levels very high indeed. 

We left Augrabies with mixed feelings as my son said leaving this beautiful place "This would be perfect f mommy would be here". Well, we have to come back with some more time.

We crossed the Namibia border with no problems with everybody being very polite indeed.

Our first stop for the night was Goibib Mountain lodge were we arrived at 15h30.

One thing we have to remember, the distances in Africa are not the same as in Europe. we were averaging 400km per day therefore all these "stop overs" between the planned legs.

This was a great night at the Goibib and I thoroughly recommend it. We did a night drive (Private as it was just the two of us) on this 9000ha farm. We saw more wild game then in Augrabies, namely Kudu, Springbok, Oryx, Klipspringer, a couple of owls and obviously a beautiful sunset of the Karas Mountain range.

For dinnes we had the original Farm food (Boere kos) where my son enjoyed his dinner.

Again early to bed.

Again Long road streches

With some animals to be careful

Resting place on the side of the road

The way to the Namibian Border

Getting close to the Border

Goibib Mountain Lodge

Getting ready for the night drive

Some beautiful scenery

The Karas Mountain Range

 The Karas Mountain Range

The local worker and our trekker

My son playing with my camera - Nikon D600  

Beautiful Landscape

The sunset coming rapidly

 Namibian Sunset. Wow!!!

The Great TREK - the Plan

Visiting the family

After a couple of years of not coming to "my Country" South Africa to visit the family, I decided to take an extended holiday and visit the western part of South Africa. 

This time I will be going alone with my youngest son who is 10 years old and as you can see from the map below, we will be travelling quite a bit and see quite a lot. 

The places we will be seeing:-

1) Johannesburg

2) Graskop and the the surrounding areas of Mpumalanga, doing the Panoramic route

3) Journey back and sleeping over in Vanderbijlpark

4) Kuruman and the Kalahari

5) Augrabies National Park

6) Into Namibia

7) Goibib and Canyon Village to visit the second biggest canyon in the world (Fish River Canyon)

8) Okiep

9) Namaqualand

10) Karoo National Park

11) Capetown 

These are some of the places we will be visiting 

Then after a whole month alone with my boy, my wife and daughter will be arriving before we start the visit to the family in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

I hope it all goes well.

This is a rough map of the places we will be going before visiting the family.

I will be keeping everybody posted of our travels, so, let's hope everybody will be safe....