Karoo sky
I know its not Skywatch Friday, but I wanted to show you a typical flat Karoo landscape with a typical BIG Karoo SKY. No wonder some people refer to the Karoo as Big Sky Country.
2 Comments
11/10/2011
Karoo roads
Driving through the Karoo should be an adventure, not a rush. It has so many interesting nooks and crannies to explore, but to get there one has to travel many interesting roads and paths. Travelling is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. Travelling through the Karoo one firstly encounters tar roads. On these we depart the big towns and cities, but from them, somewhere along the way, you have to turn off onto ... ... a dirt road. It…
11/11/2010
The Pink Church
What would be one of the most unusual sights you can imagine finding in a little plattelandse (rural) town in the Karoo? Well, I bet you didn't just think a pink church, but after saying it it would probably be on your list. Driving into the Karoo town of Hofmeyr, one immediately sees the bell tower and clock towering out above the surrounding town and its difficult not changing direction to check it out.The Hofmeyr Dutch Reformed Church was built in…
10/11/2010
Hofmeyr
A side view of the Hofmeyr Post OfficeHofmeyr is a typical little Karoo town. Imposing old Dutch Reformed Church keeping an eye over mostly dusty streets and a proud but struggling farming community. Situated roughly halfway between Cradock and Steynsburg, the town with its less than 2000 people lies at an altitude of 1252 meters and in the heart of a once flourishing sheep farming district. The town was founded in 1873 and, initially named Maraisburg, renamed Hofmeyr in 1911. It was named in…
08/11/2010
Windpomp against the sky
A windpomp (wind pump) in the Karoo edged off against the skyVisit Skywatch for more pictures of the sky
04/11/2010
Karoo koppies
The Karoo landscapes are beautiful and always give you something new to photograph. Driving back from Gauteng I stopped for a quick break outside Steynsburg and snapped this farm gate with Karoo koppies in the background.These specific Karoo koppies in question are Koffiebus (Coffee pot) and Teebus (Tee pot).
03/11/2010
Windpomp
One of the iconic rural countryside objects of South Africa is the windpomp (wind pump). Windpompe is used to extract water from boreholes and can be found (working or not) on all our highways and byways around South Africa's countryside. This one I photographed on one of the game reserves just outside Port Elizabeth.
02/10/2010
Windpomp and church tower
Two of the most typical things that you would associate small towns in the platteland (countryside) with are churches and windpompe (windpumps). They are to small towns as Aston Martins and girls are to James Bond. In this scene in Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo I got them both in one shot. James Bond driving with the top down and a beautiful girl next to him.
27/07/2010
1800’s graveyard in Prince Albert
I was walking exploring around the back streets of the Karoo town of Prince Albert and to my delight stumbled on discovered this old cemetery. It belongs to the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) and the graves date between 1844 and 1884. Non of the graves really had grave stones, but they were all covered in stone mounds. It was interesting though that there was a couple of graves with small structures built over them towards the back of the…
23/07/2010
Nieu Bethesda Fossil Centre
I love Indiana Jones and when I was younger I wanted to be an archaeologist discovering lost civilisations and crawling through jungles looking for artifacts. I still have an great interest in archaeology and have a small collection of fossils and other interesting bits which I hope to still add to in future. So on a visit to Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo I reveled in the knowledge that I would be able to visit the Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre…
07/07/2010